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The corn-laws, then, so far from having ensured success to the farmer, have not even secured him from frequent and severe distress. Thus far, all men will agree with us. Let us now inquire whether this distress may not be, in a great measure, traced to the operation of these very laws.
II. The case may be thus briefly stated. The existing corn-laws profess to secure a certain price to the farmer for his wheat. On this price the landlords.—the authors of these enactments—calculate and fix their rents; and on this price the farmers make their calculations, and contract to pay those rents. But it turns out that the corn-laws do not ensure this price. The rents have been adjusted on a fallacious supposition: the two contracting parties, therefore, cannot both be satisfied, and the weakest goes to the wall. The landlord exacts his rent, and the farmer is ruined. We appeal to the farmers themselves, whether this is not the true process in five cases out of six, in which they have been unfortunate.
The avowed object of all the corn-laws that have ever been passed has been to fix and secure a price which would remunerate the grower; and the agriculturists generally, having a most religious conviction of the omnipotence of Parliament, have naturally concluded that the avowed object of any law would be effected by that law. The avowed purpose of the law of 1815 was to fix the price of wheat at 80s. a quarter. The language of the landed legislature was uniform upon this point. They declared that no lower price could be endured by the farmers; they told the farmers that such a price should be secured to them by law; and they arranged their rents accordingly. What has been the consequence? In only two years[1] since that period has the annual average reached that price; and those two were years of scarcity. The farmers, who had contracted to pay rents, which only a uniform price of 80s. would enable them to pay, were, of course, impoverished or ruined.
In 1822 the average had fallen to 43s. 3d. and the deluded farmers were clamorous in their complaints. It was then declared, that the price of 70s. a quarter must be ensured, in order to induce the farmer to keep a sufficient breadth of land under the plough; and a new corn-law was passed to procure the desired result. Again the farmers were deceived, and lulled into fancied security. Again rents were readjusted on the new assumption of a permanent average of 70s. Yet in only one year[2] since that period, and that one a year of scarcity, has the price reached this point. The rents, however, had to be paid. The landlord whistled, and the farmer paid the piper.
For some years subsequent to 1822, every one was dissatisfied. The consumers of corn thought they paid too much, and the growers of corn thought they received too little. Again in 1828, a deliberate attempt was made to secure prices at once high and steady;—such prices as would enable landlords to exact extreme rents, and farmers
