DIRECT EFFECT OF THE CORN-LAW.
THE writer who " writes himself down" IGNORAMUS, to whom we adverted last week in a note to correspondents, has returned to the charge. Not satisfied with being told that he has misunderstood our meaning, he insists upon being told bow he has done so. This is rather more than the bargain : we might fairly tell him, as Dr. JOHNSON is said once to have told a similar pertinacious questioner, " Sir, I am bound to find you arguments, not understanding." We might also fairly abide by the resolution we announced last week, not to enter upon minor points of criticism until we have con- cluded the series of papers upon one word in which lorroaaatns has fixed and keeps harping; and, except in this case, we intend to do so. Many objections that suggest themselves to a reader on the perusal of one chapter of an essay disappear after he has read the whole ; the difficulties raised in his mind at first are obviated by the sequel. But accident having obliged us to interrupt the sequence of these papers for one week, we gratify Taxon/arcs so far as, for once, to break through our plan ; only protesting (in Parliamentary phrase) that our doing so is not to be held as a precedent. IGNORAMUS, then, is under a mistake in supposing our position to be, that the direct and immediate effect of a corn-law is to raise the price of provisions. Our position is, that the direct and imme- diate effect of a restrictive corn-law is to diminish the quantity of food. We certainly have more than once expressed the opinion that a restrictive corn-law raises the price of food; but this is a secondary effect—derivative from its tendency to lessen the quan- tity. Our expression is "rendering it dearer because scarcer than it otherwise would be." We may be wrong in our assumption that the scarcity of corn, occasioned by a restrictive corn-law, has a tendency to raise its price : IGNORAMUS may be right—a commo- dity may be made cheaper by being made scarcer—that is a ques- tion which in no way affects our line of argument ; which is, that a restrictive corn-law is a great evil inasmuch as it creates an arti- ficial scarcity. We traced it through all the ramifications of its direct operation, and showed how it diminished the supply of corn— of food in general—of all the other necessaries and conveniences of life—how it diminished the quantity of them in other countries as well as our own, or, speaking in the largest sense, of ultimate tendencies, caused the whole world to be worse off. This is the line of argument we have pursued. In the first paper we said —" The direct and immediate effect of a restrictive corn-law is to produce a great evil. * * * To diminish the supply of food is," &c. Again—" It is not, however, food alone that is limited in quantity," &c. Again—" There is yet another way in which a corn-law contributes to diminish the supply of all commodities," &c. Lastly—" The quantity of good things in all countries is lessened * * *. The whole race of mankind is de- prived of enjoyments which a wiser policy would have placed within their reach." In the second paper, the subject was resumed by stating, that we had in the previous shown, " how the enforcing of such a law must diminish the quantity of corn, food in general, and all other necessaries and conveniences of life." The one di- rect and immediate effect which we attribute to the Corn-law throughout, is its creating an artificial scarcity—beggaring man- kind : all the other evils it occasions are secondary consequences
ad direct and immediate effect.
Let Mao-Banns, and those who hold his opinion, understand, that we merely waive the question of the effect of a short supply upon prices as an irrelevant topic—not necessary to the dis- cussion of the question, and calculated to encumber it. We cer- tainly do not admit the correctness of his startling and paradoxical assertion, that " the direct and immediate effect of the Corn-law was to LOWER the price of all food." This opinion he rests upon one isolated fact—that the price of corn in 1815, "within a month after passing the Corn-law," was lower than on an average of se- veral years past. Not only is the induction of the narrowest ; the brief time that had elapsed renders it impossible to attribute the fall in price to the Corn-law—unless we also attribute some talis- manic influence to its mere existence. The Annual Register, in- deed, which IoNortemus quotes as his authority, inclines to attri- bute the fall in price to " two plentiful harvests " which had pre- ceded the passing of the law ; adding, hypothetically, that some- thing might be attributable to " the effects of former importations," or to " a greatly-extended culture of grain." The effects of a greatly-extended culture of grain on the market could not be very marked in the course of one month ; the effect of previous importa- tion is a plausible suggestion ; and the " two plentiful harvests " might of themselves suffice for explanation of the seeming ano- maly, but they do not chime in with the theory of forma/taws, and accordingly he disposes of them by declaring—" these are the historian's hypotheses." We should have thought two good har- vests substantial facts.
These remarks are offered simply for the purpose of indicating to IGNoRAMUS that his facts scarcely warrant the dogmatical tone in which he asserts his theory that the tendency of a corn-law is to lower the price of food. Into that extraneous question we decline entering at present, because it would lead into long and compli- cated inquiries calculated to divert attention from the question in hand. The "price" of corn means the relative value of money and corn; and before we can draw any inference from a variation in the ratio, we must ascertain whether the corn or the money has changed its value. An inquiry into the price of corn is quite as much a currency as a corn-law question. We see great disadvan- tage and no gain to truth that can accrue from such an unnecessary complication. Our position—its importance is such that we cannot repeat it too often—is, that a restrictive corn-law necessarily occa- sions an artificial scarcity of all the necessaries and conveniences of life. The quibble with which IGNORAMUS tries to confuse us, is the rather disingenuous device of passing over this primary effect attributed to the Corn-law altogether, and affecting to think that our argument rested upon a secondary effect, derivable from the first, which is only mentioned incidentally.
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