THE CORN-LAWS.
Tun first fruits of the inquiry of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Government into the probable effects of diminishing the statutory protection to the agricultural produce of this country, has been laid upon the table of the House of Commons. About the beginning of last No- vember, Mr. GLADSTONE instructed MT. MEEK to obtain from her Majesty's Consuls and others in the principal ports of the North of Europe, information " respecting provisions, corn, and other agri- cultural produce, and shipping' ; and Mr. MEEK, in addition to a digest of the answers to his queries, has given a tabular state of the conclusions which they appear to him to warrant. It is to this do- cument that we allude.
To Mr. MEEK, " much meditating," it appears—that Holland
and Belgium, notwithstanding their high state of cultivation, are importing rather than exporting countries ; that from Bremen and
Hamburg some increase may take place; that from Kiel, Lfibeck, and Rostock, the exports may be "moderately increased"; that from Stettin any increased export is improbable ; that in Prus- sian Posen a regular and steady demand may materially increase the
quantity of corn produced, "whenever an increased demand takes place and good roads are made to bring the produce to market" ; and that from Denmark an increased export may be expected, "but a considerable time will elapse before such an event can take place." Mr. MEEK adds—" The probabilities above stated are in each case based upon the assumption that the duties to be imposed will be moderate."
Some advocates of the restrictive system make a curious use of statements like these. They say—" You see how little corn is to be expected from abroad : it will be of no use to repeal the Corn- laws." The converse is the correct inference—" You see how little competition British agriculturists have to dread: it is of no
use retaining the Corn-laws." The only question regarding the Corn-laws is, do they, or do they not, diminish the supply of corn ? If they do, they are unjust ; for their effect is to create scarcity by artificial means. If they do not, they are superfluous legislation ; and that is always in itself a mischief. The advocate of the Corn- laws who argues so foolishly as to say "retain a law because it has no effect," lays himself open to the suspicion of believing that more corn would come into the country were no Corn-laws-re- pealed, all the time that he is trying to persuade the bread-eaters that this could not be the case.
The report of Mr. MEEK, and the facts stated in Captain Bait- CLAY'S book, reviewed in last week's Spectator, both lead the same conclusion. The supporters of the Corn-laws have no'. son to look with suspicion either on the one or the other. Allkus former comes out under the auspices of a Conservative Ad, tration, the other is the work of an agriculturist. Both tette* prove that years must elapse before any considerable amourili-Ur-- foreign grain can be brought to compete in the British market with that of the native agriculturist. As to the Corn-laws, no man who looks at affairs as they really stand can avoid seeing that they are doomed. Although the opinion that the MELBOURNE Ministry would have been willing enough to sacrifice the Corn-laws, if by so doing they could have retained their places, contributed with many other circumstances to destroy them, the present Ministry has found it impossible to avoid attempting a modification of the law. For enactments which have so objectionable an effect as to diminish the quantity of food in a country, there is no medium be- tween defending them a routrance and abandoning them altogether_ A man may stand a long time against hard pressure if he do not flinch ; but if he give way one hairbreadth, he cannot tell where he may be pushed to. The modification of the Corn-laws is only the first step to their abolition : it is now only a question of time when they are to be entirely abrogated. It is for the agricultural interest to consider whether it is worth while to incur the odium on supporting what it cannot perpetuate—keeping up excitement in the country ; for so long as a rag of the Corn-laws is allowed to remain, so long will there be agitation. There are some who talk of the necessity of " gradual " change : the change must be "gradual"—in the nature of things it cannot be otherwise. Re- pealing the Corn-laws will not supply the Prussians or the Ameri- cans immediately with the capital necessary to extend their agri. culture and make the roads for expediting the carriage of their pro- duce to market. The effects of Corn-law repeal must be gradual even should repeal be immediate and total. The wisest plan for all parties would be simply to abolish the Corn-laws at once.
There is another "conclusion" arrived at by Mr. MEEK, which deserves the attention of those who look upon a restrictive corn- law as calculated to keep prices steady : "A general opinion prevails on the Continent, apparently a well-founded one, that whatever change takes place in England that has an effect of giving an impulse to the agriculturists on the Continent to raise and to the merchants to export the several articles required, it will at the same time have a powerful tendency to equalize the prices of those articles in both countries." This means, that the increased facility of carrying grain to the various markets as it is needed will keep the price at a uniform level in all. Another consequence will be that of diminishing the range within which prices vary in any. Grain will run less risk of becoming a drug in any one market from the impossibility of exporting it, or of rising to a famine-price from the impossibility of importing it. The only way to diminish the fluctuations of price is to widen the market: restrictions on the importation or exportation of corn necessarily narrow the market, and consequently tend to increase fluctuation. The argument in favour of a restrictive corn-law on the assump- tion that it has a tendency to render prices steady, is the most untenable of all : the advocates of the Corn-laws will find it of little avail in the impending discussions.
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