Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/37

 committee of the House of Commons, in 1836, all agreed in saying that they could do very well with the prices wheat had been at up to that period, viz.: from 40s. to 48s. a quarter; and they also said that there had been no distress among the farmers paying corn rents. Farmers paying money rents had done badly, and many of them ascribed their doing so to the circumstance of the corn laws raising expectations as to prices which were never fulfilled. A repeal of the corn laws might perhaps bring on a system of corn rents and long leases, but this would be beneficial, rather than otherwise, to the farming interest. Of the various items of expenses on a farm there are none, with but few exceptions, and these not amounting to 10s. an acre, that will not bear a strict reduction with the price of corn. Rent, tithes, poor-rates, and even taxes, would fall, and, in the receipts of a farmer, many kinds of produce would rise, such as wool, butter, and cheese, and milk, and all articles which cannot be imported. The landlord would have no cause to complain even if his rent did not bring in so much money as before. He would have his share of the produce of the soil, and in reason and in justice he can no more demand of the legislature to give his share a fictitious value than any other class in the community, and he would derive the same advantages that other classes would derive from lighter taxation, and from the daily improvements in the arts and sciences.

The same causes which led people in America to suppose that the opening of canals connecting the western with the frontier States, would destroy the value of land in the old established States, will affect England as they did the old States in America. By the increased trade that was gained by the old States, the value of land and the value of labour were advanced, and the increased consumption of agricultural produce prevented any material depreciation of price. In the same way would England, by opening her markets to the produce of the world, become the centre of civilization and wealth; and to suppose that in the increase of her wealth, the very large classes, of whom I have more particularly been speaking, will not be participators, is to refuse the experience of history, and to doubt of the principles of human nature.

ARTHUR MORSE.

Swaffham, Norfolk, 25th, Oct., 1842.