OPERATION OF THE CORN LAWS ON OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE.
WE agree with the Jlornim_r Chronicle in thinking that the repeal of the Corn-laws is a measure to which it will be impossible to " give time go-by ;" and that it is therefore advisable to grapple it at once in a manly manner. The people are wide awake on this subject ; and evert week sonic additional evidence is furni.hed of the necessity of speeds as well as judicious legislation upon it.
In a late Number, we called attention to the great com- mercial league which the indefatigable statesmen of Prussia had formed throughout the greater part of Germany, for the purpose of imposing a uniform tariff of duties on foreign manufactures and produce. The consequence of this measure is ill be the pro- hibition or diminished consumption of all our manufactures in Germany. On woollen goods, the duty is to be 96s. per 110 pounds; and on cottons Is. Gd. per pound. These duties are pro- hibitory of the coarser qualities, of which description our exports to Germany almost entirely consist. On hardware the duties vary, according to the description of the goods, from 3s. to :Ms. per 110 pounds. To understand the importance of this measure, and the extent of the injury which it is calculated to inflict on British commerce, it is only necessary to bear in mind, that the amount ofour annual exports in woollen and cotton goods to Germany is nearly three millions sterling declared value. When a trade of this magnitude is in jeopardy, we are nil surprised at the alai m which the new tariff has occasioned in our manufacturing d i• t. lets.
111e question, of course, which every one asks i, how is the threatened evil to be averted? What means does our Govern- ment possess to prevail on our Contieental iempetitors to relin- quish this project ? The ready answer i ; as long as we ex. elude German corn and timber from um 1. . , it is quite prepos- terous to expect them to receive our waeteastenes for a twelve- month louver than they can contrive to do without them. This is a point winch most people have at present a tolerably clear con- ception of The opposition to the Corn-laws is not merely an ignorant cry of cheap bread. Their operation in all i:s extensive evil is now beginning to be understood; and every Lancashire and Yorkshire spinner is becoming aware, that it is not nunely by time augmented price of his quarters loaf that he suffers from the bread monopoly, but that its existence indirectly injures him, by limiting in the first instance, and finally destroying, the Iiireign demands for thine articles by the supply of which he maintains himself and his family.
It is perfect craziness to suppose that the masses of our manu- facturing population, when once their leaders have taken the paios to teach them the evil operation of the Corn-laws, will subunit to them much longer. The intelligent and better jauntier' advo- cates of repeal, have now the force of formidable numbers to back their representations to the Legislature. It is not a contest be- tween a lbw fur-sighted theorists and " practical men " (as they delight to style themselves), about a speculative change in our commercial policy, time object and effect of which are not compre- hensible by the multitude. A Manchester spinner turns off a thopsand workmen, because, as he tells them, " 1 have no orders from Germany this spring." " How Lappet this ?" ask the men. The master replies, "Our Government. refuses to alter a bow which prevents the Germans sending us corn; therefore they refuse to buy our shirting and printed calicoes: indeed, as they have little but corn to pay us in for them, they have no choice. That is the reason I have no work for you ; and that is the reason why you must go to the parish or starve." "But we will make the Parliament alter the law, and let us have plenty of work and pleety of bread," rejoin the operatives : and thus the conference ends,—and thus a mass of di,content is cleated, which gives vast additional force to the arguments for the repeal of the landowners' monopoly.
At the meeting held on Tuesday, preparatory to the formation of a Central Anti-Corn-Law Society, Colonel Tsm PEON is reported to have delivered himself' as follows in reference to some remarks of Celand LEICESTER STANHOPE.
" lie had never said the landlords might be convinced that a repeal of the own-taws would be for their advantage ; his observation was, that it might be proved that such would be the effect. Ile never imagined that a landlord was a teachable animal. Ile would remind them, that iu commencing this struggle for the repeal of the Corn-laws they must be prepared for a sie■re of Troy. If they should meet there ten years hence, and eat an untaxed loaf off that table, they might consider their efforts as peculiarly successful."
We have repeatedly urged the necessity of removing the preju- dices and ignorance of the agriculturists on the subject of the Corn-lass preparatory to their repeal ; and have not hitherto been in the habit of anticipating s very speedy success in the undertaking. But a spirit appears to have arisen in the country lately, which convinces us that the days of the monopoly are numbered, and that its abolition must take place speedily, if not with, against the consent of the landowners and their tenants. We are persuaded that Colonel THOMPSON has given it too long a lease ; it can never last ten years. Were matters to take their usual course—were it possible to insure good harvests, and to prevent such foreign com- binations as the one now forming on the Continent—then, indeed, ten years might roll over the victims of the Corn-laws, without much resistance on their parts. But the spur which the Prussian league applies to the Men of commerce, and the direct evidence which it affords of the hurtful influence of the present system, will hasten the inevitable crisis. It will be impossible for any Govern- ment to resist the increasing efforts which the masses of our ma- nufacturing population, stimulated into active exertion by the urgency of their case, will make to procure redress. The Prussian league is the heaviest blow which has hitherto been dealt on the supporters of the monopoly. It conies in a manner too direct to be parried, except in the way which we have indicated—that is, by the overthrow of the monopoly itself.
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