EQUITABLE ADJUSTMENTS UNDER CORN-LAW REPEAL.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
London, 10t1 December 1845. Mn. EDITOR—There can be no question that, if we are to consider the nation as divided into classes or interests, there is no set of men, or rather of families, that deserve more regard than the owners of the soil; those who in former times really were what they claimed to be—the pith and substance of the nation. Although of the eight or nine millions who compose the agricultural population the small minority of landlords alone, to the exclusion of tenants and labourers, may be im- mediatelyaffected by a repeal of the Corn-laws, we cannot help admitting that impoverishes mpoverishes or embarrasses them must, in some degree, act injuriously upon those who are employed by and are otherwise dependent on the A great nation like this wishes for no sacrifices. It is not contending against an enemy: it is struggling uncompromisingly for a principle ; and having achieved its victory, will use it magnanimously. It looks only to the subject-matter of the contest, not to its opponent; and the warfare being ended, it sees none but objects of its justice and its bounty: It would be a painful reflection indeed, if we were to be Convinced that such pecuniary losses, such ruinour impoverishment, were to be in- flicted upon so many thousands of the best families in the kingdom, as they seem, unaffectedly to dread. It would be contrary to public policy to justice, and to humanity, to permit this. The humiliation, the abasement ef a large portion of the people—to say nothing-of the peculiar unfitness of refinement and high breed- ing to encounter reverses—isnot the object oontemplated in breaking down the agri- cultural monopoly; nor could it be regarded by a statesman as less than a grievous calamity. When he hears the apprehension of such suffering expressed, he vrill not even be satisfied with stating his own conviction that the fear is imaginary; that the landowners will soon find themselves sharing in the general prosperity, and will look back with surprise at their own chimerical anticipations. He will do more than this; he will concede everything short of the principle he is con- tending for. He will be anxious to invent something that shall wear an aspect of consolation, of a generous concern even for men's weaknesses and fears; and, above all, admitting the possibility of some hitherto latent evil discovering itself in the progress of a great transition, he will devise some means to break the shock, and provide some real and available remedy to meet any possible inconvenience. In the case of the landed interest this is peculiarly necessary,- because history in- forms us, that whatever evils may proceed from the decline of commerce and ma- nufactures, or the disorder of large towns, the internal dissolution of states is always a consequence of the decay of agricultural ,pursuits. Such a liberal forecast has always distinguished the statesman, and been ap- proved of by the people of this country, when they have resolved on the destruc- tion of any great interest amounting to a readjustment of the social fabric, such as a repeal of the Corn-laws is sincerely believed by the landowners to be. We gave cheerfully twenty millions to indemnify the planters in our Colonies for the emancipation of the slaves: not that we had any doubt of the absolute and inde- feasible right of the slaves to their liberty, and that instantaneously; not that the planters held that property by any other tenure than acts of Parliament, which all carried indelibly upon the face and in the nature of them the condition of being repealable at any moment; but because we ourselves had inspired and sustained the confidence by whicls capital and industry had been drawn into those channels. Beyond all this, we did so because we did not think it becoming in a great nation to achieve its objects of justice or philanthropy at the risk of a possibility that a portion of itself should suffer. Much less would it behove us—however exas- perated our feelings may have been during the contest—not to leave a chance tin- provided against of any unfair loss being inflicted upon the nobility and gentry of these kingdoms. What then is the danger which really haunts the imagination of the land- owners, and which remains, fearfully paralyzing them, now that all the sophisms with which they foolishly armed themselves are exploded, and they find them- selves nakedly and impotently succumbing in defeat? It is not the fear that the country will be dependent on foreigners for subsistence. It is not the fear that inferior lauds will be thrown out of cultivation. It is not any of the thousand- and-one fables with which they have amused the public and postponed the dreaded crisis. It is simply the fear that such a reduction may take place in the price of agricultural produce, and consequently in the rent of farms, as will destroy that small balance which remains to them, or to three-fourths of them, after paying the interest of the fixed charges upon the land. Now, if this should really ensue—if this should be the consequence of a repeal of the Corn- laws—it would be a calamity, a grievance, inferior only to the maintenance of the Corn-laws themselves. I do not think it probable that such a reduc- tion in prices, and hence in rents, would take place ; but many think that it is possible ; and if so, would it not be humane, would it not be politic in the highest degree, to provide against this misfortune? Suppose the case of an estate producing a rental of five thousand a year, with interest of mort- gages and other fixed charges upon it of three thousand a year, with a family living on the balance of rent that remains after paying these fixed, these inexorable demands: and suppose a reduction of prices to the extent of twenty per cent, or even ten per cent: can we wonder that, with the bare possibility of losing one- fourth or one-half of their available income, such a family should become rabid on the subject of Corn-laws, and fight as for existence against their re I'True, there is a " salus populi" which sternly repels all such arguments. Come what will, the millions must have bread. But is this alternative a necessary one? Is it consistent with the character of a people who gave twenty millions to the West India planters, to look on impassibly at such ruin, or even at any degra- dation that might befal the landowners ? I do not apprehend that such conse- quences would take place, but I do think that the tears of the landed interest should be treated with tenderness; and, although I would not propose a certain compensation to be made for an uncertain loss, still we should willingly enter- tain any fair proposal by which some conditional arrangements might be made to provide against a contingent and possible loss. If the nation at large is to gain so much by these changes, and the monied interest especially, why should not all, or those more peculiarly interested—the monied men, the mortgagees, the life- renters, the annuitants—bear their proportion of the loss, if there is to be one; or rather, why should they gain all that is subtracted from the unfortunate land- owner? Or say, when the Legislature, for national purposes, has changed the conditions under which their bargains were made, why should they be gainers by the operation? why should they, for the sake of maintaining an abstract nctiont a money standard of value, obtain a much larger portion of all the good things of life that money can buy than they stipulated for in making their contracts?
It has occurred to me that the Tithe Commutation Act would in some degree serve as a precedent, and would almost sanction the proposal on behalf of the landowners, that, in consideration of the Legislature effecting a sudden change in the relations between land and money, a conversion should be made simulta. neously with a repeal of the Corn-laws, of all the fixed charges upon land into a corn-rent, on the principles, conversely applied, of the Tithe Commutation Act I throw this out as a suggestion merely. But it seems to have this recommendation, that it would leave both debtors and creditors in their former relative positions; with this further advantage, that it would be wholly inoperative if the necessity did not arise—if no diminution took place in the entire rental of the land.
I presume that no one who reads this can be ignorant of the main provisions and object of the Act referred to, (6 and 7 W. IV. c. 70); nor will it be necessary to mention that the payments to the Church of Scotland are regulated by a periodical application ot the same principle. The Act of Commutation contains no general expression of the principle; which seems to be, however, sufficiently con- veyed by the word "commutation "—the substitution of one thing for another, of equivalent value but of dift'erent denomination. The artificial atandard of value (money) having failed to represent uniformly the same quantity of good things purcha.seable with it, and a great practical injustice having arisen, the Legislature interposes, and enforces the substance of the contract by changing the form. The Church is no worse off than the law had always intended it should be; and the landowner is saved from a perpetual encroachment upon his means which in the beginning was never contemplated. Is the mortgager more sacred than the Church ? if the one must submit to a just and equitable arrangement, why not the other?—an arrangement, be it observed, not for the sake of dMiinishing his just claims by one iota, but rather of maintaining them in their ab.solute integrity. The effect would be, that all parties having claims on the produce of the sell would bear their fair and equitable proportion of the loss, if any should occur.
I have thrown out this as a suggestion, with a view to further inquiry: but let no one think that it is of little consequence what becomes of the actual proprietors of the soil, or hesitate to apply a bold antidote to the threatened insolvency of such an order of men. It was the cry of "None tabulte " that often convulsed and finally broke up the Commonwealth of Rome; and in every country where ft has occurred, the bankruptcy of the landed interest has always ended in the de-
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