the wisdom of ages. It may indeed be suspected, that this New System is, after all, nothing more than an old acquaintance appearing amongst us under a new name; and that Freedom of Trade may be found as powerful an agent in effecting a change of rank and property in this country in 1826, as Liberty and Equality proved to be in a neighbouring one in 1792. These observations cannot be deemed superfluous, at a time when modern politicians seem to have adopted as their creed the preamble of our turnpike acts, and when to alter and amend appears, in the estimation of the President of the Board of Trade, to be synonymous terms. What is called the principles of Free Trade, has already been applied to some of our manufactures, though, it may be asserted, that time enough has not elapsed to enable us to judge with what effect. The application of the principle to the agriculture of the country, has long been advocated by enlightened theorists and disinterested corn-dealers; and, as his Majesty's Ministers have expressed their determination to revise the existing Corn Laws early in this session of Parliament, my present object is to inquire, in what way, and to what extent, the labouring population of the country would be benefited by the introduction of foreign corn; feeling convinced, that a measure, which is to be beneficial to the labour ing, cannot be injurious to any other, classes, and that the interests of the landlord in particular, and the labouring classes, are indissoluble. With a view to this inquiry, I shall endeavour to prove the following proposi

tion

THAT THE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE OF BRITAIN REQUIRES A LESS QUANTITY OF LABOUR AND CAPITAL

FOR ITS PRODUCTION THAN THAT OF ANY COUNTRY IN EUROPE.

The statements of Mr Colquhoun on this subject appear to me unanswerable. In comparing the agricultural produce of France and England, he proves that the labour of one third of the population of England is sufficient, and is, in fact, all that is employed, to produce the food of the remainder, while the labour of twothirds of the population of France is required to effect the same object. In comparing the relative quantity of labour necessary to produce a given quantity of corn in this country, and

in Germany, the report of Mr Jacob leads to a result still more favourable to Great Britain. From his statement, it appears that the labour of almost the entire population of Poland, and the North of Germany, is required to produce the food of the community. He states, that the wages of labour in Prussia are about 2s. 6d. per week, or 1s. 6d. less per week than the colliers at Birmingham, and elsewhere, will, in these times of unexampled distress, agree to accept of per day; and farther, that throughout Poland, the cultivators are also proprietors of the soil, which they cultivate by means of a peasantry, till lately bound to the soil, and who are still slaves in point of fact. That their wages consist in such a portion of the coarsest produce of the soil, as will enable them to live and propagate their species, while the remainder is the property of their landlord, which, as no market can be found for it amongst a slaving peasantry at home, he is, of course, willing to dispose of to foreign nations, at the best price he can obtain.

He states farther, that, in Prussia, small proprietors, or yeomen, if they do not often want the necessaries of life, have seldom anything beyond them. That the most industrious may be able to keep a cow, but that meat of any kind they rarely taste. This is the state, which, according to the theory of Mr Ricardo, a country far advanced in wealth and population must have nearly approached, from the necessity of cultivating poorer. soils, whose produce must always diminish, when compared with the labour employed on them. Thus, as Poland appears to be the country in Europe, where the produce bears the smallest proportion to the labour em❤ ployed in producing it, the cultivation of poor soils must be carried to the greatest extent. I do not, however, mean to assert, that the small comparative produce of the north of Germany, and Poland, is solely to be attributed to the poverty of their soil, though, if that soil were of double its present fertility, there can be no doubt that the produce would be much increased, and the situation of the community consequently much improved.

The statements both of Mr Colquhoun and Mr Jacob lead, therefore, equally to the same conclusions, that the agricultural produce of Britain requires a less quantity of labour and

effect produced on the price of corn must be exactly the same in both,the same quantity of food and necessaries being consumed in producing the same quantity of corn in both. The effect produced on the price of corn will be the same, by an increase in the real wages of labour, that is, by an increase in the quantity of food and necessaries required to produce a given quantity of corn, as by an increase in the quantity of labour necessary to effect the same end.

Thus, if the labouring classes in Britain receive a greater quantity of food and necessaries in exchange for their labour than in the neighbouring countries of Europe, and that they do so is a fact that cannot be disputed, the effect produced on the price of corn will be the same as if a greater quantity of labour was required for its production. Here, therefore, is a cause for the higher price of corn in this country, which it certainly is far from the interest of the labouring classes to remove. No one will venture to deny, that, if the real wages of labour in this country were reduced at once a third or a fourth, the effect on the price of corn would be almost incalculable, and that we should at once, from the impossibility of consuming our surplus produce, become an exporting country. Thus the high wages of labour during the year 1825, may be stated as one cause for the high price of agricultural produce du ring that year, notwithstanding an abundant harvest, and the admission of 400,000 quarters of wheat; and the low rate of wages in 1826 is certainly one cause of the lower prices of the year, though the wheat harvest has been deficient when compared with the preceding one, while the importation in both was equal, and the higher comparative prices of those sorts of grain whose importation has been free, show that no increase in their consumption can have tended to reduce the price of wheat. That the price of agricultural produce is affected by direct taxation is universally admitted. Mr Ricardo states, (page 170,) that it would raise its price by a sum equal to the tax; and as indirect taxation affects every article of food, clothing, and lodging, all the necessaries, as well as luxuries of the labourer, it must, in the proportion in which labour enters

into the price of corn, raise its money price. Here, then, we have two most efficient causes for the higher money price of corn in England than in the neighbouring countries. That they are the only causes that tend to produce that higher price, I by no means assert. It is sufficient for my purpose if it is admitted, that, in two neighbouring countries of equal fertility, the operation of either of these causes may have the effect of raising very materially the price of agricultural produce above the level of the adjoining one, that both these causes have, for a series of years, combined to raise the price of agricultural produce in this country above the level of the rest of Europe, is undeniable; and that it is owing solely to the natural fertility of the soil of these islands, powerfully aided by the constantly increasing skill and intelligence of the agriculturists, that has prevented that price from rising infinitely higher than it has done, is in my opinion equally well established. The average price of wheat for the thirty years ending in 1825, appears strongly to support this opinion. Dividing that period into a series of ten years, the average price of the last ten will be found to be 7s. 9d. less than that of the first; yet the population has increased during that period, at least 500,000, while the importation of foreign corn will be found to be much more considerable during the first ten years than the last.

The history of the last century affords proof, that encouragement to agriculture produced the same effect then as now. The laws which regulated the corn trade from the year 1690 to the year 1750, granted a bounty of 6s. per quarter on the exportation of wheat, till the price reached 57s. 7d. The duty on importation, when the price was not higher than 64s. amounted to 19s. 2d.; till the price reached 96s. the duty was 9s. 7d. When the price was above 96s. per quarter, the duty was 6s. 5d. The effect of this encouragement to agriculture, appears to have been to reduce the price of wheat from 68s. 3d.

the average of the ten years, ending 1700-to 33s. Sd.-the average of the ten years, ending 1750; while our exportation increased during the last ten years to the yearly average of 833,467 quarters. From these facts, I think, it

by that means lessen the demand for labour, unless the increase in demand for manufacturing labour fully equals the decrease in the demand for agricultural labour. If, for example, there is an importation of 1000 quarters of corn into this country, and a consequent diminution in the demand for labour equal to the quantity required to grow these 1000 quarters, unless the importation caused a demand for manufactures from abroad over and above what we could otherwise have exported, and equal to the employment of all the labour before occupied in growing these 1000 quarters, it is clear that there must be a diminution in the demand for labour, and consequently in its real wages, in the amount of the comforts, or conveniences which the labouring classes will be able to command; and if we are to be guided by the experience of the last few months, we must conclude, that no such effect is likely to be produced as the exportation of the additional quantity of manufactures in consequence of the importation of foreign corn. If a Polish nobleman exports 1000 quarters of wheat to England, will he, in consequence, import into Poland the whole value of these 1000 quarters in English_cotton goods and cutlery? or would not French wines and silks, Flemish lace and cambrics, come in for their share? It is perfectly clear, that the importation of foreign corn into this country, if it did not diminish the demand, when compared with the supply of labour, could not reduce the real wages of labour; and as long as the real wages of labour are higher in this country, the value of the articles that are principally produced by labour must also be higher.

The wished-for object of reducing the wages of labour in this country to a level with the wages of the continent, is perfectly unattainable, except by inflicting the most severe suffering on the whole mass of the labouring population. The numerous petitions that are now presenting from the manufacturing districts, in favour of a measure which is avowedly to reduce wages, shows how easily the labouring classes may be deceived as to their own real interests.

Were we, however, to admit to their fullest extent, the wildest dreams of

manufacturing prosperity, which the theorists of the present day assure us will result from a perfectly Free System of Trade,-if, from the effects of this system, our manufacturing wealth should increase in so extraordinary a manner, that the soils which at present we are informed are unfit for the growth of corn, and whose cultivation is the cause of all our distress, should, nevertheless, soon become necessary to supply the tables of our luxurious mechanics with fresh milk and butter, and by that means afford a rent to the landlord, which, under their present short-sighted system, they can never hope to obtain-Were all these results, the effects of the wonder-working system of Free Trade, to be realized, of which, as yet, I lament to say, there is little prospect; still, however, recent and dire experience proves that manufacturing speculation will occasionally so overstock the market, as to reduce the price of manufactured goods below the cost of their production; and depending for their existence, as a large portion of our population must then do, on the importation of corn from the north of Europe, is it not possible that manufacturing enterprise, aided by machinery, might produce in one year as many cotton goods as all the Polish and Russian boors could consume in ten?

What would we then have to offer in exchange for their corn, if a deficient harvest should unfortunately coincide with this overflow of manufactures? Could the government of Russia be blamed for prohibiting the export of the usual quantity of corn? At whose feet would the manufacturers then lay their petitions for relief? Not at those of our own gracious Sovereign; for this country would then possess neither the food nor the means of purchasing it; abject recourse would become necessary to the compassion of the Chan of Russia; and might he not be said to hold the reins of universal empire in his hands, when possessed of the food of the only people capable of resisting him? In the words of the late Mr Elliot, Woe would then betide England such as she never be fore knew, when the food of a large portion of her population was found to depend on the prosperity of her Cotton-trade. I am, SIR, &c.

A SCOTTISH FREEHOLDER.

THERE have been critics who made no scruple of referring the Laocoon to the period of the Emperors, i. e. to a Post-Virgilian age; not meaning to deny, however, that it was a work of Grecian art. This opinion they founded, no doubt, upon the resemblance between the group of the sculptor, and the description of the poet, which was too close and circumstantial to be thought pure matter of accident; and, in a question of original conception, they took it for granted that all the presumptions were on the side of the poet. Apparently, they forgot that, without supposing either to have borrowed from the other, a third case is conceivable, viz. that both were indebted to a common model of some older period.

Waiving this question, however, I will suppose the artist to have imitated the poet, as a convenient assumption for exhibiting, in the deviations of the imitator from his model, the characteristic differences of their several arts.

The father and his two sons are represented, by both sculptor and poet, as linked into one intricate nodus by the voluminous folds of the snakes; an idea which is indisputably very happy and picturesque. În the distribution of these folds, it will be observed, that Virgil has been careful to leave the arms at liberty, in order to allow full activity to the hands. In this the artist could not but follow him, for nothing gives more life and expression than the motion of the hands; and in a state of passion, above all, the most speaking countenance, without their aid, would become unimpressive. Arms, glued to the side by the limbs of the snakes, would have petrified the whole life and animation of the group. But beyond this single circumstance of disengaging the arms, there is no other in the poet's management of the folds, which the artist could have adopted with advantage. In the Virgilian Laocoon, the snakes are wound twice about his neck, VOL. XXI.

twice about his throat, and surmount his head with their crests. This picture fills the imagination, the noblest parts are stifled by pressure, and the venom is carried straight to the face. Nevertheless, it was no picture for the artist; the object for him was to exhibit the effects of the poison and the pain on the body; to do which, it was necessary that he should expose the person freely to view, and without allowing of any external pressure that could affect the free play of the agitated nerves or the labouring muscles. Folds as complete as those in the Virgilian picture, would have concealed the whole body; and that peculiar contraction of the abdomen, so expressive of bodily anguish, must have been invisible. Any parts that might have still remained exposed above and below the folds, or between them, necessarily bearing marks of protrusion and tumor, would have indicated, not so much the pains within, as the external pressure. The folds about the throat, by increasing greatly the volume of that part, would have had the further disadvantage of disturbing that pyramidical tendency to a point, so agreeable to the eye, under the present arrangement of the group; whilst the pointed snaky crests, towering abruptly into the air from a basis so

disproportionately broad, would have harshly broken up the present symmetrical contraction of the proportions. The ancient sculptors saw at a glance, that a change of plan was in this instance prescribed by their art, and they transferred the folds from the body and throat, to the legs and the feet. So arranged, they caused no constriction or concealment that could interfere with the expression; on the contrary, they suggested the ideas of flight impeded, and of immobility; ideas which reconcile the mind to that perpetuation of a momentary state, which it belongs to this art to present.

I know not how it has happened, that the critics have failed to notice

B