annual licensing days, the licences of such houses as shall be proved to have been conducted improperly-that ministers, churchwardens, overseers, and householders, be enjoined to make inquiry, to the best of their power, respecting the character of every person applying to them to sign a certificate of their fitness to keep a public house, previously to their signing the same, and that every publican applying for the annual renewal of his licence, be required to produce such certificate. That in all cases wherein it shall appear to any Magistrate that a public house has been conducted in an improper or disorderly manner, such Magistrate be requested to communicate the same to the clerk of the district in which the house is situate, in order that he may lay such information before the next meeting of the Magistrates of the district.

THOMAS HARRISON, Chairman.

Now on hearing the said report read, it is ordered by this Court, that the same be filed among the records of this County, and that a copy thereof be transmitted to his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department, by the Chairman of this session. And it is further ordered, that the thanks of this Court be, and they are hereby given, to the Magistrates acting in and for the said East Half-Hundred of Brixton and Borough of Southwark, for their attention to the matters referred to them.

By the Court,

LAWSON.

A REPORT

PRESENTED TO THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE OF

HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL FOR TRADE,

RESPECTING

THE AGRICULTURE AND THE TRADE IN CORN,

IN SOME OF THE CONTINENTAL STATES OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

BY WILLIAM JACOB, Esq.,

COMPTROLLER OF CORN RETURNS.

LONDON:-1828.

MY LORDS,

In obedience to your Lordships' instructions, as communicated to me by Mr. Lack, under date of the 15th August, I proceeded without delay to the Continent. I first reached the kingdom of the United Netherlands, passing, without much stay, through Rotterdam and Amsterdam. As the provinces of North and South Holland, in which those cities are situate, produce but little corn, I hastened over them, and Utrecht, Guelders, Friesland, Overyssel, Drenthe, and Gröningen. From thence I entered the kingdom of Hanover, by the province of East Friesland, at Embden; and then proceeded through the duchy of Oldenburgh to Bremen, and from that city across the Hanoverian province of the same name to Hamburgh.

I travelled from Hamburgh through the central and southern parts of the duchies of Mecklenburg Schwerin and Mecklenburg Strelitz, and by the shores of the Baltic, till I reached Lubeck.

As that part of Germany consists chiefly of arable land, and contains a population almost exclusively agricultural, though I visited the cities of Ratzeburg, Schwerin, Güstrow, Rostock, and Wismar, my time and attention were chiefly directed to the rural affairs of the district; to which I was invited by the reported extent of its surplus corn, by the boasted superiority of its agricultural management, and by the many intelligent cultivators, to whom I had been amply supplied with means of intimate communication.

From Lubeck I passed to Copenhagen, by the Baltic Sea; and from that city, travelled through the islands of Zealand and Fünen to Jutland, and then through the other continental provinces of the Danish dominions, viz. Sleswick and Holstein, till Ì again reached Hamburgh. I pursued my journey from Hamburgh, by passing VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII. 2 A

Pam.

through the kingdom of Hanover, in a southerly direction, by Zell, to the capital; and thence by Einbeck, Gottingen, and Münden, till I entered the principality of Hesse Cassel. Passing through that country, and part of the dominions of Hesse Darmstadt and Nassau, I reached the Rhine at Coblentz, and from thence hastened on to Brussels.

The alternate year, for conducting the government of the kingdom of the United Netherlands at the Hague, had commenced when I reached Brussels; and every person and document, from whom information was likely to be obtained, was removed to that city. I was therefore induced to proceed there a second time. From thence, by Antwerp and Ghent, through the most productive portion of the kingdom, I reached Calais, and returned to London.

The condition of the roads, in the countries I passed through, would scarcely deserve notice in this report, if no other consequence were attached to it, than the annoyance to the traveller from the slow pace at which he advances, and the lengthened halt at every change of horses; but, as connected with the subject of the cost of supply in corn, it becomes of importance; and still more so, when the parts of a country in which the greatest surplus of grain is produced, are very distant from the ports at which it can be shipped to other countries.

In the eastern parts of the kingdom of the Netherlands, with the exception of one stage from Assen to Gröningen, the whole of the roads from Deventer to the frontier are nearly in a state of nature; consisting of deep sand, without the aid of any hard substance to improve them. Beyond the frontier, in the Hanoverian territory, the soil becomes gradually more compact; and after passing the Ems, it changes to a heavy clay. Those roads are equally left to the operation of the elements; when wet, they are scarcely passable; when becoming drier, they are stiff, and require great exertions from the draught cattle; and even when quite dry, in the summer, though better for travellers, they are full of holes, formed by the water in hollow places.

The bad state of the roads, though it adds to the expense of export, has not so great an influence in Gröningen and Friesland, as in Mecklenburg and Holstein. The chief kinds, or indeed the only kinds, of grain, of which those two districts have a surplus, are oats, and a small portion of beans. These are raised on the marsh lands, on the borders of the sea-shore, or on the sides of the rivers; so that there is scarcely any quantity requiring land-carriage beyond the distance of 15 or 20 English miles.

In Mecklenburg the roads are equally neglected, being either deep sand or loamy clay, both requiring great exertions to draw wheelcarriages, and both equally left in a state of nature.

As the best wheat and rye lands are at a considerable distance from the shipping ports, the cost to the grower is generally enhanced, increasing according to the distance in a compound ratio.

Some of the best farms are distant from any shipping port, 40 or even 50 English miles. The time when horses can be best spared to draw the corn to a port is the winter, when the roads are frozen; but even then, they are hardened into a rough state; from their great breadth, are never well and equally trodden; and from the variable nature of the climate, in the coldest winter, sudden thaws, with rain and sleet, succeed to as sudden frost and snow.

In Denmark, the main roads over the islands are very good; but in the continental provinces of Jutland, Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauenburg, they are in a most neglected state, which renders travelling tedious, even in the most favorable weather. The fertile province of Holstein supplies the greater part of the corn that is exported. The eastern and western sides of it are bordered by the Baltic Sea, or by the river Elbe; but it contains a large extent of productive land in the middle district, from whence corn must be conveyed, by these very bad roads, to a distance of 40 or 50 English miles, before it can be shipped. Much of it is carried a still greater distance; for that which grows nearest to the Baltic, finds a better market at Hamburgh than at Kiel or Lubeck. A gentleman with whom I had the pleasure to become acquainted in Holstein, who possesses a fine estate about 20 miles from Kiel, 30 from Lubeck, and more than 60 from Hamburgh, told me that he commonly sent his waggons loaded with corn to the latter city. I found some other proprietors and cultivators in that neighborhood, who adopted the same practice. They were induced to it from the freight and insurance being lower from Hamburgh than from the Baltic ports, but chiefly because from that city it could be sent with less delay to any distant markets, that might, for a short period, open themselves for its reception.

The state of roads in countries which export corn deserves attention when, calculating the cost of production, less on account of the slow pace of travelling on them, than on account of the small quantity of corn which each team of horses can draw. Thus, for instance, in England, the usual load of a waggon with four horses is ten quarters of wheat, weighing about 4,800lb, whereas in the districts, the roads of which are noticed in this report, the usual load is not more than half that weight.

As this branch of the cost of production is of vast importance in times of scarcity, when very distant land-carriage to the water-side is required, and as the principles which regulate it are applicable to all such countries, and to all the several kinds of grain, it may not be amiss here to introduce the calculation furnished by a very enlightened and accurate gentleman, whose personal acquaintance I had the pleasure to make during my journey, but whose character and attainments had been previously known to me. It is sufficient for the present purpose to remark, that this proprietor and excellent cultivator of a good estate in Mecklenburg, gives the following cal