THREE LETTERS

ON THE

Financial and Political

SITUATION OF THE COUNTRY,

IN THE YEAR 1815;

BEING A CONTINUATION TO THOSE OF

THE

PRECEDING YEAR.

ADDRESSED TO THE

EARL OF LIVERPOOL, &c. &c.

BY F. PERCIVAL ELIOT, ESQ.

THREE LETTERS, &c.

LETTER VIII.'

MY LORD,

2

February 1815.

IN N my two last addresses, I took the liberty of submitting to your Lordship's consideration the strong necessity for pointing your early attention to the subject of the agricultural interests of the kingdom; on which the immediate subsistence of the people, and the consequent wealth and welfare of the empire, are so absolutely dependent. In those letters, however, the present question was only touched upon in few and general terms; their more immediate subject being the recommendation of making weight the preponderating standard in the sale of corn; and the suggestion of a more simple and uniform scale of weight and measure, for the valuation of all saleable commodities. I have since seen several other propositions for the uniformity of weights and measures, but none which appears to me to embrace the same comprehension of all measures and all weights, with the same simple and uniform combination of relative proportions, and at the same time so little deviation from the most generally useful of those now in existing practice, as that which I had the honor of laying before you.

It has been thought best to continue the numeral series unbroken for the benefit of readier reference.

2 Numbers 6 and 7 dated on the 20th and 28th of June 1814.

In my present address to your Lordship, I mean to confine myself to the question of obtaining the most ample provision possible of corn for the consumption of the kingdom, at the lowest price consistent with the security of the interests and prosperity of the land-owners and cultivators of that land at home.

How essentially conducive the latter consideration must inevitably be to the success of the former, and how miserably defective in sound policy that system which, by neglecting the agriculturist at home, would throw us entirely into the arms of foreign importers, as our great reliance for supply, is too manifestly evident to require proof. The national purse has been but too much drained already by the vast sums paid for foreign corn for some years past.

In the latter end of the year 1800, and commencement of 1801, when the great scarcity prevailed, I had a correspondence of some length on this subject, with the Earl of Harrowby, then Deputy President of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Commerce; (which his Lordship will probably do me the honor of recollecting) of this correspondence I have fortunately preserved a copy; and the substance of it will appear in the progress of my present communication; to which I am the more encouraged, because I remember that, though both Lord Harrowby and myself were perfectly agreed as to the impracticability of putting my plan in execution at the moment of scarcity, his Lordship observed that it certainly deserved consideration for a future time; and also because that time seems now to be pointed out in the very able conclusion of the report of the select Committee of the House of Commons in July last; with which, I trust, that my suggestions will not be found to be in the least incompatible, but rather tending to promote its views.

To prevent our dependence on the precarious and expensive mode of foreign supply, and to enable us at all times to look forward with a well grounded hope to our own lands for at least the much greater part of our home consumption, it is quite clear that the first object to be attended to is the security of the grower for obtaining a fair and reasonable remuneration for his labor and

I

Upwards of 7 millions sterling in the year 1810, and in the year 1800-1, more than 10 millions exclusive of importations from Ireland.

2 That greater skill and more assiduous labor should secure larger profits, has been a claim acknowledged as irresistible from the days of Cresinus the Roman farmer, who, when he was accused of witchcraft by his simple neighbours for having produced more abundant crops, and bred finer cattle than themselves, answered the charge by bringing into the forum a heavier plough and stronger bullocks than those in common use, with this brief but energetic defence, "Hæc sunt veneficia mea! hæ meæ artes! nec possum vobis ostendere, aut in forum adducere, lucubrationes meas, pervigilia, et sudores!"

his skill after the deduction of all outgoings' whatever, and over and above the simple interest on the capital employed; and this seems to be very reasonably fixed at not less than an additional five per cent, that is to say, that he should make at least ten per cent of his money; and I believe there are few trades, though attended with lighter labor of body and less anxiety of mind, which would be contented with so small a profit.

Our next consideration must be to prevent the cost of the commodity from rising so high as to debar the rest of the people from obtaining it at a price equally as fair and reasonable on their part, as the grower's claim to a proper profit on its production.

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What that just and moderate price should be, in order to fix the proper line of demarcation between the contending interests of grower and the consumer, is probably the most difficult part of our investigation, because the task of devising means for retaining it within a moderately fluctuating distance of that point, when settled, would not, in my opinion, be an undertaking of equal labor.

On reference to the great mass of evidence subjoined to the reports of both Houses of Parliament during the last session, there

The property tax alone excepted, which must be thrown entirely out of consideration; being a demand of the government not upon the gross produce, or upon the outgoings of the land, but upon the clear profits of the owner and of the occupier. For instance, suppose a farm of 200 acres to produce a gross sum of £1600. per annum, of which one half, or £800. is absorbed in the process of keeping it in a high state of cultivation; another fourth or £400. is paid to the Landlord for rent, and the remaining fourth or £400. more accrues to the farmer as his profit, being £200. or 5 per cent upon his capital of £4000. and 5 per cent additional as a remuneration for his skill and labor, it is quite clear that when the property tax is at 10 per cent upon all income, the utmost which the public can require will be £40. per annum from the Landlord for his share of the profits arising in the shape of rent, and £40. more from the occupier as the tenth of the profits of his farming and capital. Those few surveyors, or land agents, therefore, who in giving their evidence to Parliament, have asserted that this tax has operated (or at least ought to be considered as operating,) either on the rate of rent or price of produce, have quite mistaken the question; and it will be seen, indeed, that the more sensible and well informed, that is a great majority, have put it quite aside, as forming no part of the estimate. The only difference to the owner or occupier is, that in times of war or great exigency, instead of £400. he puts but £360. into his pocket, in the same manner as the officer who is entitled to a salary of £400. per annum for his services in a public department, has £40. stopped at the Exchequer and receives but £360. In every case it is a sacrifice demanded by the situation of the country, and in none has the sufferer a right to transfer the burthen from his own shoulders to those of any other person.

The contrary opinion is something like the sad nonsense which two or three of the evidences have uttered about the supposed depreciation of currency, and the difference between a cash and a paper capital in the hands of the farmer, as affecting the rate of rent and price of product.

seems an almost invariable opinion, that less than ten shillings per Winchester bushel, or four pounds per Quarter, would not, under all the circumstances of the present times, afford either a fair rent to the Landlord, or a reasonable profit to the occupierI mean the present times with a general view of the age we in; without particular consideration either of the unfounded depression of the present year, or the over-strained profits of the preceding ones.

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And in this I am led to concur from a calculation I had made at the time of my former correspondence on this subject, wherein I stated to Lord Harrowby that at that period (1800-1) I considered the gains of a laborer's family to be about fourteen shillings per week, and that according to such supposition, I fixed eight shillings and sixpence as the proper price of a Winchester bushel of wheat. The data on which my calculation was grounded, were chiefly those of Lord Chief Justice Hale (temp. Čar. II.) and of Gregory King; (temp. Gul. et Mar.) the former stating the ne cessary earnings of a laborer, his wife and four children, (two able to do some work and two helpless,) at ten shillings per week or twenty six pounds per annum; the latter in 1690, makes a laborer's family, consisting of 3 souls per average, to gain £15; these, though raised on apparently different data, come nearly to the same point; as both allow at the rate of twenty pence per head for weekly expenditure-and mine for the year 1800 allowed two shillings and four pence each for the same proportion of time. The present earnings of a family (in 1814-15) according to Lord Hale's enumeration, (which from the practical experience of a large farm in my hands for several years and the consequent employment of many laborers, I know to be about the average number, as those who have more than four children generally get the eldest out to service, and few have less) I calculate at about eighteen shillings per week, including the gains of all, which allows a weekly expenditure of three shillings for each individual, or rather better than five pence per diem each; and will bring the proportional price of wheat to about ten shillings and two-pence halfpenny per bushel, or four pounds, one shilling, and eight-pence per Winchester quarter.

During the last sixty years of the seventeenth century, including the times of both the above writers, the average price of wheat was five shillings and eight-pence per bushel Winchester; and the proportion is as follows-as ten shillings per week earnings, are to five shillings and eight-pence per bushel price, so are eighteen shillings per week earnings, to ten shillings and two-pence halfpenny per bushel-price or four pounds, one shilling and eightpence per quarter, which tallies almost exactly with the calculaNO. X. Pam. VOL. V. 2 K