POSTSCRIPT.
SATURDAY NIGHT.
The threatened agitation against any continuation of the Corn-duties has begun. We have already seen that the modified sliding scale for three years has had no perceptible effect in conciliatine. the Agriculturists : it provokes the Free-traders to fresh activity. A special meeting of the Anti- Corn-law League was held at Manchester on Thursday, and the Council adopted a resolution recommending the Free-traders throughout the king- dom to originate petitions against "the new Corn-law," and for "total and immediate abolition."
Meanwhile, Mr. Cobden, as a farmer's son, has addressed himself, in a long letter, "to the farming tenantry of the United Kingdom "; making a , powerful appeal to their common sense against the gradual abolition. Pub- - lie opinion, he says, has absolutely decreed the removal of protection from
• agriculture and manufactures: the farmers are not to be deluded by the cry of designing men, that the House of Lords, or a dissolution of Parli.ti, ment, can prevent repeal of the Corn-laws: the sole question for the farmers to consider is, whether the abolition shall be gradual or immediate. Mr. Cobden tries to persuade them that the immediate repeal will be most to their interest. He warns them that the effect of the delay will be, that the foreign grower will withhold his supplies until February 1849, then to intro- duce them suddenly; so that the farmers will then sustain a more sudden change than they would at present, with all the evil consequences of a second panic.
"What a precious policy is this, which advertises for three years to all the landowners and speculators of the entire world, offering them a premium to hold back their supplies, and then to pour upon our markets, in one day, a quantity of corn which but for this contrivance might have been spread over twelve or eighteen months ! And what may your fate be under these probable circum- stances? Supposing the crop of 1848 to be abundant in this country., you will be liable, in the spring of 1849, to the sudden and unnatural influx of the corn accumulated by foreigners for this market, which must be sold here, having no other market; thus beating_down prices artificially, to the loss of all parties, but more especially of the British farmer. "How different would be the operation of an immediate repeal of the Corn- law! There would then be no stock of foreign corn waiting for the opening of our ports. Nobody expected last year in Poland or America that the English Corn-law would be repealed—nobody prepared for it; not a bushel of grain was raised upon the chance of such an unhooked-for contingency; Is there an intelli- gent farmer in the kingdom that will not at once exclaim, If we are to have a repeal of the Corn-law, give us it this spring, when the foreigner is unprepared for it, and when not a single quarter of corn sown after the news reaches him can be brought to this market in less than eighteen months ?' "But the present is' beyond all comparison, the most favourable moment ever known for abolishing the Corn-law. If ever it could be repealed without even temporary inconvenience to the farmer, this is the time. 1 here is a scarcity at present over nearly all the Continent. One half of Europe is competing for the scanty surplus stock of grain in America. Millions of our countrymen are deprived of their ordinary subsistence by the disease of the potato, and they must be sustained at the public expense upon a superior food. Do what we will, we cannot, during the present year, secure low prices. Abolish the Corn-law tomorrow, and still wheat must rise during the spring and summer. If the farmers had the power of .ordering time and circumstances, they could not contrive a juncture more favour- able to them than the present for the total and immediate repeal of the Corn-law. Nay, I believe that if the Corn-law could be abolished by a secret edict tomorrow, the farmers would never make the discovery of ern ports by any injurious effect produced upon their interests. • "I cannot believe that Sir Robert Peel is favourable to the gradual repeal: be supported it by no other argument in his speech than the fear of panic amongst foe farmers: but he has told us again and again, in proposing his former altera- tions in the tariff, that he believes all such changes are less injurious if suddenly made than when spread over a period of years.I have the strongest conviction, derived from his own past changes in the tariff, that he is right. Why then should yea, in deference to unfounded fears, be deprived of the benefits of ex- perience? * * * Let me entreat you to take this subject into your instant and earnest consideration. Do me the justice to believe that I have no other abject in view in writing this letter but to serve your interests. If you should be induced to concur in its views, you will avoid the only danger to which, in my opinion the farmers were ever exposed from the repeal of the Corn-law—that of Me tralsition state."
Previous page
