Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

the recommendation at the conclusion of the admirable report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, to which I should not do the justice it deserves, by substituting any other language for its own.

"Your Committee cannot but indulge a hope that we have nearly arrived at that state, in which nothing but a discouragement and consequent falling-off of our agriculture can again drive us to the necessity of trusting to large importations of foreign corn; except in unfortunate seasons, when it may be necessary to resort to this resource, to supply the deficiency of our own harvest.

"Should this expectation be confirmed, as they trust it will, by the experience of future years, it will be highly gratifying to the view which your Committee have taken of this important national concern. They are convinced that a reliance on foreign importations, to a large amount, is neither salutary nor safe for this country to look to as a permanent system; and that many of the sacrifices and privations to which the people have been obliged to submit, during the late long and arduous contest, would have been materially alleviated, if their means of subsistence had been less dependent on foreign growth. If, compelled by the frequent recurrence of these sacrifices and privations, the country has at last made exertions which will enable us, under ordinary circumstances, to hold ourselves independent of the precarious aid of foreign supply, your committee, without venturing to suggest the mode, cannot doubt that it will become the wisdom, and consequently will be the policy of Parliament, on the one hand, by protecting British agriculture, to maintain, if not to extend, the present scale of its exertions and produce; and on the other, consistently with this first object, to afford the greatest possible facility and inducement to the importer of foreign corn, whenever from adverse seasons, the stock of our own growth shall be found inadequate to the consumption of the united kingdom.

"As connected with the general interests of trade, even independent of the great object of occasionally supplying our own wants, it is evident that this country possesses peculiar advantages for becoming a deposit for foreign corn. It can only be made so by our allowing the free import of grain, to be bonded and warehoused free from all duty, and as much as possible from local charges or harassing regulations; and by the owners of grain so bonded, being permitted at all times and under all circumstances to take it out of the warehouses, either for exportation or for home consumption; subject, in the latter case only, to the same rates and duties as may be applicable to any other corn immediately entered for that purpose. Your Committee are so forcibly impressed with the importance of this measure, that they cannot conclude this

report without stating their opinion-that any encouragement which could ensure to this country the benefit of becoming the place of intermediate deposit in the trade of corn from the north to the south of Europe, would, in addition to other very important advantages, have at all times a tendency to keep the price more steady in the home market and to afford to the country a security the best that perhaps in the present increased state of our population, can be devised against the effects of a deficient har

vest."

In the whole of this most able and accurate conclusion I concur completely, and take the liberty of recommending it most forcibly to your lordship's consideration and adoption; the only deside ratum remaining, being to fix the scale of protecting duties under which the corn so imported may be allowed to enter into competi tion with that of our own growth.

Perhaps the following may be near the proper proportions, viz. When the average price is under 64s. in the home market, give a bounty on exportation, and lay duties, amounting to prohibition, on the home consumption of imported corn.

From 64s. to 76s. export without bounty, and continue the prohibitory duty on the use of foreign grain.

From 76s. to 84s. lay prohibitory duties on both export and im port, (that is to say on the domestic consumption of foreign corn.) From 84s. to 96s. continue the duties on exportation but lower those on the use of imported wheat.

Above 96s. continue the duty on exportation, and take off all those on the home consumption of foreign corn.

These, my lord, are all the observations which suggest them selves to me at present, with respect to the principles and outline of the system; but many things must yet remain as matters of

I have great doubts, however, as to the policy, or at least the necessity, of the prohibitory duties against exportation, in any of the above classes; because, if the market price at home is superior, or even equal to those abroad, the corn will naturally remain, at its nearest, least expensive, and most natural market; and if the prices abroad are higher than ti ose at home, which circumstance alone can form a temptation to export, then it should only seem as if our domestic market were beneath its proper level, and would soon rise to find it.

The broader the view which may be taken of this subject, the more politic will it be in its principle, and the more beneficial will it prove in its effect. And so far from intending to establish any thing like a prohibitory system, my main object is, by a system of mutual encouragement, to promote general production.

In the present increasing state of the population all over the world, there is nothing but increased produce which can banish the fear of general famine; or at least that general alarm which will go a great way towards its real existence.

subsequent arrangement in detail; and I cannot better recommend this important subject to your Lordship's early and serious consideration than in the following words of Mr. Burke,

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants; men have a right that those wants should be provided for by that wisdom.".

And that the wisdom of the British Senate will be so discreetly exercised in the ensuing session as to make ample provision for all the reasonable wants of the British subjects, I do not entertain the slightest doubt.

I have the honor to be, &c.

LETTER IX.

FALKLAND.

March 31, 1815.

MY LORD,

AWARE of the prejudices entertained by many, even of the more sensible and well-informed members of society, against the plan detailed in my last communication on the subject of storing and warehousing Corn in seasons of superabundant plenty, in order to re-issue the same in less fruitful years, for the purpose of levelling and equalizing the markets, and thereby preventing that unreasonable fluctuation so injurious to the real and correct valuation of all property, it was my intention to devote the present Letter to the many and powerful arguments which so readily offer themselves in refutation of the vulgar error with respect to the injurious effects supposed to ensue from the interference of Government in the Corn market, than which I think nothing can be more idle and groundless; but the storm which has so unexpectedly arisen in the political hemisphere, so ominous, so portentous in its aspect, and of an importance so paramount in its nature and probable consequences, as to the financial and political situation of this country, has swallowed up and absorbed every minor consideration in its overwhelm

ing vortex. And, indeed, I feel the more reconciled to the suspension of the subject for the present, as the wisdom of the Legislature, unawed by the clamors of a misjudging mob, has passed into a law those salutary regulations which cannot fail of producing the most beneficial results with respect to the future supply of the public markets; and most sincerely do I congratulate your Lordship on that display of clear-sighted firmness which has enabled. you with so much justice to assert

"Multitudinis imperiti non reformido judicium."

Gloomy as the prospect presents itself to our view at the present moment, and arduous as the contest, in which we must inevitably be engaged, will prove; and deeply as I lament the consequent expenditure of blood and treasure in which it must necessarily involve us, I cannot help assuming to myself some degree of credit for the prophetic foresight which led me to anticipate the dreadful consequences of suffering the blood-stained Corsican to escape the punishment which every law, both human and divine, so justly awarded to his manifold iniquities.

At the very moment when such unseasonable and ill-judged le nity was shewn to this dæmon in human shape, I foresaw the evils which the restless and perturbed spirit of the Gallic Nero would prepare for those, whose folly permitted such a sanguinary and unrepenting Monster to escape the scaffold. The infatuation of the Confederates was as much beyond my comprehension then, as is now the idiotic imbecillity of those who would contend that we have no interest in the struggle, and that France has a right to choose its own master, without our daring to interfere in the decision. But you, my Lord, will not be found amongst the Special Pleaders in abstract theories, the

"Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos.”

You will judge with more acute discrimination, and with sounder policy; you will know and feel that nothing but immediate and most vigorous exertions can remedy the gross and unpardonable negligence, which, whether it originated in the primary error of suffering him to exist, or in the more recent neglect of preventing his escape, has let loose on the world a train of evils, more numerous and more pregnant with misery than ever Pandora's Box was fabled to contain.

For the correct anticipation of what has happened, vide Letter I. 31st January, 1814. Pamphleteer, No. 6, pages 583, 4, and 5.

2 Vide Pamphleteer, No. 6; page 381.

If France alone were to be the sufferer for receiving the Usurper, richly indeed would she deserve it; and I should be the first to advocate the principle of non-interference, till she had drunk the very dregs of despotism and oppressive tyranny, for her stupid apathy and infamous ingratitude to a Monarch only too excellent for such a race of brutish slaves, who seem to exercise no judgment for themselves, but with the variable velocity of the weathercock, to turn and waver with every gale that blows:

"Non est qui judicat vere, confidunt in nihilo, loquuntur vanitates, conceperunt laborem, pepererunt iniquitatem.

"

But, my Lord, the fate of Europe is too deeply involved in that of France to leave the Allies any other alternative than that of instant and unbounded energy of action-every nerve must be strained, every possible exertion must be put in immediate force, to quash the evil ere it gets too strongly rooted; and then, I trust, the result will be ultimately more beneficial to the general welfare than if it had never happened the good will be selected from the ill-disposed; and France, in common with the rest of Europe, will benefit by the extermination of a nest of Traitors, fostered in her maternal bosom to the deadly prejudice of all her best and dearest interests; and which ought to have been swept from the face of the earth, with their infamous Master, at the moment when the Allies were in possession of the Gallic capital.

The error, however, obvious as it was, even at the time, to every clear-sighted judgment, has been committed, and it now remains only to remedy the consequences with all the expedition, and with all the energy in our power to exert. Fortunately, the lawful Monarch, instead of giving up the contest tamely, and returning to this peaceful and secure asylum, has taken the wiser and more manly step of placing himself on the frontier of his kingdom, and near at hand to our valiant and unconquerable troops in Belgium, and in the line for receiving constant and powerful succour from the rest of the Allies; and soon I hope to hear of our illustrious Chief resuming his rapid and victorious march into the northern provinces, and establishing a nucleus for the partisans of loyalty to form and rally round. In the West, too, let us trust there is a considerable proportion of loyal population, who would declare themselves for their lawful Sovereign, whenever they should be secure of such effectual support as to render it safe and possible to embody an army on that side. But I confess to you, my Lord, that I have little reliance on the natives, whilst unsupported by the assistance of a powerful combination of the other European kingdoms; for, however illiberal it may seem at first sight to libel a whole nation, I hardly know a Frenchman who is to be trusted, after the

« AnteriorContinuar »