forward to recognise a failure, where he confidently anticipated a
triumph. We believe him to have been, far more than Sir Robert Peel,
the dupe of those random assertions and presumptuous calculations
which were thrust forward by men utterly unfit, from their previous
habits and education, to pronounce an opinion upon subjects of such
magnitude and intricacy. We should not be surprised if, even now,
his Lordship had some lingering kind of faith in the prophecies of
the member for Westbury. Men are slow to believe that the ground
is crumbling from below their feet; that the political scaffolding
which they assisted to rear has been pitched in a marshy quagmire.
Self love, and that kind of pride which is so nearly allied to
conceit that it often assumes the form of obstinacy, stand woefully
in the way of recantation; and moreover in the present instance
to recant is equivalent to resign. We remember well the profound
and sagacious remark of Sir Walter Scott, that "the miscarriage
of his experiment no more converts the political speculator, than
the explosion of a retort undeceives an alchymist." Lord John
Russell in all probability is not yet prepared, from conviction,
to revise his opinions on a question in which he is so deeply
committed. He has a majority in the House of Commons, and, according
to the forms of the constitution, so long as he can command that
majority, he is entitled to persevere. It is well that our friends,
whatever pressing cause they may have for their impatience, should
remember these things; and not be too forward in pressing wholesale
accusations, either against a Parliament chosen under such peculiar
circumstances, or a Minister who is simply adhering to the course
long since avowed by himself, and acted on by his immediate
predecessor. We may regret, and many of us do unquestionably most
bitterly feel, the anomalous position in which we are placed. A
more cruel, a more galling thought can hardly be imagined than the
conviction which is very general abroad, and which is also ours,
that the present Parliament does not represent the feelings or the
desires of the people; that it is not consulting their welfare or
protecting their interests; and that the duration of that Parliament
alone prevents a vigorous and successful effort in the cause of
British industry. Yet still, while we feel all this, let us not
be unjust to others. We cannot coerce opinion. We cannot force
honourable members at once to retrace their steps, or to give the
lie to their acknowledged pledges. We cannot complain of open wrong
if Ministers decline to accept our voices, in lieu of the voices
of those whom we formerly sent as representatives. Their answer
and vindication lies in the fact of their Parliamentary majority.
Why Parliament should thus be placed in direct antagonism to the
country, is a very different question. We need not go far in search
of the reason. It is the direct consequence of that policy which Sir
Robert Peel thought fit to adopt, not with regard to the abstract
measures of Free Trade, but for the carrying of these measures
into effect, without an appeal to the country, and by means which
proved how closely deceit is allied to tyranny. Upon his head,
if not the whole, at least the primary responsibility rests. He
has accepted it, and let it abide with him. And let no man affirm
that, in saying this, we are prolonging any rancorous feeling, or
seeking to rub a sore which by this time should be wellnigh healed.
The time for indignation and anger, if injury coupled with perfidy
can ever provoke such sentiments, is not yet past; it is now in
its fullest force. Had Sir Robert Peel acted as he ought to have
done--had he played the part of a British statesman, sincerely
desirous that in a matter of such magnitude the will of the country
should be respected--the present Parliament, whatever might have
been its decision as to Free Trade or Protection, would at least
have represented the wishes of the electoral body; and if subsequent
events had shown that these wishes were more sanguine than wise, the
error would have been a national one, and no weight of individual
responsibility would have been incurred. As it is, we are not only
justified, but we are performing our duty, in indicating the real
and sole originator of our present difficulties; and without wishing
in any degree to trench upon his secret sources of consolation,
we can hardly imagine that he will derive much comfort from the
knowledge, that his tortuous policy has deprived the people in the
hour of need of their best constitutional privilege and shield--the
sympathy and co-operation of that House which is emphatically their
own, and which, to the great detriment of the state, must lose its
moral power the moment that it ceases to represent the will, and to
protect the interests of the Commons.
We are well aware that such reflections as these can bring but sorry
comfort to the farmers. Their situation is one of unparalleled
hardship, unrelieved by any consideration which can make the case of
other sufferers more tolerable. We fully admit the vast extent of
the powers which, since the Great Revolution, are held to be vested
in Parliaments. We cannot gainsay the doctrine that these powers
may, on occasion, be exerted to the uttermost; but we say, after
the most careful and thoughtful deliberation, that the proceedings
of the legislature with regard to the farmers of Great Britain are
irreconcilable with the principles of justice, with the sacred
laws of morality, which no legislative resolutions can abrogate
or annul. The farmers are entitled to maintain that, in so far as
regards them, the public faith has been broken. Such of them as
hold leases had a distinct and unqualified guarantee given to them
by the protective laws; and the allegation that the substitution
of the sliding-scale for a fixed duty acted as a release for all
former Parliamentary engagements, is a quibble so mean and wretched
that the basest attorney would be ashamed to use it as a plea. The
whole of the farmers' fixed and floating capital, estimated at
the enormous sum of five hundred millions sterling, has been laid
out on the faith of Protection; and yet when that Protection was
furtively and treacherously withdrawn, no measure was introduced for
the purpose of relieving them from engagements contracted under the
older system, which were obviously incompatible with the lowered
prices established by the formidable change. The public, we are
afraid, are not aware of the extent of that depreciation which is
still going on, _and which already exceeds the whole annual value
of the manufacturing productions of Great Britain_. We borrow the
following table from a late pamphlet by Mr Macqueen entitled,
"Statistics of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, drawn up
from Official and Authentic Documents;" and having tested it by
every means in our power, we have no hesitation in adopting it. It
is, in truth, a fearful commentary on the rashness and folly of our
rulers.
COMPARATIVE VALUES OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE.
Protective Depreciation. Value 1850.
value.
Grains, potatoes, &c., £237,543,750 £80,764,875 £156,778,875
Straw, 100,700,000 30,210,000 70,490,000
Green crops, pasture, &c., 222,404,786 66,721,435 155,683,351
Sundries, 8,500,000 2,125,000 6,375,000
Wool, British, 15,400,000 1,540,000 13,860,000
------------ ------------ ------------
£584,518,536 £181,361,310 £403,187,226
But this is not all. We have still to deal with the depreciation or
diminished value of the farmers' fixed capital, invested in live
stock, &c., which at the rate of 25 per cent, (a most moderate
calculation, and below the mark in so far as Scotland is concerned,)
shows a loss on £504,833,730 of £126,208,432 _additional_!
We put forward the case of the farmers thus prominently, because,
in addition to the great public wrong which has been done to them,
they have serious reason to complain of the general apathy of the
landlords. We do not allude to the part which the landowners took in
1846. We believe that the majority of them were sincerely disgusted
by the conduct of the men who had climbed into office on their
shoulders; and that they loathed and despised in their hearts the
treachery of which they were made the tools. We know, moreover, that
a great many of them abstained from taking part in the election of
1847, not being able to see their way through the political chaos
in which we were then involved, and having, naturally enough, lost
confidence in the probity of public men, and despairing of the
remodelment of a strong constitutional party. Such things were,
perhaps, inevitable; and it may be argued with much show of reason,
that no better line of conduct was open to the landlords, and that
they did wisely in reserving themselves for a more favourable
opportunity, when experience, that stern and unfailing monitor,
should have exposed to the Free-traders the falsity of their wild
expectations. But it is impossible for them now to plead that the
opportunity has not arrived. The experiment has been made, and has
failed--failed utterly and entirely, if the practical refutation of
the views advanced by all its leading advocates is to be considered
as equivalent to failure. The current of reaction has set in
strong and steady, not only in the counties, but in the towns; not
only among those who, from their position, must be the earliest
sufferers, but among those who are connected with the trade and
general commerce of Britain. The disorganised party has rallied
and is reformed under leaders of great talent, tried skill, and
most assured loyalty and honour. How is it that, in this posture
of affairs, any considerable section of the landlords is still
hanging back? Why is it that they do not place themselves, as is
their duty, at the head of their tenantry, and enforce and encourage
those appeals to public justice, and to public policy, which are
now making themselves heard in every quarter of the kingdom? We
confess that we are at a loss to know why any apathy should be
shown. The conduct of the tenantry towards the landlords has been
generous and considerate in the extreme. They were invited, in no
equivocal terms, to join their cause with that of the Free-traders
and financial reformers; and they were promised, in that event,
the cordial assistance of the latter towards the adjustment of
their rents, and the equalisation of their public burdens. We
venture not an opinion whether such promise was ever intended to
be kept. Still it was made; and no effort was left untried to
convince the farmers that their cause was separate and apart from
that of the owners of the land. Their refusal to enter into that
unholy alliance was most honourable to the body of the tenantry,
and entitles them, at the hands of the proprietors, to look not
only for consideration and sympathy, but for the most active and
energetic support. Very ill indeed shall we augur of the spirit and
patriotism of the gentlemen of England, if they longer abstain from
identifying themselves universally with a movement which is not
only a national one, in the strictest sense of the word, but upon
which depends the maintenance of their own interests and order.
Surely they cannot have been so dull or so deaf to what is passing
around them, as not to be aware that they were especially marked out
as the victims of the Manchester confederacy! These are not times
in which any man can afford to be apathetic, nor will any trivial
excuse for languor or indifference be accepted. Exalted position,
high character, the reputation for princely generosity, and the
best of private reputations, will be no apology for inactivity in a
crisis so momentous as this. Organisation, union, and energy are at
all times the chief means for insuring success; and we trust that,
henceforward, there may be less timidity shown by those who ought
to take the foremost rank in a contest of such importance, and who
cannot abstain longer from doing so without forfeiting their claim
to that regard which has hitherto been readily accorded them.
It will be observed that, as yet, we have put the case for
Protection upon very narrow grounds. We have shown that, so far
as the agricultural body is concerned, Free Trade has proved most
injurious, and that it cannot be persisted in without bringing
downright ruin to that section of the community. If we had nothing
more to advance than this, still we should be entitled to maintain
that enough has been adduced to show the necessity of retracing
our steps. The annihilation of such an important body as the
agriculturists of Britain, implies of itself a revolution as great
as ever was effected in the world; and to that, assuredly, if the
agriculturists stood alone, they would not tamely submit. When Mr
Cobden or his satellites addressed the people of Manchester, through
their League circulars, to the following effect, "If the Americans
will only put down their monopolising manufacturers, and we put down
our monopolising landowners here, when our election time comes, we
will lay the Mississippi valley alongside of Manchester, and we
will have a glorious trade then!"--and again, "Our doctrine is, let
the working man ply his hammer, or his spindle, or his shuttle, and
let the Kentucky or the Illinois farmer, by driving his plough in
the richest land on the surface of the earth, feed this mechanic
or this weaver, and let him send home his produce in exchange for
the products of our operatives and artisans"--they seem to have
forgotten the temper and mould of the men with whom they proposed
to deal so summarily. It is not quite so easy to expatriate three
millions of able-bodied men; nor do we opine that a power morally
or physically adequate to the task of such removal exists in the
manufacturing districts. But, in reality, of all idle talk that ever
issued from the lips or the pen of an inflated demagogue, this is
the silliest and the worst. It presupposes an amount of ignorance
on the part of his audience anything but flattering to the calibre
of the Manchester intellect: indeed we hardly know which is most
to be admired--its intense and transparent folly or its astounding
audacity. The home trade is a thing altogether kept out of account
in the foregoing splendid vision of a calico millennium. Mr Cobden,
it will be seen, contemplates no home consumption, except in so far
as the operative may provide himself with his own shirtings. The
whole production of Britain is to be limited to manufactures; the
whole supplies are to be derived from the hands of the reciprocating
foreigner!
There does not exist in this great and populous country any one
class the labour of which can be restricted, or the profits
curtailed, without an injurious result to the interests of the whole
community. This is not simply a maxim of political economy; it is
a distinct physical fact, which no ingenuity can controvert. Yet,
strange to say, our rulers have acted, and are acting, with regard
to by far the most important class of the country, as if no such
fact were known; and they now profess to be amazed at its speedy
and inevitable consequence. That agricultural distress must react
upon the manufacturer, the trader, shopkeeper, and artisan, is as
necessary a consequence as is a failure in the supply of water
after a long-continued drought. If our taxation is artificial, and
our national establishments costly, it must not be forgotten that
our private expenditure is generally on the same scale. We consume
within the country a far greater amount of manufactures than we can
ever hope to export, and the only limit to that consumption is the
power of purchase. The profits of the landowner, which depend upon
the value of produce, do not constitute a fund which is removed
from public circulation. On the contrary, these profits furnish
the means of labour and employment to the greater portion of the
industrious classes, who otherwise would have no resource; and if
they are violently curtailed, it must needs follow that a large
amount of employment is withdrawn. That is precisely our case at the
present moment. By the admission of foreign produce, which is in
fact foreign labour, the value of agricultural production in this
country has fallen very nearly thirty per cent, and the consequence
is a greatly diminished expenditure, and a slackening of employment
grievously felt by those who are supported by manual labour. How,
indeed, is it possible that it can be otherwise? A very little
thought must convince every one that all incomes in Britain must
depend upon the amount and value of the national production, and
that, by reducing and lowering that, a direct attack is made upon
the profits of every kind of labour. It is singular that consequence
so plain should ever have been overlooked; still more singular that
statesmen should have been found to maintain an opposite theory. The
only explanation we can suggest as to this singular departure from
the leading principles of economical science is, that of late years
Ministers have habitually consulted the interests of the capitalists
rather than those of the people. Sir Robert Peel has invariably
shown himself a capitalist legislator. At the outset of his career,
and while under the Israelitish guidance of Ricardo, he succeeded
in carrying those Currency measures which increased by nearly
one-third the weight of the national obligations. Later in life we
find him engaged in measures of arbitrary bank restriction, thereby
occasioning commercial panics, and securing another rich harvest
for the moneyed class. His tariffs and Free-trade measures exhibit
precisely the same tendency. They are all constructed with a view
to cheapness, or, what is the same thing, to the diminution of the
value of labour, so that the fortune of the capitalist or fundholder
is now virtually doubled: while the industrious classes, with a
lowered rate of wage, are compelled to undergo the additional evil
of unrestricted foreign competition.
Let us now, for a brief space, proceed to consider the internal
adjustment of the strength and industry of Britain. It is a
subject well worthy of study, especially at the present moment,
when a general feeling of perplexity prevails, and when those who
unfortunately gave ear to the specious representations of the
Free-traders are convinced of their error, but are yet in doubt
whether it be possible to retrace our steps. It is a subject,
moreover, upon which we are bound to enter, seeing that official
cunning has been used to conceal the real posture of affairs in this
country, and, by undervaluing the magnitude of some interests, to
give a factitious and altogether imaginary importance to others.
We trust that we shall be able to show, to the satisfaction of
our readers, the gross extent to which this kind of delusion and
imposture has been carried.
Upon no subject whatever are more erroneous impressions entertained,
than upon the relative importance and strength of the two great
classes of the country. Of late it has been quietly assumed that
the manufacturers are infinitely superior to the agriculturists,
not only in point of numbers, but in respect of capital employed or
available; and many people have been puzzled to understand why, if
this should be the case, such vehement opposition should be made to
any proposal for readjusting the direct and local taxation, which
confessedly weighs most heavily upon the proprietors and occupiers
of the land. We have been told, in as many words, that henceforward
the voice of the towns is to dictate the policy of Britain--that the
agriculturists are a worn-out class, scarce worth preserving--and
the most influential of the Free-trade journals has not hesitated to
recommend a wholesale emigration to the Antipodes, or any portion of
the surface of the globe where corn can be cultivated cheaper than
in England. We have been not only taunted, but threatened, whenever
we presumed to expostulate. Reference was made to certain "masses,"
who were ready to rise in defence of perennial cheapness; and Mr
Cobden has warned us not to provoke the exercise of that power
which is vested in himself, as dictator of the democracy. In short,
we have been given to understand that, if protection to native
industry, in any shape, should be re-introduced--which only can be
done by the will and legitimate sanction of Parliament--physical
force shall not be wanting on the other side.
The use of such language argues great ignorance of the national
temper. We have heard a good deal lately of what is termed the
dogged Anglo-Saxon spirit, the main characteristic of which we
take to be its decided antagonism to bullying, and its inveterate
hatred of coercion. It is too much to expect that a controversy
such as this should be conducted without some asperity of
language, and therefore we make no clamorous complaint when Mr
Cobden, or his friends, think proper to designate the British
agriculturists as "ignorant clodpoles" and "horse-shoe idiots," or
the landed proprietors as "a selfish and degraded faction," or the
Protectionist press as the "hireling tools of oppression." These
are very old and very harmless terms of rhetoric, and we are not
sure that we can claim entire vindication from the charge of having
retorted with tolerable energy. The real danger begins when men
step beyond constitutional limits, and advocate resistance to the
legislature by appealing to the passions, as they have pandered to
the prejudices, of the mob.
Having premised so much, we think no one can misinterpret our
motives, if we set ourselves seriously to the task of refuting
a great fallacy which has been hatched and propagated by the
Free-traders. It is one so monstrous in itself that we hardly could
have supposed that any man, who had reflected for a moment on the
subject, could have yielded to the delusion: nevertheless, we
believe it to be most common, and it has been over and over again
repeated at public meetings, until it has lost its quality as an
assertion, and been treated as a recognised fact. It is within the
recollection of all of us, that, both within the walls of Parliament
and at the great outward gatherings of the League, the superiority
of the manufacturing over the agricultural interest of Great Britain
was broadly asserted, and assumed as the basis of the leading
argument of the Free-traders. Sir Robert Peel expressly adopted
this view in 1846, while advocating the repeal of the policy, which
he had hitherto professed to support; we say, _professed_, because
no man now doubts--indeed, it is fairly admitted by himself, with
something like a sneer of triumph--that for many years he had
been practising a deliberate imposture on the public. This view
necessarily must have had some foundation on authority, if not on
fact; and we can trace that authority to a statistical writer, Mr
Porter, on whose accuracy, and method of dealing with figures, far
too much reliance has been placed by statesmen high in office.
In dealing with the census of 1841, and compiling his tables with
a view to show the relative occupations of the people, Mr Porter
has adopted the ingenious plan of massing commerce, trade, and
manufactures together, and exhibiting the aggregate of these in
contradistinction to the purely agricultural interest! At page 55
of the last edition of his _Progress of the Nation_ we find this
statement--"The following more elaborate table of the occupations of
the population of Great Britain, as ascertained in 1841, his been
compiled from the Reports of the Census Commissioners. _It affords
the best abstract_ that has hitherto been attainable upon this
important branch of political arithmetic."
We turn to the table indicated in this modest passage, and we find
the following results for Great Britain alone:--
Persons engaged in commerce,}
trade, and manufacture, } 3,092,787
Agriculture, 1,490,785
Labour not agricultural, 758,495
This, of course, is exclusive of the army, navy, learned
professions, domestic servants, and various other employments,
besides women and children. In another table, Mr Porter, estimating
the male population of Great Britain, (excluding Ireland,) who were
then upwards of twenty years of age, at 4,761,091, divides them
thus:--
Agriculture, 1,198,156
Trade, manufactures, &c., 2,125,496
Other classes, 1,437,439
---------
4,761,091
If, as Mr Spackman most properly observes in his excellent work,
the _Analysis of the Occupations of the People_, one of the
principal objects of taking the census is to trace the relative
degree of dependence of one class upon another, how can this be
done if all the trade and commerce of the country is to be mixed up
with manufactures? "Mr Porter would have us to consider trade and
commerce, _and manufactures_ as synonymous terms, and that together
they only form one class; and he seems to be so thoroughly haunted
with the numerical weakness of the manufacturing interest, that
his fear of its being discovered peeps out in every paragraph; and,
by mixing them up in every table in which they are mentioned in his
book, with those engaged in trade and commerce, he has effectually
succeeded in his object."
As we propose to lay before our readers the results of Mr Spackman,
it may be proper shortly to state the principles which have guided
him in his classification of the official returns. He recognises
but two great classes of the community engaged in the production
of wealth, and upon these he justly considers the whole of the
remainder to be dependent. The following extract from his preface
will sufficiently explain his view:--
"Of the number of persons actually employed by the
agriculturists and manufacturers, no difference of opinion can
exist, as we have adopted the Government classification in
every instance, and copied the figures given in the returns. We
believe this classification to be correct in principle, and but
slightly erroneous in details.
"Political economists may exercise their ingenuity by calling in
question this classification, but we believe it is the only one
that accurately traces the dependence of an individual on the
one or the other interest; and, as this is the primary object
of all such matters, if it attains this end, it is sufficient
for all purposes. By the landed interest we mean not only
the proprietors of the soil, but all that are engaged in its
cultivation, and all the interests that are dependent on and
supported by both landlord and tenant. An agriculturist is one
who grows the raw material. The manufacturer changes the fabric
from cotton into calico, flax into linen, wool into cloth, raw
into manufactured silk, mineral ores into various combinations
of metals, and the skin of an animal into leather.
"All besides the agriculturists and the manufacturers are
auxiliaries, not principals. Thus the handicraftsman alters the
form, but not the substance, and adapts the article to the use
of the consumer,--so the miller, baker, and butcher; the tailor,
milliner, and shoemaker.
"There is also a very numerous class, who neither produce,
manufacture, nor alter the shape or substance of an article,
and these are called merchants, if they buy and sell in a
wholesale manner, or shopkeepers and retail dealers if they sell
by retail. The business of these is to distribute all articles
imported from abroad or produced at home, through every city,
town, and village, in the United Kingdom; and the Government
definition of all these auxiliaries is 'engaged in trade and
commerce.'
"The dependence of any particular class engaged in trade and
commerce, or in handicraft, is not upon the party who produces,
alters, or supplies the article, but on the individual who
consumes it; and if there is any tax whatever on the raw
material, or on anything used in its manufacture, adaptation, or
distribution, it is on him that all and every item of such tax,
together with all profits and charges, must ultimately fall.