the eve of accomplishment; a Bill having been brought into Par liament for that purpofe; and fome fteps have been taken, by Government, for carrying into execution another project of his, for afcertaining the number of acres, in the kingdom, fown with wheat. To obtain a knowledge of both these facts is indifpenfibly neceffary, in order to ascertain the difference between the produce and the confumption. We alfo agree with the author, that millers and mealmen ought to be fubject to an affize as well as bakers. But we cannot admit either that our population can have advanced with fuch rapidity, as to have encreated a third in ten years; nor that fuch encreafed population is fufficient to account for the prefent high price of corn; because the average import of foreign wheat, during the war, has very greatly exceeded the average import during peace. Nay, if the accounts we have seen are correct, the import of wheat, between September 1799 and September 1800, exceeded the import of the whole feven years, immediately preceding the war. The former has been computed at more than eleven hundred tboufand quarters; the latter amounted only to one million, fixteen thousand, two hundred and twenty-five quarters!!! *

Of the neceffity for a general inclofure bill every body is convinced; and Mr. Young contends that the measure is practicable. Should it take place, it appears to us, that it would be highly expedient to introduce a clause into the act, compelling all perfons who fhall have a right of common, to appropriate a given proportion of the land to be inclofed to the growth of wheat, as foon as it can be rendered fit for the purpose. Landlords ought alfo to introduce a fimilar claufe into all their leafes. The recommendation to affign to every labourer in the country fufficient land for the growth of potatoes, for his family, and for the nourishment of a cow or two, has our hearty approbation; it is the beft poffible ftimulus to induftry, and the beft poffible means of cherishing, at once, a lively fenfe of gratitude, and a manly fpirit of independence in that highly ufeful and important clafs of the community. We fhall conclude our account of this valuable tract with the author's concluding remark, which, we hope, will meet with the attention of the Legislature.

"Parish mills have often been demanded, and, wherever tried, have been excellent; why not attach parith ovens to them, lett to a miller and baker, under articles grounded on the fame principle as guided the Earl of EGREMONT in his agreement with the Coulterfhaw miller? Where there is water, a water-mill; where none, a wind-mill where parishes are large, by a fingle parish: where fmall, three or four uniting; and the union to depend on population. In village diftricts, the parishes to deliver corn by weight to the miller, and the baker to fell bread proportionably to the price

*We muft here observe that the table of imports given by Mr. Young, in P. 92, 93, differs confiderably from that given in the pamphlet, attributed to Mr. Long, entitled " A Temperate Difcuffion of the Causes, &c." P. 5..

of

of corn. There do not appear to be any infuperable difficulties in fuch a plan, which, if made coercive, would have great effects; but as to leaving it voluntary, it would then be worth neither experiment, detail, nor perfeverance to produce. I do not comprehend the fyftem of employing wisdom, talents, and persevering industry to frame laws, and then leave their acceptance to ignorance, ftupidity, and negligence: intended for the benefit of one clafs, diftreffed by prices; and to be rejected by another, to whom those prices are so much profit."

ART. XXXIV. Thoughts on the prefent Prices of Provifions, their Caufes and Remedies; addreffed to all Ranks of People. By an independent Gentleman. 8vo. Pr. 90. Reynolds, OxfordStreet. 1800.

THE

"HE author of this tract is certainly a man of independent mind, and he has exercised his independence, in a very laudable manner, in the difcuffion of this important queftion. Though he be certainly mistaken in fome of his pofitions and calculations, yet many of his arguments are remarkable for their foundness and ftrength. He fully meets, and fairly difcuffes, all the objections which have been urged to the meafures which he propofes, and is, in general, fuccefsful in confuting them. The principal points in which he is mistaken, are, in his ideas, refpecting the inefficacy of a general inclofure, and his estimate of the produce of the two laft harvests. On the fubject of inclosure he conceives, that the additional quantum of corn, which the cultivation of lands now lying wafte would produce, would not be more than equal to the confumption of the additional population which their inclosure would occafion; but this could only be true in the cafe, where the lands to be cultivated formed one compact and united tract, whereas they are fcattered over different parts of the country, furrounded with cultivated land, and requiring, for their cultivation, very little more than the exifting population. As to the produce of the two harvefts; the great deficiency of that of 1799 is now afcertained beyond the poffibility of doubt; and we have good reason to believe that the produce of the prefent year is fomething lefs than our average crop. On this point we are inclined to adopt the opinion of a gentleman, an able political economnift and arithmetician, not apt to form hafty opinions, who has had access to all the information which goverment has received, and who is therefore better qualified to judge, than any other perfon lefs converfant in fuch matters, or poffeffed of more partial intelligence; and his opinion is, that the late crop of wheat has yielded nineteen twentieths of an average crop. Having ftated all the objections which have come to his knowledge, the author gives separate and distinct answers to each, which are, for the moft part fatisfactory. He admits that fome of them are, to a certain degree, well founded; but then he demonftrates the impractica

bility

'bility of removing the grounds of them. On the war, by fome confidered, as one caufe of the fcarcity supposed to exift, he has the following manly and pertinent remark.

"And with refpect to the preffure of war, whilft the bleffings of a fecure and honourable peace must be almost universally allowed, furely no one, animated by the fmalleft fpark of genuine patriotism, would advise the laying of all the honours and all the fortunes of the British nation at the foot of an inveterate and infulting foe, through the idle and unfounded hope of inftant alleviation of the burthens that opprefs us; a foe, who, as the reward of our humiliation, would but add lofs to lofs, and mifery to mifery, till he crushed us beyond the probability of rifing again, and ever more rivaling him in arts or in arms, or in any thing contributing to conftitute the greatnefs, the power, or the happinefs of a ftate. This would prove a worse bargain than that of Efau; for if he loft his birthright, he got at leaft his pottage, whilft we should lose both the one and the other in the defperate fpeculation, without even the reasonable chance of any compenfating advantage whatever."

He next infifts on the neceffity of afcertaining the quantity of corn at present in the kingdom, of land fown with corn, and of all live ftock and other articles of provifion; and then proposes his own remedies, the principal of which are, the establishment of public magazines of rice, to be retailed at a price not exceeding 3d. per lb. and the regulation of the prices both of provifions and agricultural labour, by Magiftrates affembled in their Quarterly Seffions. He is aware of the clamour which has been raised against the adoption of a Maximum, and therefore he enters into an exact investigation of its nature and probable effects. The Maximum has been reprobated very strongly by many as having been the original invention of the French Jacobins, and productive of the moft fatal confequences in the place of its birth. But those who preferred this charge had not confidered for what pur pofe the Maximum was established in France; it was not for promoting a reduction in the price of corn, but for preventing a depreciation of the affignats; fo that the two cafes are totally different.

To the attention of those who fo ftrenuously contend for the unlimited freedom of commerce, and who so strongly object to a Maximum as unjust in principle and an innovation in practice, we recommend the following facts and inferences, calling upon them at the fame time, to difprove the one, and to confute the other-if they

can.

"But further, on the fubject of a maximum, the writer is bold to say, that, so far from its being a new principle, in our own government, as well as every other in Europe, it has been adopted in sertain inftances, and acknowledged as beneficial. Have not our magiftrates already a power of fixing harveft wages; and if they have, why has not one man an equal right to put an arbitrary price upon his labour, as another has upon his commodities? Are not the wages of many trades, as thofe of taylors, and certain others, fixed by act of parliament ?

"What

What is the affize of bread but a maximum? Upon the principle of perfectly free trade, the baker has an equal right with other dealers and manufacturers of provifions to fell his commodity at any price he pleafes.

"But, more than all, where is the principle of free trade in the article of money, that great and univerfal commodity, which, pervading every branch of commercial intercourfe, influences, in a greater or leffer degree, all the operations of civil fociety? On what grounds, if this theory be perfect in all its parts, is a man restrained by the ftrongest legal coercions from turning his money to the best advantage, and fixing his own price upon it? Yet, if he takes more than 5 per cent. per ann. he incurs not only legal penalties, but the intamy of ufurious rapacity into the bargain.

"Has not this limitation extended itfelf to every nation in Europe, and, perhaps, in a certain meafure, to every civilized and trading nation on the globe, upon principles of practical expediency, forming one of the leading features of all their commercial dealings ?

"Now all the inftances of maximum given above, are thofe of a close, fevere, and narrowly-limited maximum, which muft, under various circumstances, be attended with fingular inconvenience. For to exemplify, how can an artizan or a labourer work for the fame wages when his provifions are at double and treble their former price?

"How can a neceffitous man get money at 5 per cent. however great his wants, when even government fecurities produce a great

deal more?

"Here the hardships are apparent, yet the law remains in force, in defiance both of the theory and, in those inftances, of the practical expedience too. In fome cafes the inconvenience becomes fo great as to call for immediate remedy, as in the inftance of hackney coaches, &c. &c.; had not the fares been lately raised by an act of the legiflature, there would not at this moment have been a single vehicle of that defcription within the bills of mortality. Upon the ground of a perfect and all pervading theory, the hackney-coachman is as fully juftified in fetting an arbitary price upon his fare, as the farmer on his corn or his butter. When a theory is clearly and avowedly deviated from in fo many inftances; and when to preferve it facred and untouched in a fingle one, fubjects at least one very large part of your whole population, the middle ranks of fociety, to evident dif trefs; and configns another ftill much larger portion, the labouring clafs, to famine and defpair; I fay, under fuch circumftances, the moft pertinacious adherent to his theory, if not wholly blinded by his partialities, must be inclined to fufpect fome fundamental error in it, and liften at leaft, with becoming temper and moderation, to the voice that points it out, and recommends an experiment of its violation in a fingle inftance, for a chance, at leaft, of faving the whole community from that yawning gulph that opens for its deftruction. The fact is, the theory is unfound when practically applied in many inftances, with little elfe to fupport it than the blinded zeal of its worshippers. "To

"To enter into minute details might be both tedious and unneceffary; fuffice it to fay, the fyftem is a monstrous abortion of the French œconomic school, promulgated by the elder Mirabeau and others of that feet, and reduced to practice by Turgot, who, promoted in an evil day for the fortunes of France to the direction of her finances, introduced irremediable diftrefs into every branch of her internal œconomy; and had finally famished one part of the state, and, by corrupting the other from its allegiance and attachment to its fovereign and all its ancient cuftoms, overturned the whole fabric of government twenty years before its time, had not his incapacity or ill intention been demonftrated to the fatisfaction of his royal master, and produced his difmiffion. The fame fyftem was afterwards continued down by Condorcet, and, in fact, forms one principal link of the grand Jacobinical chain, by which true freedom, with all its concomitant enjoyments, and every thing that renders a ftate of civil fociety preferable to a favage one, has been fince, in fome countries, bound to the earth.

"Long, very long, may these evils be averted from this island! but if we once receive wild theories, however plaufibly recommended by the names of a Mirabeau, a Turgot, a Condorcet, or an Adam Smith, as the palladium of our liberties and our happiness, we admit the horse of death within our walls, and have only to await, in trembling expectation, the final hour of our deftinies.

"It is feen and acknowledged, then, that this theory is broken through in various inftances, fuch as in the fixing a maximum of wages, and of fares, and of the loan of money, and perhaps, on investigation, of many other matters; why, then, fhould it be confidered untepealable as the decrees of fate in the fingle article of provifionsthat which bears more than all the reft, in the ratio of a hundred or a thousand perhaps to one, on the wants and comforts of the whole community at large, and of the lower and labouring claffes in particular?"

So much has been faid of the right of the farmer to withhold his corn from market as long as he pleases, (which, as we have before shown is tantamount to a right to starve the public) and to demand for it as much as he pleases, that, notwithstanding the length of the preceding extract, we cannot refrain from laying before our readers fome farther remarks of this sensible writer on the fubject.

"In my humble opinion, the producer or proprietor of grain, or other articles of prime neceffity, has no more than a limited right of property in them, not liable to be exercised at his entire difcretion, to the deftruction, or even material injury, of the community to which he belongs; if he knows not how himself to fet bounds to his ava. ricious fpeculations, it is fitting that the law should fet them for him, and not permit the fubftantial intereft, nay the very existence of a whole people, to be facrificed to too fcrupulous and delicate an attachment to fine-drawn theories concerning proprietary rights, the principle befide of which has been already violated in fo many inftances."

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