when all other produce and property are at low ones. If a Corn bill is so essential, what was the reason the Corn bill did not keep up the prices in 1821 and 1822? And as meat can never be imported at any time, why did it then reduce in the same proportion as corn? Another question may be asked. Why did corn and meat advance from 1822 to 1825, was there any alteration in the Corn laws to cause the advance? None. Let the Farmer also look to what has been the extent of foreign importations for the last three years. Within that time the importations have been exceedingly trivial, amounting to scarcely one day's consumption for the whole population, yet prices have been getting lower and lower, and wheat is now on the average, under 5s per bushel. It is evident then, that importations have not been the cause of our present low prices, and of that distress which is now so universal; but that some other all powerful agency has been at work which it is necessary to seek, to unfold, and to expose. But there is yet another error into which Farmers generally have fallen; another cause to which they have looked as operating upon their prosperity and adversity. They have thought that War raised prices, and that Peace sunk them. They have found prosperity in the one, and adversity in the other, and have almost been induced to consider War as a blessing, and Peace as a curse. Farmers of the last forty years, from having had high prices in war and low prices in peace, might very naturally be led to this opinion, tho' nothing can be more erroneous. That such events have never in themselves been the cause of such fluctuations may be seen by the following statement of the average prices of wheat in each period of war and of peace, during the last century, It must be evident from the above statement, that it is neither peace nor war which influences price, and that neither to the one nor to the other can the Farmers ascribe the changes which have so materially, and so seriously affected their condition. What then, they may ask, has been the cause of those changes we have so cruelly experienced; of that prosperity of which we once tasted, and of that adversity which now overwhelms us? It may be answered at once, It was the changes effected in the value of money! or in more plain terms, the enlargement or increase in the quantity of the circulating medium, or money of the country, to enable the government to contract, supof 800 millions, and to meet the current port and pay the interest of our vast debt expenses incident to the late war which abled the country to sustain the mighty presenhanced prices during that period; and ensure which that debt and those expenses occasioned: : or more properly, it may be said,It was the releasing of the currency from the action of the metallic standard which opened the way to the vast increase of our circulation, and it is the return again to that metallic standard, under, "Peel's bill" which has contracted or reduced the circulating currency, and lowered prices, and thus disabled the country to bear the mighty bur thens which have been imposed upon it; and the country is therefore sinking under the weight. to the one I published in 1828, as it appeared in a postcript, a copy of which 1 sent you a short time since. Lord Western's appears to be a corrected copy of mine. I have therefore taken Lord Western's corrected statement in preference to my own. W. K. The currency is a matter in itself the most important, as affecting the welfare of every class of the community: it is the very life blood of society: it is the mighty engine by which the whole industry of the kingdom is set in motion, and whereby all the operations of life are kept in action. Plenty of money, or enlarged currency, has uniformly produced a general elevation of prices, which have necessarily given increased means to every class, and promoted industry in every branch; and, with the increased burthens of the country, given the increased means to support them. It is when the monied means of society are removed, that the fixed monied debts and obligations, public and private, become oppressive and insupportable. An increase of money and of prices again releases the country as from a thraldom, and it is only when the general range of prices fall below the general range of expenses, and monied charges of all kinds, that industry becomes paralized: it is the contractive action upon the currency which causes distress, for it becomes no longer equal to the duties it has to discharge: it is thus that the returning to cash payments at the old mint standard with the immensely increased public debt and monied charges still upon our heads, and the forcing the circulation into the narrow limits such standard imposes, which has caused all the distress and misery we have experienced, and that has spread ruin into every corner of the kingdom. If we return, as is now the case, to the currency of 1792, we return, as a thing of course, to the values and prices of 1792; but we cannot return to the taxation of 1792, and to the same rents and monied charges of all kinds which existed at that period; and if we cannot do this, it is the height of folly and injustice to force back upon the country a state of currency unfitted to the increased dimensions of the public burthens and public wants, and to cut down the prices of property below the level at which it can discharge the high monied obligations which rest upon it. An alteration, an alleviation, an adjustment of this measure of 1819, is then essential to the prosperity and to the social existence of the productive classes, and even to all classes. Let the Farmers then if they wish for such prices as will enable them to meet their expences, and save them from destruction, and let the landowners too, if they wish to save their tenantry and their estates from ruin, press upon parliament the necessity of again restoring a currency in some measure commensurate with that in nously within, until they make manifest their sense of wrong; and that injustice and oppression can be borne no longer. The Farmers of England must arouse then from their apathy if they hope to be relieved from their difficulties: these are no times for hesitation; they must put their shoulders to the wheel. Let them follow the noble example set them by their spirited and stirring brethren of Cambridgeshire, who have so ably done their duty. Let every county follow in the same spirited course and represent their grievances to the highest quarters. Let them memorialize the King's ministers on their situation, and if they find no redress, carry their petitions and their grievances to the foot of the throne itself. They must be up and doing if they wish to be saved. But will the landowners take any share in these efforts? they might do much; but for their apathy under the appalling prospect, and their general ignorance of the noxious and destructive principle which involves W. K. them. ON THE ANNIHILATION OF RENT, AND ON than for the Ministers to affect ignorance in [From the Birmingham Journal, of Satur- paid generally out of the deterioration of the day, October 19th, 1833.] We insert to-day another letter of Mr. Thomas Attwood, first published in the Farmer's Journal of September 2nd, 1822, among a series of other letters on the same subject, about eleven years ago. It appears by this letter that he then asserted, and we think distinctly proved, that Peel's Bill, if persevered in, would ultimately produce nearly the "annihilation of rent” in England. He informs us that he sent the Furmer's Journals containing this letter to all the Ministers and to the principal members of both houses of Parliament. The Bank Directors remonstrated with the Government. The merchants of London and Liverpool petitioned against the measure.Why, then, did not the Ministers inquire into the subject? Can any guilt be greater, It land! This fearful truth, for so many years so pertinaciously denied and concealed, is now openly acknowledged, and the country is gravely assured that no remedy can be applied!! Indeed! Then why have we made the Reform? The House of Commons now acknowledges that the change of the currency has been the sole cause of the ruin among the farmers and landowners. acknowledges that the ruin will still proceed until all the remaining farmers and landowners are ruined, and yet gravely asserts, "that hopes of melioration in the condition of the landed interest rest rather on the cautious forbearance than on the active interposition of Parliament!!" We apprehend that the Committee of the House of Commons will find themselves in error. The farmers and the landowners will not stand still while their ruin is coolly completed in this way. They will not be content with the " cautious forbearance," but we apprehend that they will insist upon "the active interposition of Parliament," and upon that without much longer delay. If the Committee had still audaciously concealed the truth, and if they had still denied the effect of the change of the currency, and had still held out fallacious hopes to the landed interest, in this case, they might possibly have avoided further " interposition" for the present. But coming forward, as the Committee have done, with such a frank and open confession of the cause of the general distress, and of the enormous wrong and robbery which the law is at this moment committing, we apprehend that it requires no gift of prophecy to foresee, that the members of the Government will very shortly be compelled to provide a remedy. If they should neglect this great duty, it is still less difficult to foresee their own fate. In Mr. Attwood's letter, he, of course, only brings down his history of the "fluctuations" in the circulating medium to the year 1822; but how singular has been the correspondence since! In 1822 the measures of Lord Castlereagh again "relaxed the screw upon the currency," and produced the general prosperity of 1823 4, and 5. In the end of the latter year Mr. Peel's Bill was again enforced," the screw" was again applied to this deceived and oppressed nation,-and during the last seven years the country has experienced a general and continually increasing pressure of difficulty, embarrassment, and distress. Within the last few months the Government has again "relaxed the screw," and again we perceive a general Improvement in the condition of the manufacturing and commercial classes, which we sincerely hope will be made permanent, and extend to the agricultural classes. Mr. Attwood has omitted to notice one important part of the subject in his letter. He very justly observes, that "the improved system of agriculture, and the mechanical improvements which have taken place since 1791, will tend to counteract the almost total an nihilation of rent which the increased taxa. tion since that year, if measured in the present standard of value, must otherwise ne. cessarily effect;" but he makes no mention of the over-cropping and deterioration of the land which the poverty and ruin of the farmers must produce, and has produced; and which must certainly counteract the favourable operation of an improved system of agriculture upon the rent of land. If we may judge from the confession of the committee of the House of Commons, and from general observation and inquiry, we should be of opinion that the poverty and ruin of the farmers have already compelled them so far to exhaust and over-crop their land, that but little of it is now found to be capable of producing so great an annual produce as it produced in 1791, notwithstanding the effect of agricultural improvements. If, then, this should be the fact, the rent of land will go lower than the level of 1791, unless the taxes are reduced also to the level of 1791, or unless the standard of value is permanently altered. We come, therefore to this terrible alternative-under the action of the present standard of value,-either the fundowners must be sacrificed to make room for the necessary reduction of taxation, or the landowners will have no hope of saving a trifle from the wreck of their fortunes. In confirmation of this opinion we quote the following from the Chelmsford Chronicle :— "At the suggestion of a correspondent, we have searched our file to ascertain the quantity of land advertised to be let in this county from Lady-day to Michaelmas in the present year, and we find tenants wanted for upwards of 10,000 acres, vacated by as many as 60 occupiers. During that period the price of our best wheat fluctuated between 62s. and 67s. per quarter, and the price of Consols was steady at 88, 89. During the like period in the year 1805 there were not more than 2000 acres announced for letting, including two farms in Steeple, belonging to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, containing upwards of 800 acres, which at that time it was the practice to let by tender. The advertisements of farms wanted to hire were, we observe, as numerous as those to be let. The price of our best wheat from Lady-day to Michaelmas, 1805, varied from 86s. to 105s. and Consols from 57 to 59." [From the Farmer's Journal of Sept. 2, 1822.] Mr. Editor,-In my last letter, I alluded to the great falling off in the actual receipt of rent, which has already taken place in Ireland; and I represented that a similar falling off must inevitably take place in England, although retarded for a while by the superior capital of the English cultivators. It is, perhaps, proper to discuss this subject rather more at large. as they did in 1791. Vain hope! They must have the whole of their rents given up before they will find themselves in the same state as in 1791. The increased taxation of the country, operating in a thousand ways, and acting upon every article of the farmer's expenditure, will be found to have absorbed the whole rental of England, and to have left no surplus whatever to constitute rent, after defraying the farmer's expenses, and securing him the common profits upon his capital and industry. It is well known that taxes act ultimately in reduction of rent, in the same manner as tithes. If an estate be tithe-free, it always lets for so much the more rent, because it produces so much the more profit to the farmer. So if an estate be tax free, it necesIn the " 'Exposition of the Cause and Re- sarily lets for so much the more rent; and medy of the Agricultural Distress," which I the more the taxes are increased, the more read to the Agricultural Committee, and the rent is necessarily reduced. During the which they refused to insert in their Minutes war, this principle hardly shewed itself, beof Evidence, but which you afterwards in- cause the currency of the country being then serted in your Journal, I published a table, purely artificial, and subject to no test, excalculated to show that the positive annihi- panded itself as men's wants required, and lation of rent will be the probable result of by raising the prices of agricultural produce, the restoration of the ancient standard of enabled rent to be increased with the very value, "when the ruin of the farmers shall increase of taxation, which would otherwise have thrown the whole burthen of the in- have reduced it. Now the increased taxacreased Government expenditure upon the tion since the year 1791, is 40 millions sterlandlords." The landowners think that, if ling per annum; and, according to Mr. hey reduce their rents to the level of 1791, Pitt, the whole rental of England in that or about one half, they will then be permit- year was only 21 millions; that is to say, ted by their Jewish masters to enjoy the other 21 millions per annum was all the surplus half without molestation; "shorn," indeed, produce of the land, after paying the ex-. "of their beams," but yet existing in some- penses of production, and the necessary rething like the rank or the station of noble- ward of the farmer's industry and capital. men and country gentlemen. They think It is evident that, even supposing no inthat by yielding up the encumbered land- crease of taxation, the restoration of the old lords to the jaws of devouring Moloch, by measure of value, and consequently of the giving up, perhaps, two-thirds of their whole old prices of value, would necessarily reduce number to utter ruin, the other third will be also the rents of land to their ancient level; permitted to drag on a degraded and miser- because out of the same monied means, only able existence. It is upon this principle the same monied charge could be defrayed. that Lord Fitzwilliam seems to have acted, But when we consider that, in addition to when in reducing his rent 40 per cent., to the restoration of the ancient standard, an about the level of 1791, he expresses a hope increase of 40,000,000 per annum of permathat, in so doing, he shall have enabled his nent taxation has also been imposed upon tenants to exist in the same state of comfort the country since the year 1791, we shall |