RICHARD COBDEN. ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION ON THE AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY; HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1845.
Sir:
I am relieved upon the present occasion from any necessity for apologizing to the other side of the House for the motion which I am about to submit. It will be in the recollection of honorable members, that a fortnight before putting this notice upon the book, I expressed a hope that the matter would be taken up by some honorable member opposite. I do not think, therefore, that in reply to any observations I may have to make upon the question, I shall hear, as I did last year, an observation that the quarter from which this motion came was suspicious.9 I may also add, sir, that I have so framed my motion as to include in it the objects embraced in both the amendments which are made to it. I therefore conclude, that having included the honorable gentlemen’s amendments [Mr. Stafford O’Brien and Mr. Wodehouse], they will not now feel it necessary to press them.
Sir, the object of this motion is to appoint a select committee to inquire into the present condition of the agricultural interests; and, at the same time, to ascertain how the laws regulating the importation of agricultural produce have affected the agriculturists of this country. As regards the distress among farmers, I presume we cannot go to a higher authority than those honorable gentlemen who profess to be the farmers’ friends and protectors. I find it stated by those honorable gentlemen who recently paid their respects to the Prime-Minister, that the agriculturists are in a state of great embarrassment and distress. I find that one gentleman from Norfolk [Mr. Hudson] stated that the farmers in the county are paying their rents, but paying them out of capital, and not profits. I find Mr. Turner of Upton, in Devonshire, stating that one half of the smaller farmers in that county are insolvent, and that the others are rapidly falling into the same condition; that the farmers with larger holdings are quitting their farms with a view of saving the rest of their property; and that, unless some remedial measures be adopted by this House, they will be utterly ruined. The accounts which I have given you of those districts are such as I have had from many other sources. I put it to honorable gentlemen opposite, whether the condition of the farmers in Suffolk, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, is better than that which I have described in Norfolk and Devonshire? I put it to county members, whether—taking the whole of the south of England, from the confines of Nottinghamshire to the Land’s End,—whether, as a rule, the farmers are not now in a state of the greatest embarrassment? There may be exceptions; but I put it to them whether, as a rule, that is not their condition in all parts?
Then, sir, according to every precedent in this House, this is a fit and proper time to bring forward the motion of which I have given notice. I venture to state that had his Grace of Buckingham possessed a seat in this House, he would have done now what he did when he was Lord Chandos—have moved this resolution which I am now about to move. The distress of the farmers being admitted, the next question which arises is, What is its cause? I feel a greater necessity to bring forward this motion for a committee of inquiry, because I find great discrepancies of opinion among honorable gentlemen opposite as to what is the cause of the distress among the farmers. In the first place there is a discrepancy as to the generality or locality of the existing distress. I find the right honorable baronet at the head of the government [Sir Robert Peel] saying that the distress is local; and he moreover says it does not arise from the legislation of this House. The honorable member for Dorsetshire declares, on the other hand, that the distress is general, and that it does not arise from legislation. I am at a loss to understand what this protection to agriculture means, because I find such contradictory accounts given in this House by the promoters of that system. For instance, nine months ago, when my honorable friend, the member for Wolverhampton [Mr. Villiers], brought forward his motion for the abolition of the Corn Laws,10 the right honorable gentleman, then the President of the Board of Trade, in replying to him, said that the present Corn Law had been most successful in its operations. He took great credit to the government for the steadiness of price that was obtained under that law. I will read you the quotation, because we find these statements so often controverted. He said:
“Was there any man who had supported the law in the year 1842 who could honestly say that he had been disappointed in its workings? Could any one point out a promise or a prediction hazarded in the course of the protracted debates upon the measure, which promise or prediction had been subsequently falsified.”
Now, recollect that the right honorable gentleman was speaking when wheat was 56s. per quarter, and that wheat is now 45s. The right honorable baronet at the head of the government now says: “My legislation has had nothing to do with wheat at 45s. a quarter”; but how are we to get over the difficulty that the responsible member of government at the head of the Board of Trade, only nine months ago, claimed merit for the government having kept up the price of wheat at 56s.? These discrepancies themselves between the government and its supporters, render it more and more necessary that this question of protection should be inquired into. I ask, What does it mean? The price of wheat is 45s. this day. I have been speaking to the highest authority in England upon this point—one who is often quoted by this House—within the last week, and he tells me, that with another favorable harvest, he thinks it very likely that wheat will be 35s. a quarter. What does this legislation mean, or what does it purport to be, if you are to have prices fluctuating from 56s. down to 35s. a quarter, and probably lower? Can you prevent it by the legislation of this House? That is the question. There is a great delusion spread abroad amongst the farmers; and it is the duty of this House to have that delusion dissipated by inquiring into the matter.
Now, there are these very different opinions on the other side of the House; but there are members upon this side representing very important interests, who think that farmers are suffering because they have this legislative protection. There is all this difference of opinion. Now, is not that a fit and proper subject for your inquiry? I am prepared to go into a select committee, and to bring forward evidence to show that the farmers are laboring under great evils—evils that I would connect with the legislation of this House, though they are evils which appear to be altogether dissociated from it. The first great evil under which the farmer labors is the want of capital. No one can deny that. I do not mean at all to disparage the farmers. The farmers of this country are just the same race as the rest of us; and, if they were placed in a similar position, theirs would be as good a trade—I mean that they would be as successful men of business—as others; but it is notorious, as a rule, that the farmers of this country are deficient in capital; and I ask, How can any business be carried on successfully where there is a deficiency of capital? I take it that honorable gentlemen opposite, acquainted with farming, would admit that 10l. an acre, on an arable farm, would be a sufficient amount of capital for carrying on the business of farming successfully. I will take it, then, that 10l. an acre would be a fair capital for an arable farm. I have made many inquiries upon this subject in all parts of the kingdom, and I give it you as my decided conviction, that at this present moment farmers do not average 5l. an acre capital on their farms. I speak of England, and I take England south of the Trent, though, of course, there are exceptions in every county; there are men of large capital in all parts—men farming their own land; but, taking it as a rule, I hesitate not to give my opinion—and I am prepared to back that opinion by witnesses before your committee—that, as a rule, farmers have not, upon an average, more than 5l. an acre capital for their arable land. I have given you a tract of country to which I may add all Wales; probably 20,000,000 of acres of cultivable land. I have no doubt whatever, that there are 100,000,000l. of capital wanting upon that land. What is the meaning of farming capital? There are strange notions about the word “capital.” It means more manure, a greater amount of labor, a greater number of cattle, and larger crops. Picture a country in which you can say there is a deficiency of one half of all those blessings which ought to, and might, exist there, and then judge what the condition of laborers wanting employment and food is.
But you will say, capital would be invested if it could be done with profit. I admit it; that is the question I want you to inquire into. How is it that in a country where there is a plethora of capital, where every other business and pursuit is overflowing with money, where you have men going to France for railways and to Pennsylvania for bonds, embarking in schemes for connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by canals, railways in the valley of the Mississippi, and sending their money to the bottom of the Mexican mines; while you have a country rich and overflowing, ready to take investments in every corner of the globe; how is it, I say, that this capital does not find its employment in the most attractive of all forms—upon the soil of this country? The cause is notorious—it is admitted by your highest authorities; the reason is, there is not security for capital in land. Capital shrinks instinctively from insecurity of tenure; and you have not in England that security which would warrant men of capital investing their money in the soil.
Now, is it not a matter worthy of consideration, how far this insecurity of tenure is bound up with that protective system of which you are so enamoured? Suppose it can be shown that there is a vicious circle; that you have made politics of Corn Laws, and that you want voters to maintain them; that you very erroneously think that the Corn Laws are your great mine of wealth, and, therefore, you must have a dependent tenantry, that you may have their votes at elections to maintain this law in Parliament. Well, if you will have dependent voters, you cannot have men of spirit and capital. Then your policy reacts upon you. If you have not men of skill and capital, you cannot have improvements and employment for your laborers. Then comes round that vicious termination of the circle—you have pauperism, poor-rates, county-rates, and all the other evils of which you are now speaking and complaining.11 * * *
Now, sir, not only does the want of security prevent capital flowing into the farming business, but it actually deters from the improvement of the land those who are already in the occupation of it. There are many men, tenants of your land, who could improve their farms if they had a sufficient security, and they have either capital themselves or their friends could supply it; but with the absence of leases, and the want of security, you are actually deterring them from laying out their money on your land. They keep every thing the same from year to year. You know that it is impossible to farm your estates properly unless a tenant has an investment for more than one year. A man ought to be able to begin a farm with at least eight years before him, before he expects to see a return for the whole of the outlay of his money. You are, therefore, keeping your tenants-at-will at a yearly kind of cultivation, and you are preventing them carrying on their businesses in a proper way. Not only do you prevent the laying out of capital upon your land, and disable the farmers from cultivating it, but your policy tends to make them servile and dependent; so that they are actually disinclined to improvement, afraid to let you see that they can improve, because they are apprehensive that you will pounce upon them for an increase of rent. I see the honorable member for Lincolnshire opposite, and he rather smiled at the expression when I said that the state of dependence of the farmers was such that they were actually afraid to appear to be improving their land. Now that honorable gentleman, the member for Lincolnshire [Mr. Christopher], upon the motion made last year for agricultural statistics, by my honorable friend, the member for Manchester [Mr. Milner Gibson], made the following statement:
“It is most desirable for the farmer to know the actual quantity of corn grown in this country, as such knowledge would insure steadiness of prices, which was infinitely more valuable to the agriculturist than fluctuating prices. But to ascertain this there was extreme difficulty. They could not leave it to the farmer to make a return of the quantity which he produced, for it was not for his interest to do so. If in any one or two years he produced four quarters per acre on land which had previously grown but three, he might fear that his landlord would say: ‘Your land is more productive than I imagined, and I must therefore raise your rent.’ The interest of the farmers, therefore, would be to underrate, and to furnish low returns.”
Now, I ask honorable gentlemen here, the landed gentry of England, what a state of things is that when, upon their own testimony respecting the farming capitalists in this country, they dare not appear to have a good horse—they dare not appear to be growing more than four quarters instead of three? [Mr. Christopher: Hear!] The honorable member cheers, but I am quoting from his own authority. I say this condition of things, indicated by these two quotations, brings the tenant-farmers—if they are such as these gentlemen describe them to be,—it brings them down to a very low point of servility. In Egypt Mehemet Ali takes the utmost grain of corn from his people, who bury it beneath their hearthstones in their cottages, and will suffer the bastinado rather than tell how much corn they grow. Our tenants are not afraid of the bastinado, but they are terrified at the rise of rent. This is the state of things amongst the tenant-farmers, farming without leases.12 In England leases are the exception, and not the rule. But even where you have leases in England—where you have leases or agreements—I doubt whether they are not in many cases worse tenures than where there is no lease at all; the clauses being of such an obsolete and preposterous character as to defy any man to carry on the business of farming under them profitably.
Now, I do not know why we should not in this country have leases for land upon similar terms to the leases of manufactories, or any “plant” or premises. I do not think that farming will ever be carried on as it ought to be until you have leases drawn up in the same way as a man takes a manufactory, and pays perhaps a £1,000 a year for it. I know people who pay £4,000 a year for manufactories to carry on their business, and at fair rents. There is an honorable gentleman near me who pays more than £4,000 a year for the rent of his manufactory. What covenants do you think he has in his lease? What would he think if it stated how many revolutions there should be in a minute of the spindles, or if they prescribed the construction of the straps or the gearing of the machinery? Why, he takes his manufactory with a schedule of its present state—bricks, mortar, and machinery—and when the lease is over, he must leave it in the same state, or else pay a compensation for the dilapidation. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer: Hear! hear!] The right honorable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheers that statement. I want to ask his opinion respecting a similar lease for a farm. I am rather disposed to think that the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers will very likely form a joint-stock association, having none but free traders in the body, that we may purchase an estate and have a model farm; taking care that it shall be in one of the rural counties, one of the most purely agricultural parts of the country, where we think there is the greatest need of improvement—perhaps in Buckinghamshire,—and there shall be a model farm, homestead, and cottages; and I may tell the noble Lord, the member for Newark, that we shall have a model garden, and we will not make any boast about it. But the great object will be to have a model lease. We will have as the farmer a man of intelligence and capital.
I am not so unreasonable as to tell you that you ought to let your land to men who have not a competent capital, or are not sufficiently intelligent; but I say, select such a man as that, let him know his business and have a sufficient capital, and you cannot give him too wide a scope. We will find such a man, and will let him our farm; there shall be a lease precisely such as that upon which my honorable friend takes his factory. There shall be no clause inserted in it to dictate to him how he shall cultivate his farm; he shall do what he likes with the old pasture. If he can make more by ploughing it up he shall do so; if he can grow white crops every year—which I know there are people doing at this moment in more places than one in this country,—or if he can make any other improvement or discovery, he shall be free to do so. We will let him the land, with a schedule of the state of tillage and the condition of the homestead, and all we will bind him to will be this: “You shall leave the land as good as when you entered upon it. If it be in an inferior state it shall be valued again, and you shall compensate us; but if it be in an improved state it shall be valued, and we, the landlords, will compensate you.” We will give possession of every thing upon the land, whether it be wild or tame animals; he shall have the absolute control. Take as stringent precautions as you please to compel the punctual payment of the rent; take the right of re-entry as summarily as you like if the rent be not duly paid; but let the payment of rent duly be the sole test as to the well-doing of the tenant; and so long as he can pay the rent, and do it promptly, that is the only criterion you need have that the farmer is doing well; and if he is a man of capital, you have the strongest possible security that he will not waste your property while he has possession of it.
Now, sir, I have mentioned a deficiency of capital as being the primary want among farmers. I have stated the want of security in leases as the cause of the want of capital; but you may still say: “You have not connected this with the Corn Laws and the protective system.” I will read the opinion of an honorable gentleman who sits upon this side of the House; it is in a published letter of Mr. Hayter, who, I know, is himself an ardent supporter of agriculture. He says:
“The more I see of and practise agriculture, the more firmly am I convinced that the whole unemployed labor of the country could, under a better system of husbandry, be advantageously put into operation; and, moreover, that the Corn Laws have been one of the principal causes of the present system of bad farming and consequent pauperism. Nothing short of their entire removal will ever induce the average farmer to rely upon any thing else than the legislature for the payment of his rent; his belief being that all rent is paid by corn, and nothing else than corn, and that the legislature can, by enacting Corn Laws, create a price which will make his rent easy. The day of their [the Corn Laws’] entire abolition ought to be a day of jubilee and rejoicing to every man interested in land.”
Now, sir, I do not stop to connect the cause and effect in this matter, and inquire whether your Corn Laws or your protective system have caused the want of leases and capital. I do not stop to make good my proof, and for this reason, that you have adopted a system of legislation in this House by which you profess to make the farming trade prosperous. I show you, after thirty years’ trial, what is the depressed condition of the agriculturists; I prove to you what is the impoverished state of farmers, and also of laborers, and you will not contest any one of those propositions. I say it is enough, having had thirty years’ trial of your specific with no better results than these, for me to ask you to go into committee to see if something better cannot be devised. I am going to contend that free trade in grain would be more advantageous to farmers—and with them I include laborers—than restriction; to oblige the honorable member for Norfolk, I will take with them also the landlords; and I contend that free trade in corn and grain of every kind would be more beneficial to them than to any other class of the community. I should have contended the same before the passing of the late tariff, but now I am prepared to do so with tenfold more force. What has the right honorable baronet [Sir R. Peel] done? He has passed a law to admit fat cattle at a nominal duty. Some foreign fat cattle were selling in Smithfield the other day at about 15l. or 16l. per head, paying only about seven and one half per cent. duty; but he has not admitted the raw material out of which these fat cattle are made. Mr. Huskisson did not act in this manner when he commenced his plan of free trade.13 He began by admitting the raw material of manufactures before he admitted the manufactured article; but in your case you have commenced at precisely the opposite end, and have allowed free trade in cattle instead of that upon which they are fattened. I say give free trade in that grain which goes to make the cattle. I contend that by this protective system the farmers throughout the country are more injured than any other class in the community. I would take, for instance, the article of clover-seed. The honorable member for North Northamptonshire put a question the other night to the right honorable baronet at the head of the government. He looked so exceedingly alarmed that I wondered what the subject was which created the apprehension. He asked the right honorable baronet whether he was going to admit clover-seed into this country. I believe clover-seed is to be excluded from the schedule of free importation. Now, I ask for whose benefit is this exception made? I ask the honorable gentleman, the member for North Northamptonshire, whether those whom he represents, the farmers of that district of the county, are, in a large majority of instances, sellers of clover-seed? I will undertake to say they are not. How many counties in England are there which are benefited by the protection of clover-seed? I will take the whole of Scotland. If there be any Scotch members present, I ask them whether they do not in their country import the clover-seed from England? They do not grow it. I undertake to say that there are not ten counties in the United Kingdom which are interested in the importation of clover-seed out of their own borders. Neither have they any of this article in Ireland. But yet we have clover-seed excluded from the farmers, although they are not interested as a body in its protection at all.
Again, take the article of beans. There are lands in Essex where they can grow them alternate years with wheat. I find that beans come from that district to Mark Lane; and I believe also that in some parts of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire they do the same; but how is it with the poor lands of Surrey or the poor downland of Wiltshire? Take the whole of the counties. How many of them are there which are exporters of beans, or send them to market? You are taxing the whole of the farmers who do not sell their beans, for the pretended benefit of a few counties or districts of counties where they do. Mark you, where they can grow beans on the stronger and better soils, it is not in one case out of ten that they grow them for the market. They may grow them for their own use; but where they do not cultivate beans, send them to market, and turn them into money, those farmers can have no interest whatever in keeping up the money price of that which they never sell.
Take the article of oats. How many farmers are there who ever have oats down on the credit side of their books, as an item upon which they rely for the payment of their rents? The farmers may, and generally do, grow oats for feeding their own horses; but it is an exception to the rule—and a rare exception too—where the farmer depends upon the sale of his oats to meet his expenses. Take the article of hops. You have a protection upon them for the benefit of the growers in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; but yet the cultivators of hops are taxed for the protection of others in articles which they do not themselves produce. Take the article of cheese. Not one farmer in ten in the whole country makes his own cheese, and yet they and their servants are large consumers of it. But what are the counties which have the protection in this article? Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, part of Derbyshire, and Leicestershire. Here are some four or five dairy counties having an interest in the protection of cheese; but recollect that those counties are peculiarly hardly taxed in beans and oats, because in those counties where they are chiefly dairy farms, they are most in want of artificial food for their cattle. There are the whole of the hilly districts; and I hope my friend, the member for Nottingham [Mr. Gisborne], is here, because he has a special grievance in this matter. He lives in Derbyshire, and very commendably employs himself in rearing good cattle upon the hills: but he is taxed for your protection for his beans, peas, oats, Indian corn, and every thing which he wants for feeding them. He told me, only the other day, that he should like nothing better than to give up the little remnant of protection on cattle, if you would only let him buy a thousand quarters of black oats for the consumption of his stock. Take the whole of the hilly districts, and the down country of Wiltshire; the whole of that expanse of downs in the south of England; take the Cheviots, where the flock-masters reside; the Grampians in Scotland; and take the whole of Wales, they are not benefited in the slightest degree by the protection on these articles; but, on the contrary, you are taxing the very things they want. They require provender as abundantly and cheaply as they can get it. Allowing a free importation of food for cattle is the only way in which those counties can improve the breed of their lean stocks, and the only manner in which they can ever bring their land up to any thing like a proper state of fertility.
I will go further and say, that farmers with thin soil,—I mean the stock farmers, whom you will find in Hertfordshire and Surrey, farmers with large capitals, arable farmers,—I say those men are deeply interested in having a free importation of food for their cattle, because they have thin, poor land. This land of its own self does not contain the means of its increased fertility; and the only way is the bringing in of an additional quantity of food from elsewhere, that they can bring up their farms to a proper state of cultivation. I have been favored with an estimate made by a very experienced, clever farmer in Wiltshire—probably honorable gentlemen will bear me out, when I say a man of great intelligence and skill, and entitled to every consideration in this House. I refer to Mr. Nathaniel Atherton, Kingston, Wilts. That gentleman estimates that upon 400 acres of land he could increase his profits to the amount of 280l., paying the same rent as at present, provided there was a free importation of foreign grain of all kinds. He would buy 500 quarters of oats at 15s., or the same amount in beans or peas at 14s. or 15s. a sack, to be fed on the land or in the yard; by which he would grow additional 160 quarters of wheat, and 230 quarters of barley, and gain an increased profit of 300l. upon his sheep and cattle. His plan embraces the employment of an additional capital of 1,000l.; and he would pay 150l. a year more for labor. I had an opportunity, the other day, of speaking to a very intelligent farmer in Hertfordshire, Mr. Lattimore, of Wheathampstead. Very likely there are honorable members here to whom he is known. I do not know whether the noble Lord, the member for Hertfordshire is present; if so, he will, no doubt, know that Mr. Lattimore stands as high in Hertford market as a skilful farmer and a man of abundant capital as any in the county. He is a gentleman of most unquestionable intelligence; and what does he say? He told me that last year he paid 230l. enhanced price on his beans and other provender which he bought for his cattle:—230l. enhanced price in consequence of that restriction upon the trade in foreign grain, amounting to 14s. a quarter on all the wheat he sold off his farm.
Now, I undertake to say, in the name of Mr. Atherton, of Wiltshire, and Mr. Lattimore, of Hertfordshire, that they are as decided advocates for free trade in grain of every kind as I am. I am not now quoting merely solitary cases. I told honorable gentlemen once before that I have probably as large an acquaintance among farmers as any one in the House. I think I could give you from every county the names of some of the first-rate farmers who are as ardent free-traders as I am. I requested the Secretary of this much dreaded Anti-Corn-Law League to make me out a list of the farmers who are subscribers to that association, and I find there are upward of one hundred in England and Scotland who subscribe to the league fund, comprising, I hesitate not to say, the most intelligent men to be found in the kingdom. I went into the Lothians, at the invitation of twenty-two farmers there, several of whom were paying upward of 1,000l. a year rent. I spent two or three days among them, and I never found a body of more intelligent, liberal-minded men in my life. Those are men who do not want restrictions upon the importation of grain. They desire nothing but fair play. They say: “Let us have our Indian corn, Egyptian beans, and Polish oats as freely as we have our linseed cake, and we can bear competition with any corn-growers in the world.” But by excluding the provender for cattle, and at the same time admitting the cattle almost duty free, I think you are giving an example of one of the greatest absurdities and perversions of nature and common-sense that ever was seen.
We have heard of great absurdities in legislation in commercial matters of late. We know that there has been such a case as sending coffee from Cuba to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to bring it back to England under the law; but I venture to say, that in less than ten years from this time, people will look back with more amazement in their minds, at the fact that, while you are sending ships to Ichaboe to bring back the guano, you are passing a law to exclude Indian corn, beans, oats, peas, and every thing else that gives nourishment to your cattle, which would give you a thousand times more productive manure than all the guano of Ichaboe.
Upon the last occasion when I spoke upon this subject, I was answered by the right honorable gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade. He talked about throwing poor lands out of cultivation, and converting arable lands into pasture. I hope that we men of the Anti-Corn-Law League may not be reproached again with seeking to cause any such disasters. My belief is—and the conviction is founded upon a most extensive inquiry among the most intelligent farmers, without stint of trouble and pains,—that the course you are pursuing tends every hour to throw land out of cultivation, and make poor lands unproductive. Do not let us be told again that we desire to draw the laborers from the land, in order that we may reduce the wages of the work-people employed in factories.14 I tell you that, if you bestow capital on the soil, and cultivate it with the same skill as manufacturers bestow upon their business, you have not population enough in the rural districts for the purpose. I yesterday received a letter from Lord Ducie, in which he gives precisely the same opinion. He says: “If we had the land properly cultivated, there are not sufficient laborers to till it.” You are chasing your laborers from village to village, passing laws to compel people to support paupers, devising every means to smuggle them abroad—to the antipodes, if you can get them there; why, you would have to run after them, and bring them back again, if you had your land properly cultivated. I tell you honestly my conviction, that it is by these means, and these only, that you can avert very great and serious troubles and disasters in your agricultural districts.
Sir, I remember, on the last occasion when this subject was discussed, there was a great deal said about disturbing an interest.15 It was said this inquiry could not be gone into, because we were disturbing and unsettling a great interest. I have no desire to undervalue the agricultural interest. I have heard it said that they are the greatest consumers of manufactured goods in this country; that they are such large consumers of our goods that we had better look after the home trade, and not think of destroying it. But what sort of consumers of manufactures think you the laborers can be, with the wages they are now getting in agricultural districts? Understand me; I am arguing for a principle that I solemnly believe would raise the wages of the laborers in the agricultural districts. I believe you would have no men starving upon 7s. a week, if you had abundant capital and competent skill employed upon the soil; but I ask what is this consumption of manufactured goods that we have heard so much about? I have taken some pains, and made large inquiries as to the amount laid out in the average of cases by agricultural laborers and their families for clothing; I probably may startle you by telling you that we have exported in one year more of our manufactures to Brazil than have been consumed in a similar period by the whole of your agricultural peasantry and their families. You have 960,000 agricultural laborers in England and Wales, according to the last census; I undertake to say they do not expend on an average 30s. a year on their families, supposing every one of them to be in employ. I speak of manufactured goods, excluding shoes. I assert that the whole of the agricultural peasantry and their families in England and Wales do not spend a million and a half per annum for manufactured goods, in clothing and bedding. And, with regard to your excisable and duty-paying articles, what can the poor wretch lay out upon them, who out of 8s. or 9s. a week has a wife and family to support? I undertake to prove to your satisfaction—and you may do it yourselves if you will but dare to look the figures in the face,—I will undertake to prove to you that they do not pay, upon an average, each family, 15s. per annum; that the whole of their contributions to the revenue do not amount to 700,000l. Now, is not this a mighty interest to be disturbed? I would keep that interest as justly as though it were one of the most important; but I say, when you have by your present system brought down your agricultural peasantry to that state, have you any thing to offer for bettering their condition, or at all events to justify resisting an inquiry?
On the last occasion when I addressed the House on this subject, I recollect stating some facts to show that you had no reasonable ground to fear foreign competition; those facts I do not intend to reiterate, because they have never been contradicted. But there are still attempts made to frighten people by telling them: “If you open the ports to foreign corn, you will have corn let in here for nothing.” One of the favorite fallacies which are now put forth is this: “Look at the price of corn in England, and see what it is abroad; you have prices low here, and yet you have corn coming in from abroad and paying the maximum duty. Now, if you had not 20s. duty to pay, what a quantity of corn you would have brought in, and how low the price would be!” This statement arises from a fallacy—I hope not dishonestly put forth—in not understanding the difference between the real and the nominal price of corn. The price of corn at Dantzic now, when there is no regular sale, is nominal; the price of corn when it is coming in regularly is the real price. Now, go back to 1838. In January of that year the price of wheat at Dantzic was nominal; there was no demand for England; there were no purchasers except for speculation, with the chance, probably, of having to throw the wheat into the sea; but in the months of July and August of that year, when apprehensions arose of a failure of our harvest, then the price of corn in Dantzic rose instantly, sympathizing with the markets of England; and at the end of the year, in December, the price of wheat at Dantzic had doubled the amount at which it had been in January; and during the three following years, when you had a regular importation of corn,—during all that time, by the averages laid upon the table of this House, wheat at Dantzic averaged 40s. Wheat at Dantzic was at that price during the three years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Now, I mention this just to show the fact to honorable gentlemen, and to entreat them that they will not go and alarm their tenantry by this outcry of the danger of foreign competition. You ought to be pursuing a directly opposite course—you ought to be trying to stimulate them in every possible way, by showing that they can compete with foreigners; that what others can do in Poland, they can do in England.
I have an illustration of this subject in the case of a society of which the honorable member for Suffolk is chairman. We have lately seen a new light spreading amongst agricultural gentlemen. We are told the salvation of this country is to arise from the cultivation of flax. There is a National Flax Society, of which Lord Rendlesham is the president. This Flax Society state in their prospectus, a copy of which I have here, purporting to be the First Annual Report of the National Flax Agricultural Improvement Association,—after talking of the ministers holding out no hope from legislation, the report goes on to state that upon these grounds the National Flax Society call upon the nation for its support, on the ground that they are going to remedy the distress of the country. The founder of this society is Mr. Warnes of Norfolk. I observe Mr. Warnes paid a visit to Sussex, and he attended an agricultural meeting at which the honorable baronet, the member for Shoreham [Sir Charles Burrell], presided. After the usual loyal toasts, the honorable baronet proposed the toast of the evening: “Mr. Warnes and the cultivation of flax.” The honorable baronet was not aware, I dare say, that he was then furnishing a most deadly weapon to the lecturers of the Anti-Corn-Law League. We are told you cannot compete with foreigners unless you have a high protective duty. You have a high protective duty on wheat, amounting at this moment to 20s. a quarter. A quarter of wheat at the present time is just worth the same as one cwt. of flax. On a quarter of wheat you have a protective duty against the Pole and Russian of 20s.; upon the one cwt. of flax you have a protective duty of 1d. And I did not hear a murmur from honorable gentlemen opposite when the Prime-Minister proposed to take off that protective duty of 1d. totally and immediately.
But we are told that English agriculturists cannot compete with foreigners, and especially with that serf labor that is to be found somewhere up the Baltic. Well, but flax comes from the Baltic and there is no protective duty. Honorable gentlemen say we have no objection to raw materials where there is no labor connected with them; but we cannot contend against foreigners in wheat, because there is such an amount of labor in it. Why, there is twice as much labor in flax as there is in wheat; but the member for Shoreham favors the growth of flax in order to restore the country, which is sinking into this abject and hopeless state for want of agricultural protection. But the honorable baronet will forgive me—I am sure he will, he looks as if he would—if I allude a little to the subject of leases. The honorable gentleman on that occasion, I believe, complained that it was a great pity that farmers did not grow more flax. I do not know whether it was true or not that the same honorable baronet’s leases to his own tenants forbade them to grow that article.
Now, it is quite as possible that the right honorable baronet does not exactly know what covenants or clauses there are in his leases. But I know that it is a very common case to preclude the growth of flax; and it just shows the kind of management by which the landed proprietors have carried on their affairs, that actually, I believe, the original source of the error that flax was very pernicious to the ground was derived from Virgil; I believe there is a passage in the Georgics to that effect.15a From that classic authority, no doubt, some learned lawyer put this clause into the lease, and there it has remained ever since.
Now, I have alluded to the condition of the laborers at the present time; but I am bound to say that while the farmers at the present moment are in a worse condition than they have been for the last ten years, I believe the agricultural laborers have passed over the winter with less suffering and distress, although it has been a five-months’ winter, and a severer one, too, than they endured in the previous year. [Hear!] I am glad to find that corroborated by honorable gentlemen opposite, because it bears out, in a remarkable degree, the opinion that we, who are in connection with the free-trade question, entertain. We maintain that a low price of food is beneficial to the laboring classes. We assert, and we can prove it, at least in the manufacturing districts, that whenever provisions are dear wages are low, and whenever food is cheap wages invariably rise. We have had a strike in almost every business in Lancashire since the price of wheat has been down to something like 50s.; and I am glad to be corroborated when I state that the agricultural laborers have been in a better condition during the last winter than they were in the previous one. But does not that show that, even in your case, though your laborers have in a general way only just as much as will find them a subsistence, they are benefited by a great abundance of the first necessaries of life? Although their wages may rise and fall with the price of food,—although they may go up with the advance in the price of corn, and fall when it is lowered,—still, I maintain that it does not rise in the same proportion as the price of food rises, nor fall to the extent to which food falls. Therefore in all cases the agricultural laborers are in a better state when food is low than when it is high. I have a very curious proof that high-priced food leads to pauperism in the agricultural districts, which I will read to you. It is a laborer’s certificate seen at Stowupland, in Suffolk, in July, 1844, which was placed upon the mantel-piece of a peasant’s cottage there:
“West Suffolk Agricultural Association, established in 1833 for the advancement of agriculture and the encouragement of industry and skill and good conduct among laborers and servants in husbandry, President—the Duke of Grafton, Lord-Lieutenant of the county: This is to certify that a prize of 2l. was awarded to William Burch, aged 82, laborer of the parish of Stowupland, in West Suffolk, September 25, 1840, for having brought up nine children without relief, except when flour was very dear; and for having worked on the same farm twenty-eight years. (Signed) Rt. Rushbrooke, Chairman.”
Now I need not press that point. It is admitted by honorable gentlemen opposite—and I am glad it is so—that after a very severe winter, in the midst of great distress among farmers, when there have been a great many able-bodied men wanting employment, still there have been fewer in the streets and work-houses than there had been in the previous year; and I hope we shall not again be told by honorable gentlemen opposite that cheap bread is injurious to the laborers.
But the condition of the agricultural laborer is a bad case at the very best. You can look before you, and you have to foresee the means of giving employment to those men. I need not tell you that the late census shows that you cannot employ your own increasing population in the agricultural districts. But you say the farmer should employ them. Now, I am bound to say that, whatever may be the condition of the agricultural laborer, I hold that the farmer is not responsible for that condition while he is placed in the situation in which he now is by the present system. I have seen during the last autumn and winter a great many exhortations made to the farmers, that they should employ more laborers. I think that is very unfair towards the farmer; I believe he is the man who is suffering most; he stands between you and your impoverished, suffering peasantry; and it is rather too bad to point to the farmer as the man who should relieve them. I have an extract from Lord Hardwick’s address to the laborers of Haddenham. He says:
“Conciliate your employers, and if they do not perform their duty to you and themselves, address yourselves to the landlords, and I assure you that you will find us ready to urge our own tenants to the proper cultivation of their farms, and, consequently, to the just employment of the laborer.”
Now, I hold that this duty begins nearer home, and that the landed proprietors are the parties who are responsible if the laborers have not employment. You have absolute power; there is no doubt about that. You can, if you please, legislate for the laborers, or yourselves. Whatever you may have done besides, your legislation has been adverse to the laborer, and you have no right to call upon the farmers to remedy the evils which you have caused. Will not this evil—if evil you call it—press on you more and more every year? What can you do to remedy the mischief? I only appear here now because you have proposed nothing. We all know your system of allotments, and we are all aware of its failure. What other remedy have you? for, mark you, that is worse than a plaything, if you were allowed to carry out your own views. [Hear!] Aye, it is well enough for some of you that there are wiser heads than your own to lead you, or you would be conducting yourselves into precisely the same condition in which they are in Ireland, but with this difference—this increased difficulty,—that there they do manage to maintain the rights of property by the aid of the English Exchequer and 20,000 bayonets; but divide your own country into small allotments, and where would be the rights of property? What do you propose to do now? That is the question. Nothing has been brought forward this year, which I have heard, having for its object to benefit the great mass of the English population; nothing I have heard suggested which has at all tended to alleviate their condition.
You admit that the farmer’s capital is sinking from under him, and that he is in a worse state than ever. Have you distinctly provided some plan to give confidence to the farmer, to cause an influx of capital to be expended upon his land, and so bring increased employment to the laborer? How is this to be met? I cannot believe you are going to make this a political game. You must set up some specific object to benefit the agricultural interest. It is well said that the last election was an agricultural triumph. There are two hundred county members sitting behind the Prime-Minister who prove that it was so. What, then, is your plan for this distressing state of things? That is what I want to ask you. Do not, as you have done before, quarrel with me because I have imperfectly stated my case; I have done my best; and I again ask you what you have to propose? I tell you that this “Protection,” as it has been called, is a failure. It was so when you had the prohibition up to 80s. You know the state of your farming tenantry in 1821. It was a failure when you had a protection price of 60s.; for you know what was the condition of your farm tenantry in 1835. It is a failure now with your last amendment, for you have admitted and proclaimed it to us; and what is the condition of your agricultural population at this time? I ask, what is your plan? I hope it is not a pretence; a mere political game that has been played throughout the last election, and that you have not all come up here as mere politicians. There are politicians in the House; men who look with an ambition—probably a justifiable one—to the honors of office. There may be men who—with thirty years of continuous service, having been pressed into a groove from which they can neither escape nor retreat—may be holding office, high office, maintained there, probably, at the expense of their present convictions which do not harmonize very well with their early opinions. I make allowances for them; but the great body of the honorable gentlemen opposite came up to this House, not as politicians, but as the farmers’ friends, and protectors of the agricultural interests. Well, what do you propose to do? You have heard the Prime-Minister declare that, if he could restore all the protection which you have had, that protection would not benefit agriculturists. Is that your belief? If so, why not proclaim it? and if it is not your conviction, you will have falsified your mission in this House, by following the right honorable baronet out into the lobby, and opposing inquiry into the condition of the very men who sent you here.16
With mere politicians I have no right to expect to succeed in this motion. But I have no hesitation in telling you, that, if you give me a committee of this House, I will explode the delusion of agricultural protection! I will bring forward such a mass of evidence, and give you such a preponderance of talent and of authority, that when the Blue-Book is published and sent forth to the world, as we can now send it, by our vehicles of information, your system of protection shall not live in public opinion for two years afterward.17 Politicians do not want that. This cry of protection has been a very convenient handle for politicians. The cry of protection carried the counties at the last election, and politicians gained honors, emoluments, and place by it. But is that old tattered flag of protection, tarnished and torn as it is already, to be kept hoisted still in the counties for the benefit of politicians; or will you come forward honestly and fairly to inquire into this question? I cannot believe that the gentry of England will be made mere drum-heads to be sounded upon by a Prime-Minister to give forth unmeaning and empty sounds, and to have no articulate voice of their own. No! You are the gentry of England who represent the counties. You are the aristocracy of England. Your fathers led our fathers; you may lead us if you will go the right way. But, although you have retained your influence with this country longer than any other aristocracy, it has not been by opposing popular opinion, or by setting yourselves against the spirit of the age.
In other days, when the battle and the hunting-fields were the tests of manly vigor, your fathers were first and foremost there. The aristocracy of England were not like the noblesse of France, the mere minions of a court; nor were they like the hidalgos of Madrid, who dwindled into pigmies. You have been Englishmen. You have not shown a want of courage and firmness when any call has been made upon you. This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age. The English people look to the gentry and aristocracy of their country as their leaders. I, who am not one of you, have no hesitation in telling you that there is a deep-rooted, an hereditary prejudice, if I may so call it, in your favor in this country. But you never got it, and you will not keep it, by obstructing the spirit of the age. If you are indifferent to enlightened means of finding employment to your own peasantry; if you are found obstructing that advance which is calculated to knit nations more together in the bonds of peace by means of commercial intercourse; if you are found fighting against the discoveries which have almost given breath and life to material nature, and setting up yourselves as obstructives of that which destiny has decreed shall go on,—why, then, you will be the gentry of England no longer, and others will be found to take your place.
And I have no hesitation in saying that you stand just now in a very critical position. There is a wide-spread suspicion that you have been tampering with the best feelings and with the honest confidence of your constituents in this cause. Everywhere you are doubted and suspected. Read your own organs, and you will see that this is the case. Well, then, this is the time to show that you are not the mere party politicians which you are said to be. I have said that we shall be opposed in this measure by politicians; they do not want inquiry. But I ask you to go into this committee with me. I will give you a majority of county members. You shall have a majority of the Central Society in that committee. I ask you only to go into a fair inquiry as to the causes of the distress of your own population. I only ask that this matter may be fairly examined. Whether you establish my principle or yours, good will come out of the inquiry; and I do, therefore, beg and entreat the honorable independent country gentlemen of this House that they will not refuse, on this occasion, to go into a fair, a full, and an impartial inquiry.
