"We imported last year," says Mr Carey, "about three hundred thousand persons. Estimating their consumption of food at twenty cents per day for each, there was thus made a market on the land for the products of the land to the extent of twenty millions of dollars. This transportation required the constant employment of two hundred and fifty thousand tons of shipping, and ships carried freight to Europe at very low rates, because certain of obtaining valuable return cargoes. The farmer thus obtained a large home market, and the power of exporting cheaply to the foreign one; and to the conjoined operation of these two causes is due the fact, that wheat and flour have continued so high in price.
"We may now, I think, understand many curious facts now passing before our eyes. Food is so abundant in Russia, that it is wasted, and yet among the large exporters of food to Great Britain is this country, in which it sells at a price almost as high as in Liverpool, and now even higher. The produce of Russia has to bear all the charges out and home, and the consequence is that the producer remains poor, and makes no roads; and thus the cost of transportation, internal and external, continues, and must continue great. The farmer of the United States sends his produce to market cheap, because the return cargo, being chiefly man, is valuable, and the space it occupies is great. He therefore grows rich, and makes roads and canals, and builds steamboats; and thus is the cost of transportation, internal and external, so far diminished, that the difference in the price of a barrel of flour in Pittsburgh and in Liverpool is, when we look at the distance, almost inconceivably small.
"The bulk of the trade of Canada is outwards; and the consequence is that outward freights are high, while our imports of men and other valuable commodities keep them low with us; and therefore it is that the cost of transporting wheat and flour from our side of the line is so much lower than from the other, that both now pass through New York on their way to Liverpool. Hence it is that there has arisen so vehement a desire for commercial reciprocity, and even for annexation. The protective system has thus not only the effect of bringing consumers to take their places by the side of the producer, facilitating the consumption on the land of the products of the land, and facilitating also the exportation of the surplus to foreign markets by diminishing outward freights, but the further one of producing among our neighbours a strong desire for the establishment of the same perfect freedom of trade that now exists among the several states, by becoming themselves a part of the Union. Protection, therefore, tends to the increase of commerce, and the establishment of Free Trade; while the British system tends everywhere to the destruction of commerce, and to the production of a necessity for restriction.
"We see, thus, that if we desire to secure the command of that which is falsely termed 'the great grain-market of the world,' it is to be effected by the adoption of such measures as will secure valuable return freights. The most costly and the most valuable of all are men; the least so are pig-iron and coal. The more of the latter we import, the larger will be our surplus of food, the higher will be the outward freight, internal and external, the greater will be the waste, and the poorer will be the farmer. The more of the former we import, the smaller will be our surplus of food, the lower will be the outward freights, and the more numerous will be the commodities that can go to Europe, to be given in exchange for luxuries that now we cannot purchase."
So much for the American views of reciprocity. Secured by her system of tariffs, which she is now about to heighten, against the effects of foreign competition, America is resolutely bent on availing herself to the utmost of all the vast natural resources which she possesses, and to render herself wholly independent of the conversion of foreign countries. By following such a course she must, as her population increases, grow in greatness and in might, as must every nation wherein labour is estimated and cherished according to its proper value, and the rights of the domestic producer and workman guarded with untiring vigilance.
One word as to the prospects of the British farmer. We know from undoubted authority that in many parts of the United States, for example Ottawa, excellent land may be purchased for £1 an acre, broken up for 7s., burdened by no poor nor county rates, and unconscious of the presence of the tax-gatherer. Land such as this can, indeed, afford to produce corn at an almost nominal price—ballast for the ships that shall bring back the overweighted and ruined yeomen and peasants of England to New York and New Orleans! But, vast as the immigration has been, the production of food has greatly outstripped it; and as fresh tracts of virgin land are, year by year, brought into cultivation, and internal communications opened or improved, we see no reason whatever to believe that the export of grain to England will diminish, or the price of that grain be enhanced. Let our readers bear in mind the wonderful development of the mining and manufacturing resources of America, to which we have just directed their attention, and then see how, in spite of, or far rather concurrently with that, the production of food also increased. We again quote from The Harmony of Interests. How great was the increase may be seen by the following comparison of the returns under the census of 1840, and the Patent Office Estimates for 1847:—
| Wheat | Barley | Oats | Rye | Buckwheat | Indian Corn | TOTALS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1840 | 84,823,000 | 4,161,000 | 123,071,000 | 18,645,000 | 7,291,000 | 377,531,000 | 615,522,000 |
| 1847 | 114,245,000 | 5,649,000 | 167,867,000 | 29,222,000 | 11,673,000 | 539,350,000 | 867,826,000 |
| Increase | 29,422,000 | 1,488,000 | 44,797,000 | 10,577,000 | 4,382,000 | 161,819,000 | 252,304,000 |
Showing an increase of not less than 40 per cent in 7 years, during which the population only advanced 23 per cent.
How much of this surplus produce may be expected to find its way into the English market, we do not pretend accurately to foretell; but when we find that, without the inducement of an unrestricted access to it, in 1846 America was able to raise her exports of grain to thirteen millions of bushels, from six millions in 1845; and in 1847, with only the preparation of a year, to twenty-six millions, we think Lord Fitzwilliam is quite justified in taking it for granted that the price of corn in England will not rise above its present ruinous average. Attempts, no doubt, will be made to show that the emigration to California has deprived the Western States of the labour that is required to raise these enormous crops. Our answer is, that 300,000 souls were added by immigration to the population of the United States in 1849; and that our own emigration returns for 1850 show that the tide from England is flowing in that direction with unabated force. So last year, when the great and unexpected import of French flour was adding to the depression, and stimulating the complaints of the English agriculturists, the Free Import authorities explained it away as a forced unnatural importation which must speedily cease, as France was an importing, and not an exporting, county, and the price of corn there was naturally higher than in England; and yet we learn from the same organ of public opinion which favoured us in the summer with this satisfactory explanation of the French importations, that in the month of November last, the prices of wheat, flour, and bread were all much higher in London than in Paris. In its City article of November 14th, appeared the following comparison of the present prices of wheat, flour, and bread, in London and Paris:—
"The highest price of wheat of the first quality in Paris is 24 francs per 1½ hectolitres, which is equal to 36s. 8d. per quarter; and the highest price of white wheat of the first quality, in London, being 48s. per quarter, it follows that wheat is 307⁄8 per cent dearer in London than in Paris. The highest quotation of flour of the first quality in Paris is 29 francs 95 cents the 100 kilogrammes, which is equal to 29s. 11d. per sack of 280 lb. English; and the highest quotation of flour in the London market being 40s. per sack, it follows that flour is about 335⁄8 per cent dearer in London than in Paris. The price of bread of the first quality in Paris is 27 cents per kilogramme, which is equal to 45⁄8 per 4 lb. loaf English weight; and the price of bread in London, at the full-priced shops, being 61⁄2d. per 4 lb., it follows that bread is 401⁄2 per cent dearer in London than in Paris."