of rent, it is the difference in the quantity of produce, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of the difference of the quantity of produce, by which the superior classes of soil exceed the worst in actual cultivation, and which yield only the ordinary wages of labour and profits of stock. The profits of the cultivators of the best and the worst lands are the same; but the rent of the best land will exceed that of the worst by the excess of produce which, with the same expense, it can be made to yield. Rent, therefore, is the effect, not the cause of a rise in the price of corn, and is created by the necessity of having recourse to inferior soils, which, with the expenditure of the same quantity of labour, cannot be made to return the same quantity of produce. The price of corn, to be remunerative, should be equal to the payment of all charges, including rent, and leaving to the grower a fair profit on the capital employed on its produc

tion.

But when, from whatever cause it may proceed, the price of corn has ceased to be remunerative, and continues for a length of time depressed below the lowest limit at which it can be so described, (the cost of production being meanwhile the same or nearly so, and the public burdens continuing undiminished,) this alteration in the price and, by supposition, in the value of corn, will affect, though, perhaps, in unequal degrees, all classes who derive their usual incomes from the produce of the soil; but the occupier of the land will be the sufferer in the first instance; for as he had only a fair profit on his capital when corn was at a remunerating price, it is obvious that he cannot fulfil his engagements, when corn has fallen below that price, without a sacrifice on his part equal to the difference between a remunerating and the actual price, whatever it may be. In this state of things he naturally ap

plies for relief, in the only direction open to him, namely, an abatement of rent on the part of the landlord, to whom, as the proprietor and cultivator of the soil can never have but one interest, part of the deficiency is thus transferred. But, from the very nature of things, this mode of relief, at best partial, may be altogether withheld, and, even when afforded, will leave the gross amount of the deficit exactly as it was. In the course of last year, landlords very generally granted deductions of rent; but these deductions were justly considered rather as incontestable evidences of the existence of the distress than as contributing in any effectual way to relieve its pressure.

It is evident that matters cannot long remain in this state, without being productive of the most fatal consequences; for it is equally impossible that the landlords can exist without receiving rent, or that rent can be paid by the farmer from the capital employed by him in cultivating the soil,-which was asserted, in a number of the petitions laid on the table of the House of Commons, to have been in many instances the case. For such an evil, however, the great difficulty is, to devise an adequate remedy. This proceeds from two causes; first, the difference of opinion that generally prevails as to the real source of the existing distress, and, secondly, the incompetency of any legislative measures calculated to interfere with the laws that naturally regulate the profits of capital, whether invested in agriculture, manufacture, or commerce. one of the petitions presented to Parliament contained some theory of its own to account for the existing depression of the agricultural interest, and concluded by proposing a corresponding nostrum or specific for restoring remunerative prices, and placing the capital invested in the soil on a level with that employed in manufactures or

Almost every

commerce. Some of the petitioners ascribed the evil to excessive taxation; others to the effects produced by the return to a metallic currency; a third class, to the operation of the existing Corn-Law, and the method resorted to in taking the averages; a fourth to the tithes and the system of the poor-laws. According to the first class, a remedy was to be found in a reduction of the taxation, particularly of those taxes which press peculiarly on the agriculturist, and by economy and retrenchment in all the departments of the state; according to the second, in repealing Mr Peel's bill, lowering the value of money, and thus raising the value of all commodities as compared with money; according to the third, in imposing further restrictions on the importation of foreign corn; while the fourth believed that nothing more was necessary to restore prosperity to agriculture, than a commutation of tithes and the reduction of the poor-rates. In recording the discussions which took place in Parliament on this important subject, each of these different sets of theories and remedies will pass under review, with the reasonings on which they were grounded, as well as the arguments which were urged in opposition to them.

At the commencement of the present session, Ministers saw the necessity of losing no time in bringing under the consideration of Parliament the distressed state of agriculture, and in submitting some definite propositions for its relief. Many circumstances conspired to point out the necessity of adopting this course. At a period of unexpected stagnation and calamity, Government had, by certain financial measures, afforded timely and effectual aid to the commercial interests of the country; and the agriculturists, now that their day of suffering had arrived, thought themselves at least entitled to an equal share of assistance and pro

tection. There was nothing very unreasonable in this expectation; although the fact could not be concealed, that, ever since 1819, the home grower had enjoyed a monopoly of the British market, and that the distress under which agriculture was presently labouring proceeded in a great measure from the operation of the corn bill of 1815, the effect of which, by keeping the price of corn in this country habitually and considerably higher than in other countries, and therefore, on occasion of abundant crops, preventing any relief to the home grower by exportation, till the price had fallen below that of other countries, could not be other than to render prices extremely variable and fluctuating. But this course was imposed upon Ministers by considerations of a more immediate and tangible character, than claims which professed to be founded upon the principle of fair and even-handed justice. With impaired incomes and a ruined tenantry, it was hardly to be expected that the country gentlemen should continue as tractable and acquiescing as when the price of corn was high and rents rising, Symptoms of defection among that steady and veteran corps of ministerial supporters had in fact begun to manifest themselves. At several of the county meetings, the most extraneous matters had been mixed up with their speeches and resolutions; parliamentary reform, that never-failing topic of all declaimers, had been gravely recommended as a sure and undoubted remedy for excessive taxation and low prices; Cobbett, prince of weathercocks, had declared himself the ally of the agriculturists, and itinerated from meeting to meeting, to enlighten their minds with another sample of his versatility and extravagance; the habitual clamourers for reform and retrenchment, the consistent foes of every ministerial measure, however sound in principle, or salutary in tendency, seemed on the

point of forming a coalition with the ancient and steady supporters of the Government, and thus organizing a mass of opposition which no Ministry could withstand; in a word, the labours of Mr Hume had been so fortunate as to find a panegyrist in Mr Gooch. It was necessary to arrest these incipient tendencies, and recall the country gentlemen to their ancient allegiance. Accordingly, in the speech from the throne, at the opening of the session, his Majesty, after deeply regretting the depressed state of the agricultural interest, while, in the course of last year, considerable improvement had taken place in the manufactures and commerce of the united kingdom, proceeded to recommend to the early attention of Parliament the consideration of this important subject, "persuaded, that in whatever measures they might adopt, they would constantly bear in mind, that in the maintenance of the public credit all the best interests of this kingdom are equally involved; and that it is by a steady adherence to this principle, that we have attained, and can alone expect to preserve, our high station amongst the nations of the world."

Before Ministers, however, had had time to bring to maturity the plans which it was their intention to submit to Parliament, in conformity with the implied pledge contained in the King's speech, Mr Brougham, who had been no inattentive observer of the course which, for some time past, opinion seemed to be taking, came forward, a few days after the commencement of the session, (11th of February), with a motion on the distressed state of the country, the covert object of which seemed to be, to feel the pulses of the country gentlemen, and to ascertain how far they were likely, in a matter where their own immediate interest was concerned, to commit themselves with the Government. But if this was the

point at which he aimed, he had been too sanguine in his calculations; the tactics of the honourable and learned gentleman were at fault; the fascinations of the charmer were powerless. The leading doctrine which pervaded the elaborate speech with which the honourable member prefaced his motion, and which was embodied in the motion itself, was, that the country was weighed down by an intolerable load of taxation, which was the sole cause of the present distressed state of the country in general, and of the agriculturists in particular; and that nothing but a reduction, to a great amount, of the public burdens, could in any degree effectually alleviate the pressure under which the most commanding interest in the country was labouring: and this doctrine he attempted to illustrate in a great variety of ways, though certainly without that closeness and precision which might have been expected; for although it is unquestionably true, that excessive taxation is a great evil, both directly and indirectly, it does by no means follow that the existing distress is to be considered as the effect of taxation, excepting in so far as the produce of the soil is subjected to burdens peculiar to itself. After a number of observations, intended to point out the extent to which the distresses of the country had risen, and after contrasting the income and expenditure of the three last years of the war, with that of the sixth year of peace, the honourable and learned member proceeded to consider the effects produced on the relative amount of taxation by the operations on the currency. And here, he said, it was necessary that he should go back to the year 1797, in order to trace the evil which afflicted the country to its very source-in order to combat that gross absurdity in argument, and that gross injustice in fact, which was pertinaciously adhered to by some individuals, who contended, that the re

turning to a metallic standard of currency created the existing distress; whereas the truth was, that the great origin of the evil must be sought for in the departure from that standard; that the grand mischief was occasioned by departing from the acknowledged standard of our currency. At first, the effect of the new system was not distinctly perceived; but in the course of two or three years it was sufficiently manifest. In 1800 the evil had mounted to such a height, that its operation on the foreign exchanges became most evident. In 1810, the Mint price of gold was L.3: 17: 10 an ounce; and the market or bullion price of gold was L.4, 5s., being a depreciation of nearly 11 per cent. It afterwards fell still more, and fluctuated very much; and those fluctuations were not the least evil, since they had a ruinous effect with respect to the land-owners, and, indeed, with reference to every class of the community, except those who dealt in gold, and might be denominated the managers of the monied interest. In one year there was a fluctuation of 30 per cent.; a fact which was directly in the teeth of the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed a resolution in 1811, which the House agreed to, declaring, that the bank-note had never been depreciated, that gold was never cheaper, and the bank-note never dearer. Thus a state of things grew up, which no well-regulated government would have suffered to exist for one month, but which many gentlemen prided themselves on having supported for ten or twelve years. The price of bullion, as estimated by the currency circulated in 1811 and 1812, showed a farther depreciation. In those years, the market price of gold was L.4:19:23 on an average, being a depreciation of 27 in the hundred. The revenue in those years was L.73,500,000. If, therefore, we wished to find out how

much that nominal sum amounted to in real Sterling gold, for the purpose of stating what the people absolutely paid in 1811 and 1812, and also to show what they contributed in 1822, it would be necessary to diminish the sum in the ratio of 27 per cent., which, together with L.3,500,000 of new taxes, formed an aggregate of L. 19,800,000. This sum being deducted from the gross amount of revenue collected in 1811-12, left a total of L.53,700,000: so that, in those years of war, the people actually paid L.8,000,000 less in gold than they paid in the present year, and L.7,000,000 less than they paid in the year preceding. Taking the average of the two years, they paid, in 1820-21, between seven and eight millions more than they did in two years of determined warfare. Nay, what would the House think when it was asserted, that though in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815, three years of an inordinate expenditure, when Ministers were squandering away 140 or 150 millions annually, and levying on the people a money sum of 80 millions-what would the House think, when it was rendered as clear as that two and two made four, that the country was, at the present moment, paying as much in taxes as it paid at that extravagant period? Five pounds per ounce was the average price of gold in those three years, being a depreciation of 28 per cent. Now, if the revenue of those years, being L.84,500,000, was supposed to be levied in a bullion or money currency, and not in a currency depreciated 284 per cent., L.23,500,000 must be deducted, which would bring the revenue, during 1813, 1814, and 1815, to an average of L.61,000,000 per annum, at par, which L.61,000,000 was exactly the sum that the people now paid. Considering this question with reference to the year 1819, a very great rise would be found to have taken place under the monied system. He did not mean to argue,