of harmony—to the choruses, the modulation, or orchestral effects. The
Sin—I perceive that the opinion expressed by me in the letter published in road to these is so beaten, so sure, so mechanical, and is so much the Your number of the 14th October, with regard to Mr. COBDEN'S theory of the resort of every fresh aspirant, that we can scarcely contemplate the revival in trade, has excited some attention. In your last number there are two letters directed to this subject, as well as an article by yourself. I am glad of this, time when truth, novelty, and genius shall again go hand in hand in an as it may direct the attention of the thinkers to a point in political science which opera song. has hitherto been somewhat neglected, or at least mixed up and confused with An organ performance, for the benefit of the Deaf and Dumb Insti- other subjects not necessarily connected with it,—viz. the circumstances which tution, was lately given in the church of St. Nicholas, Leipsic, by C. F. cause the people of a country to be kept in constant employment, and those con- BEcKER, assisted by his pupil, Mademoiselle LALLEMART. The pieces sidered abstractedly from the question of profits of trade or the wages of labour. consisted of fugues, preludes, and trios, for two claviers and pedal, by Of course, I am quite aware that the prosperity of a nation depends in a great BAcsi, KREBS, EBERLIN, and the concert-giver, BECKER, who is a well- degree upon the inhabitants being able to manufacture, or obtain by exchange, known organist and musical antiquary. The greatest curiosity of the the different commodities they require with the least possible coat of labour to day was BACH'S Ricercare, in six parts, on a theme given to him by the themselves; and I fully admit the principle laid down by your correspondent King of Prussia. This was executed by BECKER and his pupil with " A Constant Reader," with regard to the disadvantages of a people being required to cultivate sterile soil in order to obtain food. But there is another great power and effect ; the young lady exhibiting unequivocal symp- element also necessary to the prosperity of a nation ; and that is, the people toms of a strong natural genius for the strange instrument to which she being kept in constant employment : and I wish to be allowed to discuss this has devoted herself. Germany is, perhaps, the only country in which branch of political economy entirely by itaelf. a solo-performing organist can travel and reckon upon his artiGtic ex- England, unfortunately, is of all the countries in the world, most subject to withstanding all this, we are every eight or nine years plunged into a commer- TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR. not account forthe mass of the labouring population being more fully em-
for the purchase
other labourers to exchange with him. When co labourer is obliged to give, we will say, six hours' work, instead of three, in ex-
boors' worth of labour to expend upon the other parties who deal with him ; who from the same cause, the dearness of corn, are placed in the exact same
'don. This state of things most undoubtedly abridges the comforts and enjoyments of the labourer ; but it does not throw him idle; he is still em- ployed nine hours a day. The only difference is, that when corn is cheap, the labourer, besides his food, has the enjoyment arising from the use of the produce of six hours' labour ; when corn is dear, in addition to his food, he has only the enjoyment of the produce of three hours' labour; while the corn-seller, from the same cause, is enabled to command the produce of that amount of labour which is lost to the consumer. In the case I have brought forward, I have sup- posed that the exchange was carried on by means of barter; but the intervention of money makes in reality no difference. The manufacturer does not, it is true, hand over his manufactures in the first instance to the corn-merchant : he con- verts them into money, with which he buys his corn, which money the corn- merchant again expends upon commodities or the manufactures of the country ; and according as the price of corn is high or low, or more or less money is given to the corn-merchant, will he, the corn-merchant, by expending it, give more or less employment to labour. Mr. COBDEN, I conceive, has fallen into the mis- take which be has made by directing his attention alone to the expenditure of the consumer, without attending to that of the seller of the article—by for- getting that if one man gives, another must receive; and that if the workman, after buying his food, has less money to expend on other commodities, the corn- grower, be he squire or farmer, has more.
You object to the phrase I use of the corn-grower and consumer buying at the same shop. What I meant by that was, that both parties, by expendiug their money, would equally call into requisition the workmen of the country. Of course I did not mean that they would in every case employ precisely the same tradesmen. The corn-consumer might have spent his surplus upon the tailors of Manchester and Glasgow, while the corn-seller may perhaps buy his coats from the tailors of London and Edinburgh. The wives of the corn- consumers might have laid out their money on the cotton stuffs of Manchester, while the wives of the corn-sellers spend theirs on the silk goods of Spitalfields and Paisley. Again, the corn-consumer might have laid out his money on sugar, while the corn-grower spends his in costly spices to season his French cuisine. Still, the amount of employment given to labour is the same in both cases. Both those articles are obtained by means of an exchange of our manu- factures; and it is probable the very same goods would be exported for both. In your article you also object to my arguments, because, you say, that the supposed sixty millions additional given to the corn-seller in consequence of the high price of grain, would be spent by middle-men, speculators in corn, and screwing landlords, and that they would only amount to thousands ; while, if it remained in the pockets of the corn-consumer, it would be expended by mil- lions, and that the same sum of money expended by a numerous body must give more employment than when it is expended by a smaller number. To this I must take the liberty of entirely dissenting. A pound spent by a rich man gives as much employment as twenty shillings spent sepa- rately by twenty poor men. The price of an article is always determined by the amount of labour employed on it; and if one commodity cost twenty shillings while another costs only one, it is merely because the former has re- quired twenty times as much labour to manufacture it. In short, it makes no difference as to giving employment to the labourers of the country, whether the same amount of money be laid out by one man or by a million of men, or whether it be expended on mere vanities by the rich or on real comforts by the poor.
—With regard to what you state of our always having good trade concurrently with cheap corn, and bad trade concurrently with dear corn, I must also beg leave to differ with you. If such were the case, then the price of corn would be a sort of barometer by which we might always mark the state of trade ; but the very reverse of this frequently occurs. All the periods of commercial de- pression have commenced with what is called. a crash," which is the sure pre- cursor and the immediate cause of the subsequent stagnation. The great crash of 1826 took place concurrently with a goad harvest, and when corn was comparatively cheap. And the last crash—that of 1837—also took place when corn was cheap. The four bad harvests of 1838, '39, '40, and '41, followed after the evil was done, and most undoubtedly added to the miseries arising from want of employment ; but they did not occasion that want of em- ployment.
In conclusion, Mr. Editor, allow me to say, that I am as much opposed to the Corn-laws as you are. I look upon them as a most unprincipled enact- ment, passed for the express purpose of taxing the consumer, in order to add to the income of The corn-grower. And I am fully of opinion it would be better to levy a direct tax from the nation than to allow those laws to remain on our statute-book : for in this case, at least the parties to whom the tax was paid would have the full benefit of it; whereas, by the operation of the Corn- laws, a part only of that which is levied from the consumer is paid to the land- lord ; the remainder being expended upon unprofitable labour, called into em- ployment by the necessity of cultivating sterile soil for the subsistence of the inhabitants of the country. For, to raise corn on bad land, it is necessary to employ and pay wages to a greater number of labourers than would be required to procure the same amount of produce by means of an exchange of manu- factures with other countries. Still, I will say that the real injury done to the consumer by the operation of the Corn-laws may be exactly estimated by the difference between the price which is paid by him for his food and the price which he would pay were those laws not in existence. The Corn-laws operate on him as a tax to this amount, and injure him in the same way as a property or poll-tax would do. But I do not conceive the Corn-laws occasion those com- mercial crises and want of employment to which the people of this country are so frequently subjected. These arise from other causes; and if you ran afford me space in your paper, I will next undertake to show that the entire removal of the Corn-laws would not necessarily call into employment a single additional workman. My object in troubling you with such remarks, is to prepare the way for an inquiry into the real causes of the frequent derange- ments of our industrial system. And I should like to be allowed to develop my ideas in a paper which is read and quoted by every class of politicians, and in which opinions are advocated on their own merits, without being made subser- vient to the party-interests of any set of men. In this and my former letter, I have taken for granted, with Mr. Counts:, that the loss to the consumer, iuring the late years of high prices, was at the rate of sixty millions a year. For this estimate, however, I am not respon- sible. But were the loss only a million, instead of sixty millions, it would make no difference to me. It is to the principle of taxing the poor for the sake of the rich that I object : and no Parliamentary candidate who does not pledge himself to vote for the total and immediate abolition of the Corn-laws will ever have the support of
[The chief objection to reatering upon such a subject is, that, in these days, when everybody is master of political economy, once to admit a paper draws after it such a mass of controversial letters, that, were we to print them, our broad-sheet would contain nothing else. As it is, we must limit the discussion to the point now mooted by the " Liberal Elector," and forbid the intrusion of other correspondents until he hss finished what he undertakes. We begin by setting an example : though our correspondent has in some things mistaken us, and mixed up with our own view that which we alluded to as entertained by others, we abstain from interfering.—Ec.]
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