The present state of the country in regard to its supply of food cannot
be viewed without apprehension. Forethought and bold precaution may
avert any serious evils—indecision and procrastination may produce a
state of suffering which it is frightful to contemplate.
Three weeks ago it was generally expected that Parliament would be
immediately called together. The announcement that Ministers were
prepared at that time to advise the Crown to summon Parliament, and to
propose on their first meeting a suspension of the import duties on
corn, would have caused orders at once to be sent to various parts of
Europe and America for the purchase and transmission of grain for the
consumption of the United Kingdom. An Order in Council dispensing with
the law was neither necessary nor desirable. No party in Parliament
would have made itself responsible for the destruction of a measure so
urgent and so beneficial.
The Queen’s Ministers have met and separated without affording us any
promise of such seasonable relief.
It becomes us, therefore, the Queen’s subjects, to consider how we
can best avert, or at all events mitigate, calamities of no ordinary
magnitude.
Two evils require your consideration. One of these is the disease in
the potatoes, affecting very seriously parts of England and Scotland,
and committing fearful ravages in Ireland.
The extent of this evil has not yet been ascertained, and every week,
indeed, tends either to reveal unexpected disease, or to abate in
some districts the alarm previously entertained. But there is one
misfortune peculiar to the failure in this particular crop. The effect
of a bad corn-harvest is, in the first place, to diminish the supply
in the market and to raise the price—hence diminished consumption,
and the privation of incipient scarcity, by which the whole stock is
more equally distributed over the year, and the ultimate pressure is
greatly mitigated; but the fear of the breaking out of this unknown
disease in the potatoes induces the holders to hurry into the market,
and thus we have at one and the same time rapid consumption and
impending deficiency—scarcity of the article and cheapness of price.
The ultimate suffering must thereby be rendered far more severe than
it otherwise would be. The evil to which I have adverted may be owing
to an adverse season, to a mysterious disease in the potato, to want
of science or of care in propagating the plant. In any of these cases,
Government is no more subject to blame for the failure of the potato
crop than it was entitled to credit for the plentiful corn-harvests
which we have lately enjoyed.
Another evil, however, under which we are suffering, is the fruit of
Ministerial counsel and Parliamentary law. It is the direct consequence
of an Act of Parliament passed three years ago, on the recommendation
of the present advisers of the Crown. By this law, grain of all kinds
has been made subject to very high duties on importation. These duties
are so contrived that the worse the quality of the corn, the higher is
the duty; so that when good wheat rises to 70s. a quarter, the average
price of all wheat is 57s. or 58s. and the duty 15s. or 14s. a quarter.
Thus the corn barometer points to fair, while the ship is bending under
a storm.
This defect was pointed out many years ago by writers on the Corn Laws,
and was urged upon the attention of the House of Commons when the
present Act was under consideration.
But I confess that on the general subject, my views have in the course
of twenty years undergone a great alteration. I used to be of opinion
that corn was an exception to the general rules of political economy;
but observation and experience have convinced me that we ought to
abstain from all interference with the supply of food. Neither a
Government nor a Legislature can ever regulate the corn market with the
beneficial effects which the entire freedom of sale and purchase are
sure of themselves to produce....
Let us, then, unite to put an end to a system which has been proved
to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of
bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality
and crime among the people.
But if this end is to be achieved, it must be gained by the unequivocal
expression of the public voice. It is not to be denied that many
elections for cities and towns in 1841, and some in 1845, appear to
favour the assertion that free-trade is not popular with the great
mass of the community. The Government appear to be waiting for some
excuse to give up the present Corn Law. Let the people by petition,
by address, by remonstrance, afford them the excuse they seek. Let
the Ministry propose such a revision of the taxes as in their opinion
may render the public burdens more just and more equal; let them add
any other provisions which caution and even scrupulous forbearance
may suggest; but let the removal of restrictions on the admission of
the main articles of food and clothing used by the mass of the people
be required, in plain terms, as useful to all great interests, and
indispensable to the progress of the nation.
J. RUSSELL.
EDINBURGH,
_November 22, 1845._