"Percy is but my factor, good, my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up.
* * * * * *
And all the budding honours on his crest
I'd crop to make a garland for my head."
With which valorous quotation we draw our remarks to a close, submitting that the members of the Edinburgh Club are bound to invite us to a special sitting at a board, which shall be garnished with some other material more soft and digestible than chessmen.
THE INDUSTRY OF THE PEOPLE.
The dismal efforts of the Free-trading party to maintain the credit of their unnatural and mischievous scheme, afford the surest indication of their own consciousness that they have committed a grievous error. In their attempts to make head against the symptoms of reaction which are everywhere apparent in the public mind, they exhibit no unity of purpose; they are not agreed even as to the facts from which their arguments should be drawn. A few months ago, we were told that the whole country was in a state of the greatest prosperity. The existence of agricultural distress was denied; the shipping interest was said to be in the most healthy and flourishing condition; the manufacturers had so many orders that their ability to execute was impeded; wages were rising—pauperism decreasing—in short, no one could recall to memory times of more general happiness and content. Such was the picture drawn by Ministerial limners, no further back than the opening of the present session of Parliament, and it is very much to be regretted that it should so soon have vanished like a dissolving view. Down to the present moment, we have been unable to discover the motive for so monstrous a fiction. Nobody believed it: nobody could believe it, for it ran counter to every man's knowledge of his own affairs, and his opinion as to those of his neighbour. The agriculturists declared it to be a falsehood in so far as they were concerned—so did the ship-owners—so did the shopkeepers—so did the manufacturers, whose circulars acknowledged depression for the present, and held out little hope for the future. The Ministerial averment answered no purpose, save to excite a general burst of disapprobation. Conceived in fraud, it was abandoned with cowardice. A lower tone was assumed. Distress was admitted—but only to a certain extent; and we may remark that such admissions are peculiarly convenient and innocuous to those who make them, inasmuch as the actual degree or prevalence of the suffering must still remain matter of debate. Indeed, no statistics, however ingenious or elaborated, can furnish data for determining so delicate a point. But to account for the existence of distress, even in a mitigated form, was no easy task for those who were resolved, at all hazards, to exclude the operation of free trade. Their prosperity balance-sheet stood awkwardly in the way. Pluming themselves upon increased exports, and a larger foreign trade than had been driven for some years, they were compelled to assign some reason for the remarkable depression at home. The old shift of railway calls would no longer suit their purpose. Sir Robert Peel, regardless of a certain personal passage of his life connected with the opening of the Trent Valley, was exceedingly fond of turning out that scape-goat into the wilderness; but the time had gone by; the calls were paid up or suspended; and it was no longer possible for effrontery to maintain that the great mass of the consumers of these kingdoms had been materially injured by their imprudent dalliance with scrip. There was no tightness in the money market; no external cause to interfere with the successful operation of industry, capital, or enterprise. Yet still there was distress; and, what was more remarkable, the complaint was universal. The value of produce had fallen, effecting thereby a corresponding decline in rents, and every kind of uncertain profit. Employment grew scarcer every day, whilst the number of applicants increased. The burden of taxation, however, still remained undiminished. The creditor could still exact the stipulated amount of money from his debtor, without deduction, although the labour of the debtor was reduced in point of value by at least a third. Such were, and are, the leading phenomena, to account for which the ingenuity of the Free-traders has been exercised.
They have, we are bound to say, cut an exceedingly sorry figure in explanation. They have got in their mouths a few cant phrases, which, when assailed, they repeat over and over again, without the slightest reference to their meaning. One of these, and perhaps the most favourite, refers to the "transition state"—a peculiar phase of suffering, which they maintain to be the necessary consequence of every considerable change in the fiscal regulations of the empire. This "transition state," in politics, would appear to correspond to that which, in medicine, was favoured by Mr St John Long. In order to become better, it is necessary to make the patient, in the first instance, materially worse—to inflict artificial wounds and promote suppuration, in the hope that these may afterwards be healed. It is rather remarkable that none of our political doctors have as yet ventured to specify the nature of the curatory process. They leave us woefully in the dark as to the means which are to be adopted for remedying the evil; and they obstinately refuse to predict what kind of state is to follow upon this of transition. In truth, they are utterly at sea. They cannot shut their eyes to the extent of the mischief which they have wrought; they cannot find or invent an extraneous excuse, which will avail them, in the opinion even of the loosest thinker, to maintain the delusion that the present distress and stagnation are attributable to any other cause than that of low prices, occasioned by foreign competition; and they are attempting to conceal their chagrin and disappointment at the disastrous issue of their experiment under the cover of general terms and vague ambiguous phrases—a rhetorical expedient which is not likely to have much weight with those who have been made the victims of their rashness or vacillation.
Latterly, indeed, some portions of the public press have shown symptoms of being more specific, and very glad should we be if Ministers would follow that example. We are told that present prices are merely exceptional, and that they must shortly improve. The mere adoption of this argument shows that such writers dissent from the doctrine that cheapness is an unqualified blessing—that they still believe in their hearts that it is impossible altogether to separate the interests of the producer and the consumer—and that they are still alive to the fundamental political axiom, that the wealth of a country depends mainly upon the value of its produce. Were it otherwise, they would be supporters of the most astounding paradox that was ever advanced. The price of the loaf must rise correspondingly with that of the quarter of wheat: beef and mutton are sold by the stone or by the pound, in proportion to the market value of the living animal. If wheat were to rise to 56s., which is said to be the average cost of its production in this country, bread would become so much dearer, and, in that case, the working-man could be no better off than he was before the corn laws were repealed. We have heard it said, and we firmly believe it to be the case, that many of the public men, of both parties, who voted with Sir Robert Peel, did so under the full conviction that there could be no material decline—that they were misled by the onesided, imperfect, and fallacious reports as to the state, quality, and extent of the Continental harvests, which were laid before Parliament—and that they never would have consented to such a measure, had they foreseen the results which are now unhappily before us. We gather this, not merely from rumour, but from the tenor of the speeches delivered in the House of Commons in 1846. Sir James Graham and Lord John Russell both treated as visionary the notion of any material decline—Lord Palmerston went further; and we think it useful to lay before our readers the following excerpt from his speech, delivered on the occasion of the second reading of the Corn Importation Bill. Referring to the surplus quantity of Continental grain, he said—
"The surplus quantity now, or from time to time in existence, is merely the superfluity of abundant seasons held for a time in store to meet the alternate deficiency of bad years. Till the bad years come, that corn is cheap, because it is a supply exceeding the demand; but the moment we go into the foreign market as buyers, to purchase up this surplus, prices abroad will rise. Not only will the British demand, as a new competition with foreign demand, naturally cause a rise of prices, but our own merchants will compete against each other, until, by a rise of prices abroad, the profit of their importations shall have been brought down to the usual rate of mercantile profit upon capital employed in other ways. There is, therefore, very little probability that the importation of the existing surplus quantity of corn in foreign markets will materially lower prices in this country."
We have nothing to say to the arguments of the noble Viscount—however singular these may appear to persons of ordinary understanding—we merely refer to his conclusion, which we think is plain enough, to the effect that free importations could not materially lower prices. Nay, we could extract from the speeches of Sir Robert Peel himself, passages which would go far to show that he entertained the same opinion, notwithstanding the extreme wariness which he exhibited when challenged by Lord George Bentinck to state his views as to the probable effects of the change on the value of agricultural produce. Well, then, if this be the case—if there was actually a strong conviction in the minds of the leading men who supported the repeal of the corn laws that the expressed fears of the agricultural party were unfounded—are we not entitled now to require that the question should be brought to a very narrow issue indeed? So far as experience has gone, our calculations have proved right—theirs entirely wrong. We maintained that, in consequence of the removal of protective duties, the price of grain in this country would decline to a point far below the cost of production; they averred that nothing of the kind would happen. Nearly a year and a half has elapsed since the new system came into full operation, and the general averages of wheat throughout the country have fallen, and have remained for many months below 40s. per quarter. In spite of the accurate and veracious information of writers in the Economist and other Ministerial prints, who have been assuring us, for a long period of time, that the whole available supplies of grain have been pumped out of the Continent, importations continue undiminished. In May 1850 we receive from abroad the equivalent of a million quarters of grain; France pours in her flour, to the panic even of our millers; and, instead of diminution, there are unmistakeable symptoms of a greater deluge than before. Now, if the Free-traders, in or out of Parliament, are honest in their views—as many of them, we believe, undoubtedly are—they are bound to tell us how far and how long they intend this experiment to last? Of course, if it is no experiment at all, but an absolute rigorous finality, there is no need of entering into discussion. If everything is to be sacrificed for cheapness, let cheapness be the rule; only do not let us behold the anomaly of the advocates of that system prophesying a rise of prices as a general boon to the country. If otherwise, surely some tangible period should be assigned for the endurance of this experimentum crucis. We entirely coincide with Lord John Russell in his dislike to vacillating legislation, and we have no wish whatever to precipitate matters. We think it preferable, in every way, that the eyes of the country should be opened to a sense of its true condition by a process which, to be effectual, cannot be otherwise than painful. But we are greatly apprehensive of the consequences which may arise ere long, from the obstinate refusal of Ministers to give the slightest indication of their intentions, supposing that the present prices shall continue; or to indicate what relief, if any, can be given to the industry of the nation.