retain the idea of their being the natural lords and masters of the country. "However speciously this law has been coloured by attributing to its projectors profound and extended views of policy; it is too obviously directed to promote the interests of a particular class, to allow us to attribute its origin to any better motives; more particularly as this presumption is confirmed by all the concomitant circumstances. But, notwithstanding this was most decidedly the object of the law, we shall have reason to conclude, in tracing its operation and effects, that though it proved injurious to the commerce and manufactures of the kingdom, it did not benefit the land-owner, but proved in its consequences a bonus rather to the foreign consumer than the English grower." In tracing the history of the means of subsistence in this country, from the commencement of the present reign, the sixth chapter is appropriated to the delinea tion of the decline of the exportation of grain, and the increase of agricultural produce, manufactures and trade, till the period of the consolidation of the corn laws in 1791; in the seventh are detailed the circumstances attending the occasional bounties, and the progressive enhancement of price, from this consolidation in 1791, to the end of the year 1803; the great subjects about which the eighth is concerned are, the imposition of farther restrictions by the act of 1804, and an examination of the grounds assigned for the measure; the subject of the ninth chapter is in fact a continuation of the last of the topics touched upon in the eighth; it attempts to shew the inefficiency of the act of 1804 in excluding the competition of the foreign grower, and to point out a mode by which that object might really be effected. At this point the historical part of the book closes. With the historical materials of all the latter chapters, is mingled an infinite quantity of ANN. REV. Vol. VII. reflections, some good and some bad, of which it is absolutely impossible, within many times our limits, to render any thing like an account. Where a man's ideas are grouped into a system, it is possible, in small compass, to notice, and criticise their principal bearings. But when they have no other arrangement than what they receive from the accident of their connection with historical facts, they must be taken up one by one if we would render any satisfactory account of them; and to do this, must be written a book longer than the original. It is, however, highly important to remark, that in regard to that singular principle which has wholly guided the policy of parliament since the revolution, that of straining to enhance the price of grain against our own people, by laying taxes and prohibitions on importation, and granting bounties on exportation, the author's views are pretty clear and accurate; he has discerned the hypocrisy and falsehood of the reasons advanced in support of this system; he has shewn it to be adverse, not favourable, to the abundance and steadiness of our supply in the necessaries of life; adopted and maintained for the interest of the landholders solely, and by means of their preponderant influence in the legislature; while it is hostile to the interests of the country, and every other class of the people. After this historical disquisition respecting the means of subsistence, the author presents us with a delineation of the actual and present state of the kingdom in regard to this great concern. He is of opinion, that as the country has been progressively improving in relation to her supply of the means of subsistence, according as she has improved in arts and manufactures, so, at the present moment, she is N more liberally provided with the means of subsistence, in proportion to the amount of her population, than at any preceding period. In regard to the prospect of futurity, however, he declares himself not so fully satisfied; and the legislative regulations of the country have, he thinks, too great an influence in preventing the natural formation of those stocks and supplies which form the proper security against deficient crops. As our author is a man who wishes not to leave his inquiries half finished, but to push them as far as they will go, he is not satisfied till he considers the political state of Europe, and the effects which it may be expected to produce upon us in respect to the means of subsistence. Upon the whole, we are happy to inform our readers that Mr. Comber thinks we have little or nothing to fear. The conclusion which he draws from his long inquiry, he states in the following words. "In retracing the prominent features in that rapid sketch which we have endeavoured to exhibit, of the progress of the country from barbarism and ignorance, through the different stages of feudal anarchy and arbitrary government, to the period when the extension of knowledge led to the establishment of civil liberty, we fin that the quantity of those articles which administer to the wants of man, as well as those which contribute to his gratification, has always been propor tioned to the developement of the produc tive powers of human industry." Now this is certainly something very amusing for a discovery. The quantity of commodities which the nation has enjoyed, has been proportioned to the national industry. This he says is the result of his inquiry. But who stood in need of his inquiry to arrive at this result? Is it possible that the commodities enjoyed by any nation could be proportioned to any thing else? He ends with some reflections on the suspensions, to which the legislature has sometimes had recourse, of distilling from grain, as a resource against scarcity, which he justly regards as a very inefficient expedient. Upon the whole this author is one of those who have more ideas than they know how to use. His information on the subject is extensive, but he cannot put the different parts together. He is like a man who has used great diligence in collecting all the materials of some complicated machine, but from an imperfect knowledge of its structure, produces, by means of them, an ill-assorted and bungling com-1 pound, which has neither the beauty harmonious system at which he nor the utility of the organised and aimed. ART. XVII. Disquisitions on Population; in which the Principles of the Essay on Population, by the Rev. T. R. Malthus, are examined and refuted. By ROBERT ACKLOM INGRAM, B.D. Rector of Segrave in Leicestershire, 8vo. pp. 132. ONE of two methods must be adopted for criticizing such a book as this. Fither the Reviewer must confine himself to a simple character of the work in question; or he must enter into disquisitions of considerable intricacy and length. The subject which has been brought betere philosophers, by the publication of Mr. Malthus's ingenious work, is one of great im portance, but of no little difficulty. It has been, as yet, by no means sufficiently examined. Most welldisposed persons feel an irresistible impulse to conclude Mr. Malthus to be wrong. Most well-disposed persons feel the strongest repugnance to admit a view of the government of this world, which it appears to them impossible to reconcile with a wise and benevolent Providence. But farther than this, few inquirers have yet gone. Several authors have hazarded observations on the doctrines of Mr. Malthus; but none of them has satisfactorily analyzed, or any thing like it, those doctrines, and in a philosophical manner, separated the just from the unjust. In this state of the question to enter into an examination of Mr.Ingram's performance, and shew both what he has done and what he has left undone, with all the illustrations which would be requisite to render the disquisition in any degree useful, would carry us to a length far beyond our limits. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to such a general character of the book, as may enable those of our readers who are interested in the inquiry, to judge beforehand what they may expect to find in it. That repugnance to the views of Mr. Malthus which seems to be necessarily inspired by a home-felt conviction of a wise and beneficient government in the universe appears to have been the moving cause in the mind of Mr. Ingram to set himself in opposition to that philosopher. He states his own views in the following words; "The fact, which I shall endeavour to elucidate, is this;-that the wise and benevolent Author of the universe has so adjusted the principle of population, i.e. the sexual appetite, and the desire of marriage, to the general condition of human life, and the varying circumstances of each community, that the population has been, for the most part, reduced to the standard of subsistence, without that excessive degree of wretchedness and woe, which accords with Mr. M.'s view of the subject that it has not continually pressed with the violence, which he supposes, on the limits of subsistence; and that a large portion of the misery, which has actually occurred, is more properly to be attributed to a defect of virtue or intelligence, or other human imperfections, than to a superabundance of population. Some degree of suffering tuations of food and population. Various, must ever be expected from the fluc indeed, are the sources of human misery, of which this, no doubt, is one. But, that many individuals in every age have suffered from a deficiency of sustenance, is not, altogether, to be attri buted to the want of food, or of the means of procuring it, in each community, but much more generally, to the unequal distribution, and wasteful consumption of it. These evils are never likely to be effectually obviated, but might be considerably alleviated by the the diffusion of liberal knowledge. The increasing influence of religion, and means proposed by Mr. M., as I shall hereafter endeavour to shew, would only aggravate the calamity.” author has made many pertinent In pursuance of this object, the observations. He often advances criticisms on Mr. Malthus which are highly to the purpose; and prove that there is substantial ground for doubt, and scepticism with regard to the bold, and perhaps rash conclusions of that author. But this we consider as the amount of what he has performed. There is not in the book reasons to convince any man, who formerly believed Mr. Malthus, that he ought no longer to believe him. He has contributed, perhaps, some materials towards the refutation of Mr. Malthus, but he himself has not refuted him. On the whole though there are many things in the book which we do not consider as very wise, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a sensible performance, and to recom mend it to our readers. ART. XVIII. Britain independent of Commerce, or Proofs that our Riches, Prosperity and Power are derived from Sources inherent in ourselves, and would not be affected even though our Commerce were annihilated. By WM. SPENCE, F.L.S. ART. XIX. Commerce Defended, an Answer to the Arguments by which Mr. Spence, Mr. Cobbett and others have attempted to prove that Commerce is not a Source of national Wealth. By JAMES MILL, Esq. ART. XX. (Agriculture the Source of the Wealth of Britain), being a Reply to Mr. Mill, &c. By WILLIAM SPENCE, F. L. S. THE extensive circulation obtained by the former of these publications afforded a curious example of the enthusiasm to which a nation may be misled by an intemperate adversary. We have long been in the habit, like our forefathers, of considering our extensive commerce as our most important possession; the source of our private comfort as well as of our public greatness. When Buonaparte found it unadvisible to attempt invasion, he exerted all his power to exclude our commerce from the Continent, and although his decrees were often evaded, our merchants were notwithstanding considerable sufferers. But the complete and final suspension of our continental intercourse was effected by our own Orders of Council of November 1807. At this period Mr. Spence's pamphlet appeared. Its principle was to persuade us, that in losing our foreign commerce, we suffered no positive injury, and that land is the only genuine source of wealth. No doctrine could be more palatable in a country united as one man in opposition to France and hatred to Buonaparte. This pamphlet had besides the benefit of being recommended, and ample extrac s given, in no fewer than four numbers of Mr. Cobbett's widely circulating Register, a patronage which, joined to its paradoxical title, attracted to it a degree of notice, to which, on the score of intrinsic merit, it has no preten tions. Mr. Mill's answer is entitled to a very different testimony. It is the work of a man who defines before he proceeds to argue, and who is thoroughly conversant with the doctrines of political economy. The reader who wishes to be amused with the contradictions of a superfical author, will find a fund of entertainment at Mr. Spence's cost in the notes subjoined to Commerce Defended; while the text affords. a specimen of the perspicuity with which the most abstruse subjects may be treated by the writer who has thoroughly meditated them. Mr. Spence contends that mamufactures are no source of wealth, because the manufacturer consumes, in the course of his work, a quantity of food equal to the value of that work. His antagonist answers that this calculation does not include the profit in stock which is so much clear gain. He adds (p. 26) “in a state of agriculture but moderately improved, the labourers in it may be regarded as raising a produce five times as great as they themselves can consume, Were there no manufacturers, what would become of this surplus?” Mr. Spence alledges that nothing is made by commerce of import, because "for whatever is purchased in a foreign market, an adequate value is given either in money or in other goods." The answer to this is "that a commodity may be of more value in one place, and of another value in another place. A ton of hemp for example which in Russia is worth 501. is in Great Britain worth 651."-Another argument against our foreign commerce is that the articles imported are We could not be understood, by these observations, to make light of the value of land, as a source of national wealth. It is a source more productive than any commerce or any manufacture, because in it, the bounty of Providence cooperates with the industry of man. Our objection is not to the preeminence of agriculture, but to the indiscretion of those among its friends, who, not content with its acknowledged superiority, are desirous to make it absorb the pretensions of commerce, an agent, second indeed to agriculture in the production of wealth, but still possessed of great and conspicuous often perishable, and consequently less conducive, in Mr. Spence's opinion, to wealth, than durable articles. He forgets however that of all articles, the produce of land (in his opinion, the only source of wealth) are perhaps the most perishable. He exclaims in one part of his pamphlet against commerce as ministering to consumption, and in another, he takes credit to agriculture as the parent of national prosperity, because it supports consumption and luxury. When the favourers of agriculture represent the land as the only source of wealth, they are probably not aware of the unavoidable inference that land is the only object of tax-efficacy. ⚫ation. By R. TORRENS, Esq. Svo pp. 108. the demonstrative evidence with which better doctrines had so long been taught, a very remarkable popularity. Mr. Torrens is not exactly the kind of antagonist which Mr. Spence required; but the present tract proves the author to be a well informed man; and though not a master, certainly, in the difficult science of political economy, yet farther advanced, by a considerable progress, than many authors of very lofty pretentions. ART. XXI. The Economists Refuted, &c. or an Inquiry into the Nature and Extent of the Advantages derived from Trade, &c. THIS pamphlet is by no means discreditable to Mr.Torrens. Though it cannot be recommended as altogether a masterly refutation of the doctrines of the Economists, the author clearly discerns the superiority of a better system, and is zealous for its propagation. The immediate object of the performance is to expose the futility of Mr. Spence's pamphlet on commerce, which had for a time, so little to the credit of our most instructed countrymen, and in spite of ART. XXII. The Interests of Agriculture and Commerce inseparable. By WM. LUSHINGTON, Esq. Agent for the Island of Grenada. 8vo. ART. XXIII. An Inquiry into the Justice and Policy of the Prohibition of the Use of Grain in the Distilleries. By ARCHIBALD BELL, Esq. Advocate, Edin burgh. 8vo. THESE writers although not directly opposed to each other, entertain different opinions on the same subject. Mr. Bell objects to the exclusion of barley from the Distilleries in favour of sugar, and Mr.Lushington not only claims this privilege on the part of the sugar planter, but cautions the landed interest against persisting to shift every burden from themselves during a contest in which the other classes of the community have already made such painful sacrifices. Mr. Bell's pamphlet serves more to display his knowledge of political economy than to benefit the cause |