may fairly be inferred, that the average of the last six years, 57s. 3d., cannot in any way have contributed to the late distresses of the country, or can have had the slightest influence in retarding its return to prosperity. The public attention cannot, I think, be too much directed to the fact, that the average price of wheat for ten years, from 1690 to 1700, ending 125 years ago, was 11s. per quarter lower than the average of the last six years. It will, I think, require some ingenuity to explain this according to the theory of the increased difficulty of producing corn on the poor soils of England; and it will be found somewhat inimical to the doctrine, that the sole cause of the late commercial distress was the high price of corn.

If the arguments I have used in the preceding pages are not altogether futile, and the facts I have stated entirely groundless, it must, I think, be admitted, that the agricultural produce of England requires a less quantity of labour and capital for its production than that of any country in Europe; and that it is sold at the price necessary for its production, in the actual state of the country. As, therefore, the higher money-price of corn in England does not arise from any greater difficulty in raising the necessary supply, if the country were similarly situated to foreign nations with regard to taxation and real wages of labour, the money-price of corn would be proportionably lower in this country, as the labour necessary for its production is less; and it therefore follows, that the introduction of foreign corn into this country, can alone be justified on the ground, that the country does not, in fact, produce a supply of food sufficient for the wants of its population; and the mode of its introduction can only be approved of, if it is such as not to interfere with the extension of cultivation, or to prevent the produce from increasing and keeping pace with the increase of population. If the agricultural produce, grown in Great Britain, is equal to the wants of the people, any importation from abroad must, in proportion to its quantity, diminish the home-produce, as when imported it could not be sold, unless at a lower price, and must consequently diminish the profits of all the home-growers, and cause the ruin of many, by which means the home supply would be di

minished, till, along with the foreign supply, the whole was reduced to an equality with the demand.

On the supposition that the culti vation of land in this country was confined to that of a degree of fertility equal to that from whence corn was imported from abroad, it would still be as difficult as ever to place a limit to the importation of corn. The causes of its higher money-price would still remain unaltered. The quantity of home produce, though diminished, might probably be raised by a proportionally less quantity of labour than before; but this disparity in the quantity of labour necessary to produce corn, experience proves has long existed in favour of this country, with out causing the desired effect. That the importation of foreign corn, by causing an excess of supply when compared with the demand, would reduce the money price of corn, is unquestionable; but in the proportion in which the higher money price here is caused by taxation, it does not appear how this lower price, the effect of importation, could be more than temporary, or could exist longer than necessary to diminish the home produce in proportion to the corn imported. If the amount of taxation remained the same, the cost of its production, so far as it was affected by that circumstance, could not of course be diminished. The same observation will apply to a difference in the real wages of labour. If a labourer in England receives double the quantity of food and necessaries in exchange for his labour that a labourer receives in Poland, unless the real wages of labour are reduced by the introduction of foreign corn, this cause of the higher money price of corn in England must also remain unaltered. If these two causes have any influence in maintaining the higher money price of corn in this country, the importation of foreign corn might probably increase, but could never diminish their effect, and it must, therefore, be impossible to predict the extent to which the importation of foreign corn may be carried. Under a system of Free Trade, I shall not pretend to determine whether it would be Nos. 6, 5, or 4, that would be thrown out of cultivation, but shall leave it to Professor M'Culloch, and others who are more intimately acquainted with the limits and position of these respective num

bers, than myself, to decide this most important question; but it appears to me, that the said Professor would be fully as usefully employed for the public interest, though probably not so much so for his own, in perambulating the Island, and pointing out to the farmers the termination of No. 5, and the commencement of No. 6, in their respective farms, as in mystifying the youth of Edinburgh, by delivering lectures respecting numbers, whose position has as yet only been fixed in his own fertile imagina

tion.

I wish now to consider what would be the immediate effect on the labouring population, by the introduction of a large quantity of foreign corn, and the consequent ruin of some, and the diminution of the profits of all the agriculturists. The diminution of corn, grown at home, would diminish the demand for labour. The prices would be lowered, 1st, By increasing the supply; and, 2d, By diminishing the demand. The price of corn would be lower, but how could that benefit the man who has less to purchase it with ?although the price of corn was lower, his labour might exchange for a much less quantity of it than when it was higher; and it appears to me, that corn is cheapest in that country, so far as the labourer is concerned, where labour exchanges for the greatest quantity of it; and, in this point of view, that corn is cheaper in England, than in Poland and Prussia, does not admit of a question, the average price of wheat in England for five years, from 1820 to 1824, inclusive, being 55s., and the wages of the labourer being, during the same period, 9s. per week-the average price in Prussia, for the same period, being 27s., and the average wages there being 2s. 6d. per week. There fore 55s., the average of a quarter of wheat in England, divided by 9s., will give within a fraction of the sixth part of a quarter, for the average weekly wages of England-while 27s., the average of a quarter of wheat in Prussia, divided by 2s. 6d., will give for the average weekly wages in Prussia a trifle more than the eleventh part of a quarter. It thus appears, that the real wages of labour have been for the last five years, in England and Prussia, nearly in the proportion of six to eleven, or not very far from double in England what they were in Prussia; and it is thus distinctly pro

ved, that, notwithstanding the higher price of corn, the labourer receives a much larger portion of it in exchange for his labour in England than in Prussia. As far as his interest, therefore, is concerned, corn is cheaper in England-labour is the money with which he purchases corn; and in the country where that species of money will buy the greatest quantity of it, corn is unquestionably the cheapest.

It is estimated, that two-thirds of the whole quantity of food earned by the labourer is consumed in supporting himself and family, while the remaining third is spent in lodging, clothing, and luxuries. Now this third, or 3s. per week, is more than the whole wages of the Prussian labourer; and all the articles of coarse woollen and cotton, principally used as clothing by the labouring classes, ought to be cheaper in this country, which exports them, than in Prussia, where they are imported. The command of the labourer in England and Prussia over the luxuries and conveniences of life, ought to be in proportion to the power which the third of their respective money-wages has of purchasing these commodities-that is, in the proportion of 3s. to 10s.; and it ought in fact to be still greater, inasmuch as commodities ought to be cheaper in the country which exports them than in the country which imports them. Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than the fact, that the labourer in England has the means of commanding an infinitely greater share of the luxuries and conveniences of life than in any other country in Europe. If he does not do so, taxation is unquestionably the sole cause which prevents him; and to its reduction, there fore, he must look as his only remedy. A reduction in the price of corn, instead of being beneficial to him, would be directly the reverse,—even supposing that a reduction in the price of corn had no tendency to reduce the quantity of its given price in exchange for his labour, as it would diminish the value of corn, when compared with colonial produce and manufactured commodities, it would, in that proportion, diminish his power of purchasing them.

Nothing can be more evident, than that the admission of foreign corn beyond the deficit, if a deficit exists, when compared with the demand, must diminish the home produce, and

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 labour ing 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 ne◄ cessary 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 the 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 before 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

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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. In 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 pyramidal 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