habited and fertile countries, where nature yields her treasures with almost unsolicited bounty, in times of domestic plenty, coming to interfere with the sale of home-grown But such regulations should be so ordered as not to occasion sudden starts of dearth, to straiten the subsistence, and trench upon the small comforts of the industrious poor. It should ever be remembered that as British Agriculture has been stimulated, by the spirited industry and growing numbers of the mechanical class of its own people to a respectability which it never could have attained had this support been wanting or less powerful, so its success can only be perpetuated by the same agency. That the industry of those engaged in the mechanic arts may succeed, and of course their numbers be maintained, they must be able to procure food and some degree of comfort by means of what they can earn; that an equal intercourse may be preserved with other countries to keep mechanical and commercial industry in activity, the proportion between the means of subsistence and the reward of labour must not differ very widely in this country from that of the surrounding nations. All attempts therefore to raise the price of corn beyond these impassable limits must have an opposite effect. If the price of corn in Britain exclude her people from an equal interchange of commodities with her neighbours, if it be raised beyond the ability of industrious consumers to purchase their subsistence commerce must languish, and laboring people must either go to seek their subsistence elsewhere, or perish in every kind of wretchedness; and thus the value of land must sink in the same proportion.

The circumstances of the times did indeed, in some measure, justify the additional restrictions on the importation of foreign corn in 1804. The crops of 1799 and 1801, having been deficient, and the waste of war increasing the

scarcity, a great importation of corn was required. But some more plentiful crops having succeeded, the owners and occupiers of land thought it hard that the cultivators of fertile countries, enjoying peace, should so freely come in and undersell those at home, who were laboring under the hardships of war, so long as the prosperous state of commerce and manufacture enabled consumers to give such a price for corn as the state of things at that period demanded. To this the nation quietly submitted. But there was not the least shadow of an excuse for the additional restrictions of 1815. The people had, with unexampled patience, suffered a long course of severe privations; they had bravely fought, and freely bled, in a war supported by the great and opulent for the security of their privileges and possessions, and fondly cherished the prospect of some alleviation of their sufferings on the return of peace: besides, commerce and manufacture had begun to slacken, and many were returning from the war to their former employments, and employment being less abundant, might naturally be expected to be more moderately rewarded; and hence more moderate prices of corn were the more necessary. The attempt to keep up the price of corn, at such a time, indicated no less a hardness of heart than a perversity of judgment!!! No measure, perhaps, ever excited so great, so general, or so just an irritation, and none is more likely to leave a more lasting impression. If this preposterous measure had succeeded to the wish of the promoters, the present distress of the nation would have been much accelerated, and while it remains unrepealed, it will hang upon the nation like a mill-stone to obstruct its recovery.

2

It is idle to say that, in the failure of home-consumption, Agriculture may be supported by exporting corn from a country where corn has long been much dearer than in those which surround it. If British Agriculture has not

been sufficiently supported by the excellent home-market which it has long enjoyed, it would be far worse supported by exporting corn to countries where soil and climate are more auspicious, and labour less liberally rewarded, or contending in a foreign port with the corn of such countries. To talk of aiding exportation by bounties or drawbacks, in such circumstances, is grossly absurd. To maintain the price of corn at any thing near the average price which it has brought for twenty years past would require extraor dinary bounties. It is not like the business of financiers to levy large revenues from a country, to return them again in bounties or drawbacks on the exportation of its corn, nor does it appear that they would serve their country by so doing.

Land-holders have therefore fallen into an egregious error, in assuming a separate interest of their own, and attempting to affix a high price on corn, without attending to the circumstances of the industrious consumers by whose means the value of land has been so much advanced, or considering if the latter would be able to pursue their valuable industry on such terms. They have thus, by attempting the impossibility of separating their own interest from that of the nation, so far as they could, undermined both; they have abandoned the liberal character naturally attached to their situation; and, in exchange for the esteem and respect of the lower orders, accepted their scorn and aversion, without attaining any end at which they have perversely aimed. Though land be the basis of national wealth, and the source of every thing necessary for the support of life, it is the application of skill and industry alone, which extracts its valuable productions; and such application must be more intense as the resistance of soil and climate is greater, and of course must require a stronger motive to animate its exertions; and this the vigorous industry of the other class has amply exhibited to agriculture

in Great Britain. By comparing the humble state of this art in countries blessed with the happiest soil and clime where this motive is absent or feeble, with the perfection to which British agriculture has lately arrived, we shall be enabled to appreciate the immense value which the successful; industry of consumers has stamped on the soil. It will then be obvious that it is the direct interest of landed men warmly to embrace every measure tending to soften the hardships, alleviate the calamities, and promote the comforts of this great class of people, whose industry has so greatly advanced the value of land-property, and by whose prosperity alóne such value can be preserved; particularly, not vainly to expect advantage by hampering their subsistence, but to do every thing possible to accommodate them with food at the rate they can afford to pay for it; so that they may be enabled to prosecute their industry on the same terms with other countries, and the nation be enabled to preserve an advantageous intercourse with those around it. Thus, and thus only, present difficulties may be overcome, and mechanical industry revive and support agriculture: whereas an opposite conduct is only aiding the present distress to precipitate the decadence with which the nation is threatened, and in which the value of land, and the interest of proprietors must be involved.

The delusion which prompted landholders to assume an interest separate from that of the community, has been productive of other bad consequences. By mistaking a state of warfare for a permanent state of prosperity, and raising their rents to an extravagant height to comport with it, they have enfeebled the power of agriculture. Landholders have indeed enjoyed large revenues for some time past; but the failure, which now succeeds, must be felt as a painful privation; and what is still worse, this increased

revenue, with war-taxes, the great and sudden fall of the price of corn in the end of 1814, &c. has been gradually. consuming the capitals of farmers. Every one knows that without an adequate capital, a farm cannot be cultivated to advantage; and surely that which is possessed by skilful, experienced men, and acquired in the pursuit of the profession, is best adapted to the purpose. The dissipating of this capital is breaking the arms of agriculture; for where is capital to be found to supply the loss? or who will risk their capital in an employment by which those have been ruined, who have acquitted themselves so handsomely in it?

To have the charge of bringing forward all that skill and industry can extract from the soil for the support and comfort of the nation-for upholding the rank of the superior orders, and preserving the existence of the lower, is an important trust. An employment of such radical importance, in which the success of any individual is so far from encroaching on that of others that every judicious exertion for private emolument, by making land more productive, promotes the power and wealth of the state, has something liberal and dignified about it; and a wise nation will consider it as such, and cherish its native feelings, by regarding those who devote themselves to this important employment in a respectable light. This is equally the interest of landholders, as by men of a liberal independent character the cultivation of the country will be most successfully conducted. By straitening the circumstances of husbandmen, by over racked rents, their spirits are depressed, their industry enfeebled, and the improvement of the country suspended. They should therefore be placed in independent circumstances, and have the prospect of earning, at least, as great personal emolument as might be expected from the same abilities, capital and industry in other lines of business,