THE OLIGARCHY AND THEIR CORN-LAWS.
IN a stunt letter fr m Ireland, Mr. COBBETT called the attention of the English latallools to the alarming fact, that fine wheat was selling in Kilkenny at twenty-seven shillings a quarter. On reference to some of the Scottish prices-current, we find that at Kelso, last week, the price was from 288. to 37s.; at Dalkeith, front :;1s. to 5fir.; at Edinburgh, the average was .17s. 6d.; and in Mari: Lane the actual price is 41s. lad.; while the average price, which rtvulateS the duty, is 43s. 2d.-the duty being now more than leo ser cent. on the average, or 43s. 8d. per quarter.
New the aim of the landlords, in supporting 7he. Corn-laws, is
t to make food dear, or to circumscribe foreign tiade: it is simply to Isit; the selling price of corn, and consequently to raise rents. Bn; what do we hear from all parts of the country ? 1Vhat is the Duke of Bucensuoss about? what du the newspapers tell us of Earl TALBOT'S, Sir GEORGE CHETWYND'S, Lord BAGOVs, and other landholders proceedings? Why, that they are setting the
praiseworthy example of reducing their rents, in consideration of the almost " unprecedented low prices of grain." It is obvious, then, that a duty of 100 per cent. on foreign, will not in the face of
good harvests keep up the price of domestic corn : it is also obvious, that the farmer is not compensated by an abundant bar.
vest for the reduction of price it occasions in spite of the Corn. laws. What the farmer has been so often told by his " enemies," the political economists, turns out to be true at last-that, sup. posing him to derive any benefit at all from the Corn-laws, by virtue of a lease at a low rent, that advantage only accrues to hint in bad seasons, when the duty on foreign corn tends to make dear English corn still dearer. But bad harvests are the exception and not the rule, even in this climate; while rents are generally cal- culated on the reversed principle, of bad harvests being the rule and not the exception. We never give the least credit fat
generosity to those landholders who reduce rents which cannot be paid. They do what their interests dictate. If you compel a
farmer to pay too high a rent, you first exhaust his capital, and then force him to resort to bard cropping, which your agent must wink at. The fine speeches which are made when a percentage on the rent is returned, is a part of the system of humbug to
which the Corn-laws belong. Lord EBRINGTON strove to comfort a meeting of anxious farmers the other day, by telling them,
that Ministers bad not the least idea of repealino. the Corn-laws; and that it was evident, from the manner in which the motion to alter them was met last session by the Commons, that the Legisla- ture would not countenance such a proposition. Lord EBRINGTOS may have told the truth ; but the amount of what he said was a mere mockery. Any one of the farmers might have disconcerted hitu by pointing to the price of corn on one hand, and the duty on
the other, the former constantly declining as the latter rose. Unless Lord EBRINGTON could have assured his auditory of the intention of Providence to curse the land with sterility next autumn, he would have acted more discreetly had he avoided the subject of the Corn-duties.
It is marvellous to view the fatuity of those who congratulate themselves on the defeat of the motion of last session. The nation, they assert, is quiescent under the infliction which the Corn-law- repeaters described as so grievous. Certainly, as long as wheat is at fire shillings or less per bushel, the masses will not clamour for its reduction : the farmers are those who suffer more immediately. But the masses do not cry out, only because they are ignorant of the more extended, the more injurious operation of the Corn- laws on our foreign trade. It is not to be expected, perhaps, that
they will be enlightened on the subject before another Lad harvest raises the price of bread : then-let the landholders beware. The
high price of bread will raise the price of manufactures by a short process : foreign orders will be suspended : the rapidly in- creasing population in our manufacturing districts will earn less, perhaps nothing, just when they require an advance in wages to supply them with the necessaries of life. The distress will he greater than it has ever been heretofore, because the numbers
affected by it have been enormously multiplied. Should Lord EBRINGTON live to see that slay, he may live to see the Standing Orders suspended in order that a bill to abolish the Corn-laws may be hurried through Parliament. It is impossible to dwell on this subject without being struck with the manifest tendency of the present prices to lower the landed aristocracy in the scale of society in this country. Never was there a time when extraneous means of support were so de- sirable to the younger sons of great families. Yet now is the time that the nation has seized to cut off sinecures and abolish useless pensions. Our aristocracy are suffering in their incomes on all sides. Their land is not so productive as it was, for it has been worked unmercifully. Their debts and settlements remain the same, and their habits are as extravagant as ever. Their main re- liance is still the duty on foreign corn, though wheat in Mark Lane is five shillings a bushel! A large reduction in their expen: diture is their only resource : but loss of cash in this country is synonymous with loss of illicit influence and peculiar privileges. It would seem that no desperate blow is required to strike down the Oligarchy : it is crumbling to pieces under the onward march of events. The men who could give the most indisputable evi- dence on the point are those who are bound to be silent ; but the fierce opposition to Sir JOHN CAMPBELL'S Registry Bill was pre- cisely what they expected who guessed rightly at the contents of many an attorney's strong-box.
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