Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/16

 an invariable law of Providence that every attempt, whether through ignorance or design, to possess unjust advantages, recoils upon the heads of the offenders.

The uncertain nature of our demand for foreign grain causes the country to pay higher prices than would be the case with a regular trade; it also occasions heavy demands for specie, and compels the banks, for safety to themselves, to limit their circulation; it cramps trade and restricts the means of consumers; and in a short time it tells upon the agriculturist by a falling off in the demand in his market also. It is absurd to say that corn is the only article of trade that foreigners will not exchange unless for gold, especially when coupled with another common allegation, that they are so ready to sell it for such a small quantity indeed of the precious metals. Let the trade be regular, and grain will be grown for England; our manufactures will be readily taken in exchange, and our merchants will only require bills to enable them to square their accounts. But when we, as we now do, intercept the grain intended for others, according to all the laws of trade, gold can alone be taken in return for that grain.

Farmers without leases should have little cause to complain of free trade in grain, as they can have no difficulty in making new arrangements with their landlords, if such shall be found necessary. Those paying grain rents, we have shown, do not require any alteration. There remain however those tenants with leases, paying money rents, who may be entitled to relief so far by act of parliament, as that their money rents should be converted into grain at the average prices of the last five or six years, and be regulated for the future accordingly. Supposing that the said average price for wheat should be found to be £3 per quarter (less or more,) then for every £3 of rent now paid, the price of one quarter of wheat should be paid hereafter. Justice demands that this be done, and nothing more.

I may here allude to what is well understood as a fact, that, in many parts of England, leases are rarely granted by the landlords to their tenantry. Now, this I would consider "to be a heavy blow, and sore discouragement to agriculture." Landlords who refuse leases can have but an equivocal title to be ranked among "the farmers' friends." A lease, for a period of not less than nineteen or twenty-one years, is an absolute requisite to obtain correct or even economical management, or anything like the largest possible produce at the least possible expense. What tenant would for a moment think of expending on a farm £6 or £8 per acre, for draining, or of annually buying foreign manure, to cover, perhaps, the fourth of his farm, or even to erect a steam thrashing machine,