Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/57

 added to our total population. The returns of the last ten years, from 1831 to 1841, have not yet been published; but we will venture to predict, that, when published, they will show a similar result. From this we draw two conclusions, which admit of no denial:—first, that the economy of labour by the introduction of improved modes of culture more than counterbalances the demand for labour by fresh land being brought under the plough;—and consequently, in the second place, that it is not to any advance in agriculture that our increasing population must look for employment and support.

But the population of Great Britain multiplies at the rate of 200,000 annually, of whom three-fourths, or 150,000, must be estimated to belong to the working classes, who must either starve or live upon charity, or subsist by the labour of their hands. Employment must be found for 150,000 additional pair of hands every year. As long as trade and commerce prosper, they will find this employment in manufacturing pursuits, and the subsidiary crafts;—when trade and commerce are depressed and blighted, they will be thrown back upon the land, either to live in idleness upon its fruits, or by competion to depress the wages of the farming labourer. Hitherto the course of events has happily followed the former alternative; but the time for the latter is fast approaching, nay has actually commenced; and, unless the corn-laws are speedily removed, it can no longer be arrested. Now, we have seen that no additional hands are required for the cultivation of the soil;—in fact, their numbers are already redundant. What, then, must be the effect of the annual influx of 150,000 additional labourers into a market already overstocked? What but ruinously to depress the wages of labour,—the price of the only commodity the poor man has to sell? The conclusion is as certain as any in arithmetic, that such a check to the advance of manufactures as the corn-laws are fast bringing about, will infallibly reduce the earnings of the agricultural labourer to the very lowest point at which even the most uncomfortable life can be sustained,—far below even their present pitiful amount.

As to what the corn-law has effected, some controversy may arise. As to what it has not effected, there can be no controversy whatever; since it must be evident to the dullest understanding, that what has not been effected at all cannot have been effected by the corn-law. The corn-laws, then, have not made farmers prosperous,—have not made prices steady,—have not raised nor maintained the wages of the labourer. Yet these were the avowed objects for which they were enacted. The object they have effected was one which was not avowed, viz. to raise the rents of the landlords:—and this they have effected at the expense of undermining that national prosperity by the continuance of which alone can high rents be permanently secured. With the blind unthrift which is the usual companion and corrective of rapacity, they have killed the goose which laid their golden eggs.