CHAPTER V.

THE BREAD MONOPOLY.

"All protection means robbing somebody else."--Corn Catechism.

THE most ruinous of all our monopolies, and therefore that which calls the first and the loudest for abolition, is that unjust enhancement of the price of grain, occasioned by the operation of the corn laws.

This monopoly is defined by the Times' newspaper: "An extension of the pension list, to the whole of the landed aristocracy of Great Britain!"

Many a proud cheek, of those accustomed to believe themselves the independent nobles and gentry of the land, will burn with indignant blushes, on viewing the subject in this light. Yet, the definition is, it is to be feared, but too just. The sole difference is, that such pensions, instead of being paid out of the Treasury, are advanced to the landlord by the farmer, who is repaid again 'by the consumer, and thus a tax is levied on the

whole community, not for the purposes of defraying public expenditure, but for the private emolument of the landowners.

Let, however, a better feeling than pride arise in the breasts of landlords and their families, on reflecting, that the pensions they are thus supposed to be justly ashamed of receiving, are, the greater portion of them, made up of deductions from the justly earned comforts of many millions of hard working day labourers, and their wives, and children. And let no one deceive the uninformed, by telling them, with a cold sneer, that the labourer is compensated by receiving higher wages than he would get were the corn laws abolished. This is a dangerous, insidious falsehood, invented to lull honesty and compassion to sleep, while hard-hearted selfishness is abroad, robbing the

poor.

Lord Fitzwilliam's Tables furnish an indisputable refutation of this popular fallacy. They show, on the averages of half a century, that the surplus of the labourer's wages, after providing himself with bread, has always been least, when grain was highest, and that, to use his Lordship's own words, "the boasted period of agricultural prosperity, was to the labourer, whether agricultural or manufacturing, a season of distress."

"The high price of provisions," says Adam Smith, during these ten years past, has not been accompanied by any sensible rise in the

money price of labour."

He goes on to show

that, on the contrary, the wages of labour generally fall in dear years, and rise in cheap years. While, speaking of America, he says: "Labour is there so well rewarded, that a numerous family of children is a source of opulence to parents." This is, of course, because in America labour is scarce. But, if the price of food alone regulated wages, how could money wages be much higher, yet food much cheaper in America than in England, as is the case, and real wages therefore higher still.

But the reward of labour is ample in America, because, in America, the labour market is not overstocked by want of employment. Cheap food, it is true, from whatever cause it proceeds, puts it in the labourer's power to accept lower wages, down, if he please, to the new starving point; but, will he do so, if the self same cause which gives cheap food, gives full employment to labour, and therefore enables the labourer to demand, and obtain higher wages? Were food, therefore, made cheap by the abolition of corn laws and all other monopolies, the opening of trade, which would be the immediate consequence of such a measure, by doubling and trebling the demand for our manufactured goods, would give full employment at the same time with cheap food, to all our labouring classes, so that labourers being no longer compelled to underbid each other, in an overstocked labour market, labour would, at all times, obtain

a fair proportion of the wealth it created, while even without a rise of money wages, the condition of the labourer would be improved much more than a hundred per cent, as he would have constant, instead of casual employment, and therefore constant, instead of casual wages, while the same money wages per day, would be doubled in value to him, as it would purchase a double quantity of the necessaries, comforts, and decencies of life.

But, if wages are not to be reduced, what is to relieve the capitalist, increase his profits, or make him better able to compete with foreigners in the foreign market?

Cheaper raw material, cheaper subsistence for himself and his own establishment, and markets immensely extended, by obtaining the custom of nations, who have no exchanges to offer but corn, and who, therefore, cannot take our goods, while we will not take their corn, but who would cultivate still more corn, and therefore sell corn still cheaper than even the rates of the present foreign market, were they certain of our custom.

As to the pretext that it is the farmer whom the defender of corn laws wishes to protect, it is almost too flimsy to require refutation. Under a system of free trade, dictated by equal justice, the redress of farmers, not holding leases, rests with themselves, the redress of farmers holding leases, with the landlords, whose honest interest in the soil, can never exceed what remains after the cost

their own money. Colonel Torrens,

of cultivation, and a fair profit to the farmer, he, the farmer, selling his produce in a free market. The nation which cannot cultivate on these terms, is forbid by equal justice to cultivate at all; except, indeed, at the private loss of such individuals as like the amusement of throwing away There is no delusion," says more mischievous, than the supposition that the high value of agricultural produce is beneficial to the farmer; it is expedient, therefore, to demonstrate under every possible form, the great practical truth, that a permanent rise in the value of agricultural produce, leads to a reduction in the rate of agricultural profits." And that therefore, "in the long run, protecting duties for raising the price of food, produce agricultural distress, as certainly as they occasion manufacturing distress."

:

Again, as to the unequal burdens, and local burdens, said to press peculiarly on the landed interest, (if indeed any such exist) equal justice says Make them equal, make them general, but do not make them an excuse for robbing others. That, however, the complete system of free trade, dictated by the principle of good-will to all or equal justice, will ultimately have the effect of raising, rather than of depressing the value of land, and that by means strictly just, shall, as already promised, be shown in a future chapter.* Prior, * Chapter X.