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V. From what has been already said, it appears pretty clear that restrictive corn-laws are decidedly injurious to the farmer. It remains to be seen, that, of all possible modifications of such laws, that which is known as the sliding-scale is the most fraught with mischief and delusion. It is, indeed, the very quintessence of evil. It is ruinous alike to the merchant, to the manufacturer, to the consumer; to the foreign producer, to the English farmer. If our legislators had sat down in all diligence and good faith to contrive a law which should be productive of a minimum of benefit to any class, and a maximum of injury to all, they could not possibly have devised one more exquisitely adapted to its end. Such are the singular errors into which even able men will ever be liable to fall, when they endeavour to counteract the operation of natural causes; when they commit themselves to an impotent struggle with the laws which govern the moral and material world.
Had the sliding-scale been the exact converse of what it is;—it been made to slide in the opposite direction, the duty falling with the fall in price, and advancing with its advance;—had the duty been nominal at 40s. and prohibitory at 73s.; then, though in many respects more burdensome to the community, it would have afforded to the farmer a less delusive protection than the present law; as he would in that case have reaped the full benefit of high-priced years. In one case he would have been secured against foreign competition by low prices; in the other case, by the high duty. His protection would have been proportioned to his danger.—"What," says Dr. Johnson, "is a patron? Is he not one who will see a man struggling in the waves, without stretching out a hand to his assistance, but who, as soon as he has reached the shore in safety, encumbers him with help?" Just such a patron has the sliding-scale proved to the deceived and miserable farmer. When wheat is at 40s. a quarter, and no foreign corn can in consequence possibly come in, it mocks him with a needless protection of 50 per cent. But when prices are rising, and prospects brightening around him, and he—unhappy dupe! is solacing his tantalized and thirsty soul with a golden vision of 73s. a quarter for his coming crop, the protection is suddenly withdrawn, and the deluge of foreign competition is let in upon him. Yet this is the law which farmers, in their darkness, have been strenuously struggling to save.
The sliding-scale has yet a further operation which presses with
1840, 41, when the price had again risen to 67s. 1d. the quantity sold, notwithstanding a great increase of population, had fallen off to 10,938,000 qrs. In 1838, at 64s. 7d. 4,064.000 qrs. were sold. In 1839, the price had risen to 70s. 8d. and only 3,174,000 qrs. were sold. The same peculiarity appears if we compare different parts of the same year. In the two highest-priced months of 1835, viz. July and August, at the price of 40s. 9d. only 510,513 qrs. were sold. But in November and December, when prices had receded to 35s. 5d. 704,100 qrs. were sold.
Mr. Tooke has a similar remark (Prices, III. p. 40). Between 1831 and 1839, the apparent average was 56s.: the real average obtained by the farmer, he estimates at 50s.
