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dressed chiefly to labouring and poorer classes; for it is to them that this question is of the most vital importance, and their interests have been too often overlooked in the public bickerings between the landowner on the one side, and the master manufacturers and merchants on the other. The landlord thinks that the lowering the duty on foreign corn will injure his rents. The mercantile man thinks that it will increase his profits; and although one of them talks about the big loaf, and the other about the danger of trusting to foreigners for a supply of food—this is all flourish: their thoughts are really about their own pockets.
A question here might naturally be asked, which party do I belong to? I belong to neither. Politically, part of my supporters are manufacturers, and part agricultural. Part of my private income is derived from rents, and part from fixed money payments; so that my reflections are not biassed by a heavy pocket on one side, and a light one on the other; and my errors will be those of judgment, and not those of self-interest.
The main subject that I intend to discuss in the following pages is, what effect will an alteration in the duty upon foreign corn have upon the labouring classes?
In considering the effects of alterations in the price of food, we must carefully distinguish between the fluctuations that take place from year to year
