CORN CATECHISM. (Continued.)
119. —unless the rampart of the country, the agricul- tural community, is intended to be destroyed.—I5. 118. As it appears, on in- A. Waiving all question of the accuracy disputable authority, that the of the twenty per cent, what sense is there manufactures of England in first throwing an enormous sum into the are already protected to the sea by paying au extra price for corn, and extent of very nearly twenty then throwing away another enormous sum per cent beyond agricultural (twenty per cent greater if Nimrod will have produce, what more can be asked for keeping good faith it so) by paying an extra price for manufac- in view ?—Ninirod on the tures; and then ingeniously setting off one Corn-laws. Age. 13th April loss to mend the other loss ? If Nirnrod's 1834. horse was spavined on one side, "what more could be asked" to mend it, than having him spavined on the other?
120. " But," said a friend to me the other day, "have you read Colonel Thomp- son's Catechism on the Corn Laws ? " I replied, I hail not ; I thought it too cheap to be good. But I looked into it, and was very soon satisfied. Common sense will not allow me to listen to ar- guments in which questions of fact are not taken into consideration. Observe, for example, the answer given in page 60, to the following proposition in a Number of the Quarterly Review, ar- ticle " Agriculture and Rent : "- A. Nimrod is simply too good for his work. He is one of God Almighty's aris- tocracy in a queer place ; and cannot con- ceive people's being so chivalrously stupid, as those whose side he has undertaken to espouse. Nevertheless, it is true after all, that his friend the " Quarterly" was trying to persuade the public there would be danger of a famine. The direct fraud and blunder it was trying to push forward, was the con- founding a diminution of the English-grown corn, with a diminution of all the corn there would be to eat; and the context is there to prove it. Nimrod cannot conceive such imbecility ; but it is not the less there. If Nimrod can prove that the " Quarterly" was there trying to impress, for example, that there would be danger of subserviency to foreign countries,—then the writer of the Catechism was following the wrong fox.
To which the Colonel gives the following sage reply:—
"The quantity grown will not be dinimished, unless prices fall ; and prices will not fall, unless the grain obtained, either by importation or otherwise, is increased."
Can any thing in logic surpass the absurdity of this answer ? In God's name, what would be the object of a tree trade in corn, but an increase of quantity ?—/b.
121. I should like to have witnessed the meeting be- tween themselves and their bailiffs, on market evenings. It would have resembled this (to myself, well known) dia- logue:—" Well, John, dill you get 151. a load—[not a swing price, observe, on the average of the last twenty years]—fur the wheat ?"— " Oh, no, Sir ; the millers told us they could buy better foreign corn at 21. per load *less money."—Ib. A. What they would have said (and they have said it all, and in print too) would have been, " You know, John, if the people can get corn for 131., we cannot be such rogues as to wish to force them to give us 151. You know it would be dishonest ; and you are a class-leader, they tell me, among the Methodists. And all people, you know, John, whether Methodists or not, should keep within the rule of doing to others as they would be done to. Either you or I, John, would kick the shoemaker out of the house, who should tell us we ought to give him Ins. a pair. for shoes when as good were selling on the other side of the way for is. Besides, 'John, did you ever take your old master for a fool ? Was not he always able to set a mouse-trap as well as another? Do you think he is such an ass as not to know, that if he could force the people, ay John, to give 151. for corn instead of 131., it would all come round upon us in the poor-rates, and the impossibility of finding employment for our bairns? What is to be done with all your long-legged lads and mine, if we shut up the country on a given quantity of corn? No, no, John, we will have rent for all the land that will bring corn that people will honestly buy of us, but not a bushel more ; so tell the tenants I shall reduce their rents, because we must all help to bear the scrape the num- skulls of the landed interest have brought us into. But when the Corn- law is removed, John, you know I expect them within a twelvemonth to return to their old rents, or show the reason why. You and I, John, did not learn to saickle birds together 'a' top o' d' Wands,' to have salt ,put upon our tails is this manner in our old age." 122. Thus, Air. Editor, experience is the great teach- er after all. It neither rea- sons nor debates, but carries conviction and proof ; and nothing but mental derange- ment can induce a non to combat its decisions.—lb.
123. I will admit, for ar- gument's sake, that open ports would not occasion the prices of British corn to fall, unless under peculiar cir- cumstances. But iu the case of a wet harvest in Bri- tain (we had three wet ones out of four a few years back), and a dry one in Po- land, and other corn-gross log countries, what would be the situation of the Bri- tish farmer? It is almost needless to give the answer —his produce would be low in proportion to the expense at which he had produced it ; and I suppose these le- gislating Colonels have some idea of the vast expenses at- tending a wet corn harvest. A. Nimrod see-ho-s his hare too soon. " The great teacher" happens to be all on the other side. Wait for a few more quar- ters' schooling of " the great teacher."
A. Nimrod need not trouble himself with open ports not causing the prices of British corn to fall, unless he likes. It was only a folly, on the part of men who put forward the wrong reason because they did not know how to advance the right. But, as lie says, it shall be supposed to be done only to clear the argument. The answer to the plea of wet harvests is, that the farmers and owners of land are bound to make their reckonings on an aver- age of seasons, and carry their cultivation of land just so far and no farther. If they do not know how to do it, that is their busi- ness and not other people's: Suppose an underwriter was to make his calculations on all his ships coming home safe, and then was to run to the landed interest and say, " By the act of Providence and a windy season, three out of ten of my ships have foundered at sea. Remunerate me out of your rents." Just as good a joke, is the claim of the agriculturists to consideration for wet harvests.
It is not very plain what Nimrod means by a " dry harvest in Po- land." Does he mean that there should be a bad harvest in Poland too? If so, this would only cause the prices of home-grown corn to rise ; which in such circumstances would be nothing but what every- body would acknowledge right.
124. It is also needless to add, that in this case other countries wculd he enriched as our own became poor; or that a low price of wheat, an old gold standard, and a heavy national debt, can never co-exist.—Ib.
(To be continued.)
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