It will thus be seen that the average price of wheat, during those years, was within fivepence of the calculation made by Sir Robert as the fair and natural average for the preceding ten years, and that it almost hit the precise medium between the two extremes which he assumed.
Now, we are not aware that Sir Robert Peel has ever directly retracted these opinions, although many passages might be quoted from his speeches to show that he considered increased cheapness—the necessary result of his free-trade measures—some sort of compensation for the probable decline in the value of agricultural produce. But the income-tax and increased public burdens may fairly be set against any saving on the ground of cheapness, and the question remains precisely where it was before. The averages of sixteen years, excluding extraordinary impulses to an unnatural rise or fall, entitle us to assume that the British farmer cannot raise wheat profitably at lower prices than 56s. per quarter; and Sir Robert Peel, whatever may be the effect of his subsequent measures, once gave his solemn guarantee that, when prices should fall below 51s., there should be no foreign competition.
We have no desire to rake up old matters of discussion, or to reflect upon pledges which may either have lapsed or been broken. Our present business with Sir Robert is simply to have his evidence as to the remunerating prices of corn, and that evidence we have stated above. We are, therefore, entitled to assume that any great and permanent decline of prices, following upon increased foreign imports, must have a most deleterious effect upon the agriculture of the country, unless some remedy can be found which shall lessen the cost of production. As usual, there is no lack of volunteers to suggest remedies. Dr Buckland, of iguanodon and icthyosaurus celebrity, discourses learnedly of subsoils and manures, and offers to show how acres of wheat may be raised upon soils hitherto yielding no other crop than rushes, ling, or heather. It is the misfortune of scientific men that they live in a world of their own; for, had the learned fossilist been aware of what has been passing around for the last twenty years, he would have known that no sane person ever questioned the truth of his assertions. With the aid of draining, manure, and other artificial appliances, corn may be grown almost anywhere within the compass of the British islands. No man disputes that. The simple question is: Will the corn, when grown, yield a fair return for the expenses attendant upon its growth? Until the geologists and chemists have acquired so much real practical knowledge as to be able to answer this query satisfactorily, they will best consult the public interest by confining themselves to their quarries and their laboratories. That agriculturist who should deny the advantages which his own science has derived from the aid of chemistry, would not only be an ungrateful, but an exceedingly unreasonable man; nevertheless, he cannot be charged with either ingratitude or folly if, after calculating the cost of the productive agent, and the value of the produce, he declines to expend his capital in forced improvements, which at the end of the year, and with diminished prices, must leave him a considerable loser. If high farming could be shown to be productive, high farming would be the rule and not the exception. In Scotland we have farmed so high, that we are quoted at all hands as an example to the rest of the world. If we mistake not, Dr Buckland himself, in some of his stimulating addresses, has referred to the agricultural system of the Lothians as a specimen, or rather the specimen, of what may be achieved by science combined with energy. We accept the compliment; and in the course of the following pages we shall endeavour to show him, and his friends, how the pattern farmer is likely to fare, and how he has fared already, under the operation of the new code which modern liberalism has introduced for the encouragement of British enterprise.
Next to the chemists, and moving closely in their wake, come the free-trading landlords who assented to the great experiment. If we select Lords Ducie and Kinnaird as fair specimens of this class in England and in Scotland, we shall do no more than give that prominence to their names which is challenged by their late assertions. Our occupancy of the Scottish field, from which we are unwilling to depart, precludes us from entering into any investigation of the views promulgated by the English earl. But we have no scruple at all in dealing with the Scottish baron, who, in the letter of advice addressed to his tenantry of the Carse of Gowrie, has taken infinite pains to show that the superior husbandry of Scotland has been stimulated, if not created, by the exaction of high rents; and, by an easy corollary, that future improvement depends mainly upon the maintenance of these rents, irrespective altogether of the decline in the value of produce! This, we are bound to admit, is a comfortable landlord's theory; and, if the agricultural tenants who frequent the reading-room at Inchture are convinced of its practical soundness, we should be extremely sorry to utter a single word which might tend to unsettle their faith. But we fear that Lord Kinnaird, like many other inconsiderate individuals, has committed a serious mistake in rushing precipitately into print. We agree with him, on the whole, that rent is a desirable thing, which ought not, under ordinary circumstances, to be violently diminished; still we must adhere to our deliberate opinion, that, if a great organic change, affecting the interests of agriculture to a serious degree, is consequent upon any measures of the legislature, both landlord and tenant must be prepared to suffer in a certain ratio. It is all very well to recommend the aid of chemistry, provided, at the same time, that adequate capital is forthcoming. Even with capital, to be drawn from the tenant's, and not the landlord's pocket, it will require more than mere assertion to persuade the former that, by an enormously increased outlay in phosphate of lime, sulphuric acid, magnesia, manganese, gypsum, guano, and what not, he may raise crops the abundance of which shall compensate him for a direct loss of 16s. or 20s. on the quarter of wheat, with a corresponding diminution in the value of every other kind of agricultural produce. Some of those who, according to Lord Kinnaird, have shown themselves "the best and most successful farmers," men who have heretofore been engaged in business—that is, commercial business—may be induced to try the experiment; but if there be any truth in the reply which Mr Thomas Ross of Wardheads, a farmer in the Carse of Gowrie, has made to his lordship's pamphlet, the result of the trials hitherto attempted by such enterprising persons, upon the Kinnaird estates and in the immediate neighbourhood, may be best estimated by a perusal of the Gazette, wherein the names of divers unfortunate speculators are recorded. But, to speak plainly, the time has gone by for any such absurd trifling. What we want are facts, not theories; least of all, theories so palpably preposterous as to carry their refutation on their face.
We do not, by any means, intend to insinuate that Lord Kinnaird is to be taken as a type of the Scottish or British landlords. On the contrary, we believe that he forms one of a minority so infinitesimally small, that the number of them would hardly be worth the reckoning. The position of the landlord and the tenant is, on the clearest of all grounds, inseparable; and it is in vain to suppose that the one class can, by possibility, have a distinct interest from the other. No doubt, during the currency of existing leases, entered into before the rapid conversion of the two great political rivals to the doctrines of free trade, the landlord may insist upon having the full penalty of his bond, and may wring the last farthing from the hand of the despairing farmer. We are living in times when vested interests have lost their character of sanctity: the legislature, while forcing down prices, provided no remedy for the relief of those who were tied up by bargains, reasonable when contracted, but ruinous under the altered circumstances; and the tenant, though forced to struggle against the might of foreign importation, has no legal claim on the proprietor of the soil for a corresponding deduction from his rent. But the good feeling which has always existed between the landlords and the tenantry of this country, if we assume no higher motive, will doubtless operate, in the majority of instances, to temper the rigour of the bargain, should the pressure continue to increase; and year after year, as leases expire, and as the results of practical experience become more generally understood, competition will disappear, and rents fall to a point exactly corresponding to the expectation of future prices. It is a bad sign of the times, though certainly an instructive one, when we find a wealthy peer, in a letter addressed to his tenantry, expressing his opinion that retired tradesmen and others—men who have never handled a plough in their lives, and who are far better versed in the mysteries of long-stitch than in those of draining—make much better farmers than those who have been reared to agriculture from their infancy. According to this view, the farmer is a mere booby compared to the man whose intellects have been sharpened in the shop, the counting-house, or the manufactory; and the experience which he has gained positively unfits him for the actual exercise of his profession! Such views must be corroborated by the testimony of deeper sages than Lord Kinnaird, before they pass into general acceptation; and we cannot help thinking that the noble author would have used a wise discretion had he been less explicit in his reasons for preferring the novice to the practised farmer. Besides their habits of accurate accounting, and their total freedom from prejudice, retired tradesmen appear valuable, in the eyes of Lord Kinnaird, for two especial reasons:—"In the first place, that they have capital; secondly, that they are not afraid to expend it, knowing that thus alone can their land be made productive." To such persons we would address a word of warning, cautioning them to use their acquired powers of accounting rather before than after they enter into any agricultural bargain; and in particular, we would advise them to look narrowly to the figures of their noble encourager, detailing the results of his own experience in the farm of Mill-hill, brought down, with great show of accuracy, to the close of 1847—before protection ceased, or prices fell—but no later. In the course of such investigations, they may light upon an anomaly or so which no arithmetician can explain, and be rather chary of receiving his lordship's dogmas, that remuneration from farming is "not dependent on high prices," and that "no one possessing capital need be afraid of investing it in a farm."
The last champion of increased production as an antidote against free trade, is not the type of a class, but a single individual—whose testimony, however, being in some respects practical, is worth more than that of all the chemical doctors and interested landlords put together. We allude to Mr James Caird, whose pamphlet, entitled "High Farming under Liberal Covenants, the best Substitute for Protection," has already excited so much attention, that, if rumour does not err, its author has been deputed by government, at the recommendation of Sir Robert Peel, to visit Ireland with the view of reporting upon the agricultural capabilities of that country. We shall presently have occasion to examine the details of that pamphlet, as minutely as their importance deserves; at present we shall merely note, in passing, that it does not profess to set forth the results of the author's own practical experience, although Mr Caird is well known to be a farmer of great intelligence and ability; and, further, that it directly points to liberal covenants on the part of the landlord as an indispensable basis of the arrangement. In fact, therefore, we find that Lord Kinnaird and Mr Caird, though both writing on the same side, entertain views widely differing from each other, as to the future terms of adjustment between the two great agricultural classes. Lord Kinnaird is for "high rents;" Mr Caird for "liberal covenants." It is impossible that both of them can be right; and were we to join issue solely upon the facts which each of them has adduced, we should have no hesitation in deciding in favour of the practical farmer. But we apprehend that, even with the aid of liberal covenants, Mr Caird has failed in making out his case, as we shall shortly prove, when we proceed to analyse his statements.
We have already made an approximation to the price which, in ordinary seasons, and under existing burdens and covenants, grain ought to bear, in order to yield a fair remuneration to the British grower. That price, as we have already said, has been held to range from 54s. to 58s. per quarter. This we hold to be a moderate computation; but if a further limit be desired, we shall admit—though for argument's sake only—that with great retrenchment and economy, curtailing his own comforts, but not materially reducing the wages of the labourer, the farmer may continue to grow wheat at an average of 50s., and nevertheless pay up his annual rent as before. A glance at former averages will show that this is a remarkably low figure; and, being taken as an average, it of course implies the supposition that in some years the price will be higher, in order to compensate for others in which it may be lower. Our primary business, therefore, is to ascertain whether, under the operation of the new system, prices can ever rise, supposing the present breadth of land to remain in tillage, above this average amount; or whether they must not permanently diminish so much as to destroy the vestige of an independent average in this country, and substitute foreign growing prices for our own. The question is a very momentous one, for it involves the existence of our national agriculture, and not only that, but the existence of the larger portion of the home market for our manufactures, compared with which our exports are comparatively as nothing. It is our earnest desire to approach it with all candour, temper, and moderation; and we shall not, if possible, allow ourselves to be betrayed into a single angry word, or discourteous expression, towards those who have differed from us hitherto in opinion. Neither shall we advance or reiterate opinions upon grounds purely theoretical. Ever since this contest began, we have taken a decided and consistent part, and have not scrupled to expose, by argument, what we held to be the glaring fallacies of free trade. That argument, necessarily inferential at first, has since been borne out and corroborated by every fact which has emerged; and, on that account alone, we think we are entitled to demand a serious consideration of the matter which we now lay before the public, as the result of an investigation, in the course of which no pains or trouble have been spared, and which may help to guide us all, be our politics what they may, to a true sense of the danger which must immediately arrive, if we remain but a few months longer in a state of fancied security. Our warning may be derided by some, but the day of reckoning is at hand.
The first point, therefore, to which we shall entreat attention is, the prospect of future prices; regarding which we possess some information that may possibly take the reader by surprise.
The adoption of free-trade principles, as regards the trade in corn, proceeded upon a false estimate of the precise quantities available for the supply of this country. Those who, from various motives, combined for the purpose of allowing the foreigner an unrestrained competition in the British market, had no idea of the strength of the power which they had thus evoked; while the fearful and doubting protectionist, who yielded too soon to the clamour, was little aware of the extent of the evils which his supineness was to bring upon him. The statistics of the question were altogether overlooked—at least no proper means were taken to obtain them in a faithful manner. The returns made by the foreign consuls, and the evidence collected as to the ordinary available supplies at foreign ports, were, in nearly every instance, the mere reflex of the views of interested parties, furnished to men unable, from their habits or education, to judge of their approach to accuracy. The voluminous report of Mr Jacob, which might have been of use as a warning, at any rate, that cheap food does not always make a happy and comfortable people, seems to have been forgotten in these latter days. Hence the theories of those who had some experience in trade, and whose published opinions on mercantile matters had obtained credit and celebrity, came to be mainly relied upon. Among these, the ideas of Mr Tooke, whose authority stands pre-eminently high in such matters, as to prices, and the quantity of foreign grain which might, in the event of free trade, find its way to our shores, were much insisted on. But how far these are erroneous and delusive has been sadly proved by our experience of the effects of free trade in corn since 1846.