“Grain.—During the present unsettled state of the weather, it is impossible for the best informed persons to anticipate upon good grounds what will be the future price of agricultural produce. Should the season even yet prove favourable for the operations of the harvest, there is every probability of the average price of grain continuing at that exact price which will prove most conducive to the interests of the corn growers, and at the same time encouraging to the agriculture of our colonial possessions. We do not speak lightly on this subject, for we are aware that His Majesty’s Ministers have been fully alive to the inquiries from all qualified quarters as to the effect likely to be produced on the markets from the addition of the present crops to the stock of wheat already on hand. The result of these inquiries is, that in the highest quarters there exists the full expectation, that towards the month of November, the price of wheat will nearly approach to seventy shillings, a price which, while it affords the extent of remuneration to the British farmer recognized by the corn laws, will at the same time admit of the sale of the Canadian bonded wheat; and the introduction of this foreign corn, grown by British colonists, will contribute to keeping down our markets, and exclude foreign grain from other quarters.”
There’s nice gentlemen of Whitehall! What pretty gentlemen they are! “Envy of surrounding nations,” indeed, to be under command of pretty gentlemen who can make calculations so nice, and put forth predictions so positive upon such a subject! “Admiration of the world,” indeed, to live under the command of men who can so control seasons and markets; or, at least, who can so dive into the secrets of trade, and find out the contents of the fields, barns, and ricks, as to be able to balance things so nicely as to cause the Canadian corn to find a market, without injuring the sale of that of the British farmer, and without admitting that of the French farmer and the other farmers of the continent! Happy, too happy, rogues that we are, to be under the guidance of such pretty gentlemen, and right just is it that we should be banished for life, if we utter a word tending to bring such pretty gentlemen into contempt.
Let it be observed, that this paragraph must have come from Whitehall. This wretched paper is the demi-official organ of the Government. As to the owners of the paper, Daniel Stewart, that notorious fellow, Street, and the rest of them, not excluding the brother of the great Oracle, which brother bought, the other day, a share of this vehicle of baseness and folly; as to these fellows, they have no control other than what relates to the expenditure and the receipts of the vehicle. They get their news from the offices of the Whitehall people, and their paper is the mouth-piece of those same people. Mark this, I pray you, reader; and let the French people mark it, too, and then take their revenge for the Waterloo insolence. This being the case, then; this paragraph proceeding from the pretty gentlemen, what a light it throws on their expectations, their hopes, and their fears. They see that wheat at seventy shillings a quarter is necessary to them! Ah! pray mark that! They see that wheat at seventy shillings a quarter is necessary to them; and, therefore, they say that wheat will be at seventy shillings a quarter, the price, as they call it, necessary to remunerate the British farmer. And how do the conjurers at Whitehall know this? Why, they have made full inquiries “in qualified quarters.” And the qualified quarters have satisfied the “highest quarters,” that, “towards the month of November, the price of wheat will nearly approach to seventy shillings the quarter!” I wonder what the words towards the “end of November,” may mean. Devil’s in’t if middle of September is not “towards November;” and the wheat, instead of going on towards seventy shillings, is very fast coming down to forty. The beast who wrote this paragraph; the pretty beast; this “envy of surrounding nations” wrote it on the 27th of August, a soaking wet Saturday! The pretty beast was not aware, that the next day was going to be fine, and that we were to have only the succeeding Tuesday and half the following Saturday of wet weather until the whole of the harvest should be in. The pretty beast wrote while the rain was spattering against the window; and he did “not speak lightly,” but was fully aware that the highest quarters, having made inquiries of the qualified quarters, were sure that wheat would be at seventy shillings during the ensuing year. What will be the price of wheat it is impossible for any one to say. I know a gentleman, who is a very good judge of such matters, who is of opinion that the average price of wheat will be thirty-two shillings a quarter, or lower, before Christmas; this is not quite half what the highest quarters expect, in consequence of the inquiries which they have made of the qualified quarters. I do not say, that the average of wheat will come down to thirty-two shillings; but this I know, that at Reading, last Saturday, about forty-five shillings was the price; and, I hear, that, in Norfolk, the price is forty-two. The highest quarters, and the infamous London press, will, at any rate, be prettily exposed, before Christmas. Old Sir Thomas Lethbridge, too, and Gaffer Gooch, and his base tribe of Pittites at Ipswich; Coke and Suffield, and their crew; all these will be prettily laughed at; nor will that “tall soul,” Lord Milton, escape being reminded of his profound and patriotic observation relative to “this self-renovating country.” No sooner did he see the wheat get up to sixty or seventy shillings than he lost all his alarms; found that all things were right, turned his back on Yorkshire Reformers, and went and toiled for Scarlett at Peterborough: and discovered, that there was nothing wrong, at last, and that the “self-renovating country” would triumph over all its difficulties!—So it will, “tall soul;” it will triumph over all its difficulties; it will renovate itself; it will purge itself of rotten boroughs, of vile borough-mongers, their tools and their stopgaps; it will purge itself of all the villanies which now corrode its heart; it will, in short, free itself from those curses, which the expenditure of eight or nine hundred millions of English money took place in order to make perpetual: it will, in short, become free from oppression, as easy and as happy as the gallant and sensible nation on the other side of the Channel. This is the sort of renovation, but not renovation by the means of wheat at seventy shillings a quarter. Renovation it will have: it will rouse and will shake from itself curses like the pension which is paid to Burke’s executors. This is the sort of renovation, “tall soul;” and not wheat at 70s. a quarter, while it is at twenty-five shillings a quarter in France. Pray observe, reader, how the “tall soul” catched at the rise in the price of wheat: how he snapped at it: how quickly he ceased his attacks upon the Whitehall people and upon the System. He thought he had been deceived: he thought that things were coming about again; and so he drew in his horns, and began to talk about the self-renovating country. This was the tone of them all. This was the tone of all the borough-mongers; all the friends of the System; all those, who, like Lethbridge, had begun to be staggered. They had deviated, for a moment, into our path! but they popped back again the moment they saw the price of wheat rise! All the enemies of Reform, all the calumniators of Reformers, all the friends of the System, most anxiously desired a rise in the price of wheat. Mark the curious fact, that all the vile press of London; the whole of that infamous press; that newspapers, magazines, reviews: the whole of the base thing; and a baser surely this world never saw; that the whole of this base thing rejoiced, exulted, crowed over me, and told an impudent lie, in order to have the crowing; crowed, for what? Because wheat and bread were become dear! A newspaper hatched under a corrupt Priest, a profligate Priest, and recently espoused to the hell of Pall Mall; even this vile thing crowed because wheat and bread had become dear! Now, it is notorious, that, heretofore, every periodical publication in this kingdom was in the constant habit of lamenting, when bread became dear, and of rejoicing, when it became cheap. This is notorious. Nay, it is equally notorious, that this infamous press was everlastingly assailing bakers, and millers, and butchers, for not selling bread, flour, and meat cheaper than they were selling them. In how many hundreds of instances has this infamous press caused attacks to be made by the mob upon tradesmen of this description! All these things are notorious. Moreover, notorious it is that, long previous to every harvest, this infamous, this execrable, this beastly press, was engaged in stunning the public with accounts of the great crop which was just coming forward! There was always, with this press, a prodigiously large crop. This was invariably the case. It was never known to be the contrary.
Now these things are perfectly well known to every man in England. How comes it, then, reader, that the profligate, the trading, the lying, the infamous press of London, has now totally changed its tone and bias. The base thing never now tells us that there is a great crop or even a good crop. It never now wants cheap bread and cheap wheat and cheap meat. It never now finds fault of bakers and butchers. It now always endeavours to make it appear that corn is dearer than it is. The base Morning Herald, about three weeks ago, not only suppressed the fact of the fall of wheat, but asserted that there had been a rise in the price. Now why is all this? That is a great question, reader. That is a very interesting question. Why has this infamous press, which always pursues that which it thinks its own interest; why has it taken this strange turn? This is the reason: stupid as the base thing is, it has arrived at a conviction, that if the price of the produce of the land cannot be kept up to something approaching ten shillings a bushel for good wheat, the hellish system of funding must be blown up. The infamous press has arrived at a conviction, that that cheating, that fraudulent system by which this press lives, must be destroyed unless the price of corn can be kept up. The infamous traders of the press are perfectly well satisfied, that the interest of the Debt must be reduced, unless wheat can be kept up to nearly ten shillings a bushel. Stupid as they are, and stupid as the fellows down at Westminster are, they know very well, that the whole system, stock-jobbers, Jews, cant and all, go to the devil at once, as soon as a deduction is made from the interest of the Debt. Knowing this, they want wheat to sell high; because it has, at last, been hammered into their skulls, that the interest cannot be paid in full, if wheat sells low. Delightful is the dilemma in which they are. Dear bread does not suit their manufactories, and cheap bread does not suit their Debt. “Envy of surrounding nations,” how hard it is that Providence will not enable your farmers to sell dear and the consumers to buy cheap! These are the things that you want. Admiration of the world you are; but have these things you will not. There may be those, indeed, who question whether you yourself know what you want; but, at any rate, if you want these things, you will not have them.
Before I conclude, let me ask the reader to take a look at the singularity of the tone and tricks of this Six-Acts Government. Is it not a novelty in the world to see a Government, and in ordinary seasons, too, having its whole soul absorbed in considerations relating to the price of corn? There are our neighbours, the French, who have got a Government engaged in taking military possession of a great neighbouring kingdom to free which from these very French, we have recently expended a hundred and fifty millions of money. Our neighbours have got a Government that is thus engaged, and we have got a Government that employs itself in making incessant “inquiries in all the qualified quarters” relative to the price of wheat! Curious employment for a Government! Singular occupation for the Ministers of the Great George! They seem to think nothing of Spain, with its eleven millions of people, being in fact added to France. Wholly insensible do they appear to concerns of this sort, while they sit thinking, day and night, upon the price of the bushel of wheat!
However, they are not, after all, such fools as they appear to be. Despicable, indeed, must be that nation, whose safety or whose happiness does, in any degree, depend on so fluctuating a thing as the price of corn. This is a matter that we must take as it comes. The seasons will be what they will be; and all the calculations of statesmen must be made wholly independent of the changes and chances of seasons. This has always been the case, to be sure. What nation could ever carry on its affairs, if it had to take into consideration the price of corn? Nevertheless, such is the situation of our Government, that its very existence, in its present way, depends upon the price of corn. The pretty fellows at Whitehall, if you may say to them: Well, but look at Spain; look at the enormous strides of the French; think of the consequences in case of another war; look, too, at the growing marine of America. See, Mr. Jenkinson, see, Mr. Canning, see, Mr. Huskisson, see, Mr. Peel, and all ye tribe of Grenvilles, see, what tremendous dangers are gathering together about us! “Us!” Aye, about you; but pray think what tremendous dangers wheat at four shillings a bushel will bring about us! This is the git. Here lies the whole of it. We laugh at a Government employing itself in making calculations about the price of corn, and in employing its press to put forth market puffs. We laugh at these things; but we should not laugh, if we considered, that it is on the price of wheat that the duration of the power and the profits of these men depends. They know what they want; and they wish to believe themselves, and to make others believe, that they shall have it. I have observed before, but it is necessary to observe again, that all those who are for the System, let them be Opposition or not Opposition, feel as Whitehall feels about the price of corn. I have given an instance, in the “tall soul;” but it is the same with the whole of them, with the whole of those who do not wish to see this infernal System changed. I was informed, and I believe it to be true, that the Marquis of Lansdowne said, last April, when the great rise took place in the price of corn, that he had always thought that the cash-measures had but little effect on prices; but that he was now satisfied that those measures had no effect at all on prices! Now, what is our situation; what is the situation of this country, if we must have the present Ministry, or a Ministry of which the Marquis of Lansdowne is to be a Member, if the Marquis of Lansdowne did utter these words? And again, I say, that I verily believe he did utter them.
Ours is a Government that now seems to depend very much upon the weather. The old type of a ship at sea will not do now, ours is a weather Government; and to know the state of it, we must have recourse to those glasses that the Jews carry about. Weather depends upon the winds, in a great measure; and I have no scruple to say, that the situation of those two Right Honourable youths, that are now gone to the Lakes in the north; that their situation, next winter, will be rendered very irksome, not to say perilous, by the present easterly wind, if it should continue about fifteen days longer. Pitt, when he had just made a monstrous issue of paper, and had, thereby, actually put the match which blowed up the old She Devil in 1797—Pitt, at that time, congratulated the nation, that the wisdom of Parliament had established a solid system of finance. Anything but solid it assuredly was; but his system of finance was as worthy of being called solid, as that system of Government which now manifestly depends upon the weather and the winds.
Since my return home (it is now Thursday, 11th September), I have received letters from the east, from the north, and from the west. All tell me that the harvest is very far advanced, and that the crops are free from blight. These letters are not particular as to the weight of the crop; except that they all say that the barley is excellent. The wind is now coming from the east. There is every appearance of the fine weather continuing. Before Christmas, we shall have the wheat down to what will be a fair average price in future. I always said that the late rise was a mere puff. It was, in part, a scarcity rise. The wheat of 1821 was grown and bad. That of 1822 had to be begun upon in July. The crop has had to last thirteen months and a half. The present crop will have to last only eleven months, or less. The crop of barley, last year, was so very bad; so very small; and the crop of the year before so very bad in quality that wheat was malted, last year, in great quantities, instead of barley. This year, the crop of barley is prodigious. All these things considered wheat, if the cash-measures had had no effect, must have been a hundred and forty shillings a quarter, and barley eighty. Yet the first never got to seventy, and the latter never got to forty! And yet there was a man who calls himself a statesman to say that that mere puff of a rise satisfied him that the cash-measures had never had any effect! Ah! they are all afraid to believe in the effect of those cash-measures: they tremble like children at the sight of the rod, when you hold up before them the effect of those cash-measures. Their only hope, is, that I am wrong in my opinions upon that subject; because, if I am right, their System is condemned to speedy destruction!
I thus conclude, for the present, my remarks relative to the harvest and the price of corn. It is the great subject of the day; and the comfort is, that we are now speedily to see whether I be right or whether the Marquis of Lansdowne be right. As to the infamous London press, the moment the wheat comes down to forty shillings; that is to say, an average Government return of forty shillings, I will spend ten pounds in placarding this infamous press, after the manner in which we used to placard the base and detestable enemies of the Queen. This infamous press has been what is vulgarly called “running its rigs,” for several months past. The Quakers have been urging it on, under-handed. They have, I understand, been bribing it pretty deeply, in order to calumniate me, and to favour their own monopoly, but, thank God, the cunning knaves have outwitted themselves. They won’t play at cards; but they will play at Stocks; they will play at Lottery Tickets, and they will play at Mark-lane. They have played a silly game, this time. Saint Swithin, that good old Roman Catholic Saint, seemed to have set a trap for them: he went on, wet, wet, wet, even until the harvest began. Then, after two or three days’ sunshine, shocking wet again. The ground soaking, the wheat growing, and the “Friends;” the gentle Friends, seeking the Spirit, were as busy amongst the sacks at Mark-lane as the devil in a high wind. In short they bought away, with all the gain of Godliness, and a little more, before their eyes. All of a sudden, Saint Swithin took away his clouds; out came the sun; the wind got round to the east; just sun enough and just wind enough; and as the wheat ricks everywhere rose up, the long jaws of the Quakers dropped down; and their faces of slate became of a darker hue. That sect will certainly be punished, this year; and, let us hope, that such a change will take place in their concerns as will compel a part of them to labour, at any rate; for, at present, their sect is a perfect monster in society; a whole sect, not one man of whom earns his living by the sweat of his brow. A sect a great deal worse than the Jews; for some of them do work. However, God send us the easterly wind, for another fortnight, and we shall certainly see some of this sect at work.