by others. High as the price of meat is, it is the natural price under the circumstances of the season.
Beyond this one incident the case of Englishmen in the prospect of scarcity has a less gloomy aspect than at any time in the life of our fathers. The circumstances are more favourable, all round.
The improvement in agriculture is so great that the same area of cultivable land can feed twice the number that it did at the beginning of the century. The soil is itself improved by treatment, and the produce by improvement of the soil; and to this we must add the increased speed and skill in gathering the produce; so that what is a scarcity now would have been a famine in old times. Again, we can now buy food freely wherever it is to be had. Foreign countries are not now called upon to supply our needs in a vast hurry, and without preparation. The fertile lands of our colonists and our allies, all over the world, produce crops for our market, so that we are always sure of getting enough to eat, at more or less cost. It is true, this unusual demand affects the money-market, and our own industry and commerce, so as to act very mischievously upon our fortunes; but this is something very different from the wholesale starvation which our forefathers had to apprehend after a bad season.
Again, our countrymen have now been well employed and well-paid for a long period of time in their various departments of industry; and they are, therefore, well prepared to meet a season of adversity. The poor-law, in its present state, affords a refuge for the helpless, without corrupting those who can work, and ruining the tradesman class. It is now a sound part of our institutions, instead of being the most ruinous of them all. Again, we are, as a people, better educated, more civilised, less likely to fly at one another’s throats, when exasperated by suffering. We shall not suffer so much as formerly; we shall not aggravate our miseries by bad laws and arrangements: and we shall not rush into violence when good sense and patience are our only chance of getting through. We have no press-gangs to madden the fathers, husbands, and sons whom they may entrap: the recruiting sergeant is a very different person from what he was: and there is no temptation to make bonfires of militia rolls, or anything else. Smuggling has been extinguished by free trade. Men have been too comfortable and busy, generally speaking, to be any longer prone to the brutal crimes which formerly multiplied as soon as beef and bread became dear. It is evident at a glance that our case is every way milder and more manageable than any case of impending scarcity ever was in former times.
Still, it is serious enough to require very grave, careful, and complete consideration. This consideration should include the two points of our Present Resources in the way of food, and the Prospect of the further interval, before new crops can have grown, and the mortality among the cattle and sheep have been repaired.
Such a thing was never heard of before as the price of wheat being moderate while a scarcity was known to be impending. Far on in the spring, when the prospects of the crops are usually discussed with some confidence; and when, this year, there was thick ice in the cattle troughs in the mornings, and snow lying on the hills, wheat was selling for from 45s. to 48s. per quarter. In every market the farmers were reporting badly of their wheat. In clay districts much land remained unsown: and elsewhere much was ploughed up. At the same time, last year’s crop was turning out ill in the threshing. In former times, these circumstances would have carried up the price of wheat to 60s., 70s., 80s., or higher. I need not explain that the difference between former days and the present is owing to free trade in corn; and I need spend no words in describing the blessedness of the change.
Here, then, is the grand resource of all. The corn markets of the world are always open and always busy; and there we can get, at more or less cost, the wherewithal to feed our people, till the time of good harvests comes round again. The customary lowness of the price of wheat, and the slowness of the price in rising, is inducing more and more of our farmers to rely on other crops for their rent. In our great wheat-growing counties the change is becoming very marked; and it is owing to the secure and complete establishment of a trade in corn with the wheat-growing districts of the world.
And what is it that our farmers think of growing instead? More barley, more oats, and roots to a great extent—the object being to raise sheep and cattle. Here opens a prospect of a largely increased supply hereafter of animal food, to say nothing now of the augmented wool-supply for our manufactures. It will be a long time, however, before we obtain the promised beef, veal, and mutton: and we cannot buy meat from abroad ready for use from the continental cattle countries. The Denmark cattle which we import, require much feeding and tending before they are turned over to the butcher; and the deficiency of fodder, by which we lost our own cattle, prevents our entirely filling up the gap by live importation.
From another continent, however, we can procure meat ready for use. At the working-men’s meetings I have referred to, the sensible suggestion to abstain from British meat was accompanied by a favourable mention of American beef and pork, which are to be had, according to the speakers, at 5d. and 6d. per lb. To all of us this ought to appear an inestimable boon. The meat is excellent when properly cooked; and no time should be lost in ascertaining how much we can get of it. The excellence of the Ohio pork is due to the same cause as the fame of the Westphalian hams—the diet of the swine. The beech woods of Ohio shower down mast enough to feed legions of hogs; and free trade now gives us the produce when, in our own markets, pigs of six weeks old are selling for 27s. to 30s. As for the American beef, when we hear of its being tough, we may be sure that the complainant does not know how to cook it. We have been kindly furnished by the highest possible authority with instructions on