The expenses are:—
| £ | ||
| Parish and county rates | 90 | |
| Interest of capital | 150 | |
| Labour | 380 | |
| Tradesmen's bills | 80 | |
| Manure and Lime | 70 | |
| Wear of horses | 20 | |
| ——— | ||
| 790 | ||
| Rent | 800 | |
| ——— | ||
| ——— | ||
| £1,590 | .' |
So that, on this farm, which is very fairly cultivated, the rent is £800, the other expenses £790. (Cries of Oh, oh, from the ministerial side.) Now, if it requires 55s. per quarter in an average year to enable the tenant to pay the rent, and make £150 profit, it is obvious that without any rent he would be able to pay his labourers and tradesmen as well, with a price of 30s., supposing other produce to be reduced in the same proportion. But I do not anticipate that wheat will be reduced below 46s., even by free trade, and meat, butter, cheese, will certainly not fall in the same proportion."
Nine years after this prediction wheat exceeded 45s., and the price of meat, butter, and cheese was higher than in 1844. Mr. Cobden went on to say:—
"It must not be imputed to me that I entertain the opinion that free trade in corn would deprive the landowners of the whole of their rents. I have never said so—I have never even said that land would not have been as valuable as it is now if no Corn Law had ever existed. But this I do mean to say, that if the landowners prefer to draw their rents from the distresses of the country, caused by their restrictive laws to create high prices through scarcity of food, instead of deriving an honourable income of probably as great, or even greater amount through the growing prosperity of the people under a free trade, then they have no right, in the face of such facts as I have stated, to attempt to cajole the farmer into the belief that rent forms an insignificant item in the cost of his wheat, or to frighten him into the notion that he could not compete with foreigners if he had his land rent-free."
An honourable income, as great as it had been under restriction, was had from land after the repeal of the Corn Law. Mr. Cobden proceeded to state the condition of agricultural labourers under "protection:"
