Various
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846
Is cheap bread a blessing to the labourer, let his labour be what it may? Let us consider that point a little. And, first, what is meant by cheap bread? Cheapness is a relative term, and we cannot disconnect it as a matter of price, from the counter element of wages. If a labourer earns but a shilling a-day, and the loaf costs seven-pence, he will no doubt be materially benefited by a reduction of twopence upon its price. But if he only earns tenpence, and the loaf is reduced to fivepence, it is clear to the meanest capacity that he is nothing the gainer. Nay, he may be a loser. For the grower of the loaf is more likely, on account of his extra price, to be a purchaser of such commodities as the other labourer is producing, than if he were ground down to the lowest possible margin. But, setting that aside, the consideration comes to be, does price regulate labour, or labour regulate price? In such a country as this, we apprehend there can be no doubt that price is the regulating power. At the present moment, peculiar and extraordinary causes are at work, which, in some degree, render this question of less momentary consequence. Undoubtedly there is a stimulus within the country, caused by new improvement, which alters ordinary calculations, but which cannot be expected to last. We never yet had so great a demand for labour. But let a period of distress come – such as we had four years ago – and the political problem revives. We are undoubtedly an overgrown country. Periods of distress constantly occur. The slightest check in our machinery, sometimes in parts apparently trivial, is sufficient to derange the whole of our industrial system, and to throw the labourer entirely at the mercy of the capitalist. It is then that the relative value of wages and prices is developed. The standard which is invariably fixed upon to regulate the rate of the former, is the price of bread. No class understand this better than the master-manufacturers, who have the command of capital, and are not only the council, but the absolute incarnation of the League. It is in these circumstances that the labouring artisan is driven to the lowest possible rate of wages, which is calculated simply upon the price of the quartern loaf. In order to work he must live. That is a fact which the tyrants of the spinneries do not overlook, but they take care that the livelihood shall be as scant as possible. The labourer is desired to work for his daily bread, to which the wages are made to correspond, and, of course, the cheaper bread is, the greater are the profits of the master.
Where the different industrial classes of a nation purchase from each other, there is a mutual benefit – when either deserts the home market, and has recourse to a foreign one, the benefit is totally neutralized. There is no greater fallacy than the proposition, that it is best to buy in the cheapest and to sell in the dearest market. There is a preliminary consideration to this – which is your best, your steadiest, and your most unfailing customer? None knows better than the manufacturer, that he depends, ante omnia, upon the home market. Is not this the very interest which is now assailed and threatened with ruin? There is not a man in this country, whatever be his condition, who would escape without scaith a period of agricultural depression; and how infinitely more dangerous is the prospect, when the period appears to be without a limit! The longer we reflect upon this measure, the more are we convinced of its wantonness, and of the dangerous nature of the experiment upon every industrial class in this great and prospering country.
There is one objection to the Ministerial scheme which, strange to say, is open to both Protectionist and the Free-trader. The landowner has reason to object to it both as an active and a passive measure – it professes to leave him to his own resources, but it does not remove his restrictions. Surely if the foreigner and the colonists are to be permitted to compete on equal terms with him in the production of the great necessary of life, his ingenuity ought to have free scope in other things, more especially as he labours under the disadvantage of an inferior soil and climate. Why may he not be allowed, if he pleases, to attempt the culture of tobacco? The coarser kinds can be grown and manufactured in many parts of England and Scotland, and if we are to have free trade, why not carry out the principle to its fullest extent? Why not allow us to grow hops duty free? Why not relieve us of the malt-tax and of many other burdens? The answer is one familiar to us – the revenue would suffer in consequence. No doubt it would, and so it suffers from every commercial change. But these changes have now gone so far, that – especially if you abolish this protective duty upon corn – we are entitled to demand a return from the present cumbrous, perplexing, and expensive mode of taxation, to the natural cheap and simple one of poll or property-tax. At present no man knows what he is paying towards the expense of government. He is reached in every way indirectly through the articles he consumes. The customs furnish occupation for one most expensive staff; the excise for another; nowhere is the machinery of collection attempted to be simplified. Then comes the assessed-taxes, the income-tax, land-tax – and what not – all collected by different staffs – the cost of the preventive guard is no trifle – in fact, there are as many parasites living upon the taxation of this country as there are insects on a plot of unhealthy rose-trees. If we are to have free trade, let it be free and unconditional, and rid us of these swarms of unnecessary vermin. Open the ports by all means, but open them to every thing. Let the quays be as free for traffic as the Queen's highway; let us grow what we like, consume what we please, and tax us in one round sum according to each man's means and substance, and then at all events there can be no clashing of interests. This is the true principle of free trade, carried to its utmost extent, and we recommend it now to the serious consideration of Ministers.
We have not in these pages ventured to touch upon the interests which the national churches have in this important measure, because hitherto we have been dealing with commercial matters exclusively. May we hope they will be better cared for elsewhere than in our jarring House of Commons.
As to the necessity of the measure, more especially at the present time, we can find no shadow of a reason. We can understand conversions under very special circumstances. Had it been shown that the agriculturists, notwithstanding their protection, were remiss in their duties – that they had neglected improvement – that thereby the people of this country, who looked to them for their daily supply of bread, were stinted or forced pay a most exorbitant price, then there might have been some shadow of an argument for the change at the present moment. We say a shadow, for in reality there is no argument at all. The sliding-scale was constructed, we presume, for the purpose of preventing exorbitant prices, by admitting foreign grain duty free after our averages reached a certain point, and that point they have never yet reached. Was, then, the probability of such prices never in the mind of the framers, and was the sliding-scale merely a temporary delusion and not a settlement? So it would seem. The agriculturists are chargeable with no neglect. The attempt some three or four months ago to get up a cry of famine on account of the failure of the crops, has turned out a gross delusion. Every misrepresentation on this head was met by overwhelming facts; and the consequence is, that the Premier did not venture, in his first speech, to found upon a scarcity as a reason for proposing his measure. Something, indeed, was said about the possibility of a pressure occurring before the arrival of the next harvest – it was perhaps necessary to say so; but no man who has studied the agricultural statistics of last harvest, can give the slightest weight to that assertion. His second speech has just been put into our hands. Here certainly he is more explicit. With deep gravity, and a tone of the greatest deliberation, he tells the House of Commons, that before the month of May shall arrive, the pressure will be upon us. We read that announcement, so confidently uttered, with no slight amount of misgiving as to the opinions we have already chronicled, but the next half column put us right. There is, after all, no considerable deficiency in the grain crop. It may be that the country has raised that amount of corn which is necessary for its ordinary consumption, but the potato crop in Ireland has failed! This, then – the failure of the potato crop in Ireland – is the immediate cause, the necessity, of abolishing the protections to agriculture in Great Britain! Was there ever such logic? What has the murrain in potatoes to do with the question of foreign competition, as applied to English, Scottish, nay, Irish corn? We are old enough to recollect something like a famine in the Highlands, when the poor were driven to such shifts as humanity shudders to recall; but we never heard that distress attributed to the fact of English protection. If millions of the Irish will not work, and will not grow corn – if they prefer trusting to the potato, and the potato happens to fail – are we to be punished for that defect, be it one of carelessness, of improvidence, or of misgovernment? Better that we had no reason at all than one so obviously flimsy. If we turn to the petitions which, about the end of autumn, were forwarded from different towns, praying for that favourite measure of the League, the opening of the ports, it will be seen that one and all of them were founded on the assumed fact, that the grain crop was a deficient one. That has proved to be fallacy, and is of course no longer tenable; but now we are asked to take, as a supplementary argument, the state of the potatoes in Ireland, and to apply it not to the opening of the ports for an exigency, but to the total abolition of the protective duties upon grain!
Of the improvidence of the peasantry of Ireland we never entertained a doubt. To such a scourge as this they have been yearly exposed; but how their condition is to be benefited by the repeal of the Corn-laws, is a matter which even Sir Robert Peel has not condescended to explain. For it is a notorious and incontrovertible fact, that if foreign corn were at this moment exposed at their doors duty free, they could not purchase it. We shall give full credit to the government for its intention to introduce the flour of Indian corn to meet, if possible, the exigency. It was a wise and a kind thought, objectionable on no principle whatever; and, had an Order in Council been issued to that effect, we believe there is not one man in the country who would not have applauded it. But why was this not done, more especially when the crisis is so near? If the Irish famine is to begin in May, or even earlier, surely it was not a very prudent or paternal act to mix up the question with another, which obviously could not be settled so easily and so soon. It is rather too much to turn now upon the agriculturists, and say – "You see, gentlemen, what is the impending condition of Ireland. You have it in your power to save the people from the consequences of their own neglect. Adopt our scheme – admit Indian corn free of duty – and you will rescue thousands from starvation." The appeal, we own, would be irresistible, were it made singly. But if – mixed up as it were and smothered with maize-flour – the English agriculturist is asked at the same time to pass another measure which he believes to be suicidal to his interest, and detrimental to that of the country, he may well be excused if he pauses before taking so enthusiastic a step. Let us have this maize by all means; feed the Irish as you best can; do it liberally; but recollect that there is also a population in this country to be cared for, and that we cannot in common justice be asked to surrender a permanent interest, merely because a temporary exigency, caused by no fault of ours, has arisen elsewhere.
Apart from this, where was the necessity for the change at the present moment? We ask that question, not because we are opposed to change when a proper cause has been established, but because we have been taught – it would seem somewhat foolishly – to respect consistency, and because we see ground for suspicion in the authenticity of all these sudden and unaccountable conversions. This is the first time, so far as we can recollect, that Ministers, carried into power expressly for their adherence to certain tangible principles, have repudiated these without any intelligible cause, or any public emergency which they might seize as a colourable pretext. The sagacity of some, the high character and stainless honour of others – for we cannot but look upon the whole Cabinet as participators in this measure – render the supposition of any thing like deliberate treachery impossible. It is quite clear from what has already transpired, that the private opinions of some of them remain unchanged. They have no love for this measure – they would avoid it if they could – they cannot look upon its results without serious apprehension. Some of them, we know, care nothing for power – they would surrender, not sacrifice it, at any time cheerfully – most of all at a crisis when its retention might subject them to the reproach of a broken pledge. Neither do we believe that this is a faint-hearted Cabinet, or that its members are capable of yielding their opinions to the brutum fulmen of the League. That body is by no means popular. The great bulk of the manufacturing artisans are totally indifferent to its proceedings; for they know well that self-interest, and not philanthropy, is the motive which has regulated that movement, and that the immediate effect of cheap bread would be a reduction of the workman's wages. We cannot, therefore, admit that any pressure from without has wrought this change of opinion, about which there seems to be a mystery which may never be properly explained. Perhaps it is best that it should remain so. Enough are already implicated in this question, on one side or the other. The facts and the arguments are before us, and we have but to judge between them.
Of the probable fate of this measure we shall venture no opinion. The enormous amount of private business which of late years has been brought before the Houses of Parliament – the importance and the number of the internal improvements which depend upon their sanction, and in which almost every man of moderate means has a stake, are strong probabilities against any immediate dissolution of Parliament, or an appeal to the judgment of the country. But there is no policy equal to truth, no line of conduct at all comparable to consistency. We have not hesitated to express our extreme regret that this measure should have been so conceived and ushered in; both because we think these changes of opinion on the part of public men, when unaccompanied by sufficient outward motives, and in the teeth of their own recorded words and actions, are unseemly in themselves, and calculated to unsettle the faith of the country in the political morality of our statesmen – and because we fear that a grievous, if not an irreparable division has been thereby caused amongst the ranks of the Conservative party. Neither have we hesitated – after giving all due weight to the arguments adduced in its favour – to condemn that measure, as, in our humble judgment, uncalled for and attended with the greatest risk of disastrous consequences to the nation. If this departure from the protective principle should produce the effect of lessening the tillage of our land, converting corn-fields into pasture, depriving the labourer of his employment, and permanently throwing us upon the mercy of foreign nations for our daily supply of corn, it is impossible to over-estimate the evil. If, on the contrary, nothing of this should take place – if it should be demonstrated by experience that the one party has been grasping at a chimera, and the other battling for the retention of an imaginary bulwark, then – though we may rejoice that the delusion has been dispelled – we may well be pardoned some regret that the experiment was not left to other hands. Our proposition is simply this, that if we cannot gain cheap bread without resorting to other countries for it, we ought to continue as we are. Further, we say, that were we to be supplied with cheap bread on that condition, not only our agricultural but our manufacturing interest would be deeply and permanently injured; and that no commercial benefit whatever could recompense us for the sacrifice of our own independence, and the loss of our native resources.