fober in conduct, must not my property be diminifhed, and will not my affairs haften into deftruction? And that fuch is the prefent fituation of our poor, I dare proclaim it to all the world. And until their grievances are redreffed, I will not ceafe proclaiming them aloud, nor fear publishing them even in the very gates of our rulers. The other fide. OMEGA. T is amazing that your correfpondents should declaim fo ftrongly against monopolies at the very time while they are recommending one of the worst kind; I mean a monopoly of men of pleasure and men of bufinefs upon this ifland, against the honeft farmer, who is now obliged to pay yearly thrice as much rent as he did a hundred years ago, yet fells his wheat at a lower price than it brought about the middle of the laft century, when the civil wars were ended. At that time, and during all the regency of Oliver Cromwell, the ordinary price of wheat was two guineas and forty-three fhillings the quarter, without any any clamours about want or fcarcity, although the price of labour was much lefs than it is now. Why then, at this time, eftablish a monopoly against the farmer, by laying a perpetual embargo on corn? Why will not thefe gentlemen confider that the farmer now pays higher wages as well as higher rents? Or are they ignorant that a perpetual embargo on the exportation of corn implies, in its own nature, a monopoly? One of your correspondents, unwilling to allow a due merit to the encouragement given to the exportation of corn in the reign of our great deliverer, will have it that the advanced ftate of agriculture fince that happy period is owing to the ceffation of multitudinous migrations to America, and the end now put to thofe civil wars and fluctuations of go vernment vernment which formerly affected us. But how doth he prove this position? Not from history or other authority. No, his own affirmation, he fuppofes, is the only requifite proof. But we are too wife to be gulled in that manner. We know that for a series of The fince the revolution we have often, years, kept great armies abroad, fuch as we never fent to the continent before that happy æra. We also know, that from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, down to the revolution, we had no civil wars, except for three years, during the reign of Charles the First. Nor are we ignorant that the migrations to America have encreased fince the revolution. fettlements of Georgia, the two Carolinas, and Nova Scotia, have carried off more people from this ifland than all the migrations to America, before the revolution, put together, befides thofe occafioned annually by war and traffic. And there is another caufe little taken notice of, which must have operated ftrongly against agriculture, fince the revolution, if that employment had not been affifted by the bounty granted at the revolution to the exportation of corn, and that is the great encrease of failors which the nation has been happily bleft with fince that fignal period. Every failor is a hand loft to agriculture, who, instead of affifting, as formerly, in cultivation, becomes a confumer of the productions of our farms. The many thousands of these now perpetually at fea, and living mostly on meat, encreafe the price of animal food most enormously; while they render our corn and vegetables of all forts fomewhat dearer, notwithstanding that encrease of tillage which has been occafioned by the exportation of corn. But what would have been our cafe under thefe circumstances, if these marshes and commons had not been fubjected to the plow, which lay waste and uncultivated before the revolution? And what ftimulated our our farmers to this extenfion of agriculture? Let any one affign another caufe if he can. All men of fense will agree with me, that we owe our new corn fields to the foreign corn trade, and to the bounty granted to the exporters of corn. But, fay these writers, what was a wife measure at the revolution, is folly now. Our circumftances are changed. Meat is dearer now than when the exportation of corn was encouraged. The poor cannot now afford to pay the fame price for their bread as formerly, becaufe they muft now pay double, or more, for their meat. I will admit it, but is not the price of labour, of every kind, double to what it was at the revolution? I hope they will not, for their own fakes, deny a fact fo notorious. Or will they fay, that the corn which we export is the food with which cattle is fattened? How then could the price of meat be lowered by prohibiting the exportation of those forts of corn which are not given to the animals to feed on? At least wheat, which is the main point, is never, as I know of, diftributed to the lower creation. They are fattened with beans, pease, and oats, which are not permitted to be exported. So that till it is explained, we cannot understand that the price of meat can be lowered by laying an embargo on the exportation of wheat, barley, or rye. The price of meat, we know, moftly depends, and muft depend upon the value of meadow-grounds, and the price of hay, ftraw, oats, peafe and beans. And again, the value of these things depends, in a great measure, upon the prices that can be had for meat, which muft encrease with the encreased confumption of meat, occafioned by that prodigious encrease of fhipping which has happened fince the revolution. Our failors are the true caufe of that rife in the price of meat, which is complained plained of. And this hardfhip is greatly enhanced by the baneful arts of foreftallers. There the root of this evil, and the way to redress it, as far as it can be redreffed by law, is to prohibit all jobbing in fat cattle, butter, poultry, cheefe, &c. By caufing all these things to come immediately from the farmers to the market, without the intervention of those pests of fociety, the engroffers. This malady may also be leffened by importation from Ireland, where meat is as yet tolerably cheap. And fome relief may be got by deftroying all useless creatures which are not eaten, and affift us not in agriculture nor in war. All these ought to be exported or put to death. Thefe are the natural means of lowering the price of meat, without leffening our stock of corn, ar difcouraging that employment which gives us this corn. And in the mean time I must fay, that dear meat is a more tolerable evil than dear corn: nor can that corn now be esteemed dear which is fold below thofe prices which our ancestors above an hundred years ago called LOW PRICES, as appears from the preamble of a ftatute made in the year 1663. What a difference is there between the price of labour now and at that period? It is quite as great as the difference between the price of meat now in our London markets, and the then price of meat. So that upon the whole, we cannot say that the industrious poor now, are in a worfe condition than they were above a hundred years before Mr. Omega took up the pen in their favour. However, I hope we never fhall be foolish enough to diftrefs the grower of corn for the fake of our meat-markets. Corn is the staff of life, and the highest confideration in the article of provifions. Befides this encreafed price of meats, butter, eggs, &c. is by no means a general evil. It is only particular to great cities, where a vaft confluence of people find it their intereft to remain crouded toVOL. II. N gether, gether, notwithstanding of thefe difadvantages. In the country thofe articles differ not much from what they were twenty years ago: And it is impoffible to frame any regulation whereby the London markets can be ferved as cheap with meat, butter, eggs, &c. as the markets in Yorkshire, where, I am informed, fresh butter may now be had for a groat a pound, or five-pence. Thefe difadvantages are, in great cities, fully overbalanced by other conveniences and opportunities of gain, which detain the people in that affembled condition. And we fhould be mad if we entered into any refolutions difcouraging to farmers for the fake of perfons who find it their intereft to remain linked together, notwithstanding all the difcouragements attendant on refidence among fo great a multitude. These must work their way as they can, or difperfe themselves where things are cheaper; go to America, or into the country, where the markets are more acceffible. But we never can expect to be able to give higher wages, or more encouragement to our industrious poor by draining the nation of a revenue of two millions a year. We cannot totally remove the diftrefs of the poor, for then they would ceafe to be poor: But if there is not the fame proportion between their earnings now and the prefent prices of provifions, equal to that which fubfifted between their earnings an hundred years ago, and the then prices of provifions, it is reasonable that that error fhould be rectified by legiflative authority, after weighing all circumstances. And I believe, from all appearances in our religious affemblies, fairs, and holliday-junketings, that the price of labour would receive no addition by an enquiry of this fort. ALPHA. Reflections |