predominate, till actual scarcity, or profuse abundance,' acquires the absolute dominion over it. It is observable, that in all great fluctuations in the prices of stock in the public funds, the rate of declension or fall, has a tendency to increase, till it reaches that

full 2s. per quarter. Barley is also 1s. per quarter higher. Beans 1s. per quarter dearer. Bolting peas still continue to sell heavily; grey peas are likewise heavy. Oats sell more readily of late, but the quotations are unaltered.

March 9th. Last week this market was well supplied with all descriptions of grain, and this morning the fresh arrivals from Essex, Kent, and Suffolk, are tolerably large.

March 16. The arrivals of grain in general this week are tolerably large, and the prices of all articles remain much as on Monday, with a dull trade for most quotations.

There has been a very dull sale for wheat, and the prices are declined 1s. per quarter, since this day se'nnight.

This specimen is sufficient to show the tremulous undulating surface of the market price. That its variations are unceasing, and fluctuate with the accidental plus or minus of the supply of the day.

These reports fly through the land, and are in the hands of every country corn dealer and considerable farmer within 100 miles, on the morning ensuing that of each market, and at greater distances as early as the post arrives.

If thus the mere difference of a small over or short supply of the day, is sufficient to make such impression on price, what must be the permanent effect of the knowledge of a large surplus stock, held in store, ready to fall into the market as fast as the necessities of the holders compel them to part with it.

It will not escape observation, what is the immediate effect of import from Ireland, and that of flour, in keeping down a price which would evidently, but for those arrivals, have continued as it had begun—to rise.

The petitioners state that they are prepared to show, that between 40 and 50,000 quarters of the wheat imported in 1819, still remain on the hands of the merchants. This fact, in addition to the sources of import above mentioned, is quite sufficient to account for the present depressed state of the London and Liverpool markets, and by consequence, all the other markets throughout the kingdom, even though there should have been no diminution of consumption.

The holders of foreign grain are only waiting a better market; and the moment it reaches the point that will remunerate them, they will open their stores. The price that will pay them, will not remunerate the English farmer, and consequently the importer steps in between him and a living price.

All this may happen, and is happening, independently of any actual decrease of consumption; but if that is also in operation, it is a powerful auxiliary cause of the extent and continuance of the depression now so universally felt.

It is obvious, from the extreme susceptibility of rise and fall, to which the London market is subject, that a combination of the great dealers would be capable of producing an artificial elevation, or depression, throughout the kingdom, whenever they find it their common interest to produce it, and effect an opening of the ports when the real prices do not warrant it,

point of depression, from whence, like the returning tide, it gradually re-ascends. Fear and hope alternately operating in each variation, in either rise or fall, without any just or rational foundation. The fall continues because it has begun from some idle rumor, and a consequent apprehension that it will increase; and so vice versa, when a rise takes place, it continues, because it has begun and has given birth to an expectation that it will increase.. In the one case, the holder of stock hurries to sell before the price shall be lower; in the other case, the speculator hastens to buy before it shall be higher and in either case, each contributes to the depression he fears, or the elevation he expects.

:

If decreased consumption of corn is the cause (as undoubtedly and lamentably it is to a considerable degree),' of the present depression of the price of agricultural produce, its effect is likely to be of greater permanence than that of an abundant seasou;

'That there has been a great decrease of consumption since the peace, there can be no doubt. The degree of consumption by each individual will be dependent on his greater or less facility of procuring it. The high wages during the war enabled all the laboring classes (except in a season of scarcity) to provide their families with food and raiment to the extent of their wants, and idleness then was the sole parent of a scanty meal. They lived, therefore, without restraint of their appetites, and indeed with characteristic improvidence; and the immensity of the then general consumption is thus readily accounted for. But since low prices have so contracted the demand for labor, as to throw a large proportion of the hands engaged in it out of employ, and upon the poor rates, and reduced so considerably the wages of those continued in employ, such an altered state of things speaks its own consequence, viz. a proportionate diminution of consumption by those classes.

If this needs illustration it will be found in the Birmingham petition, which states as the result of an accurate investigation.

That the consumption of beer, meat, and other necessaries had fallen off more than one third in the two years antecedent to the month of August, 1820.

"That nearly a similar falling off in the article of bread, had taken place in the same period.

"That as a necessary consequence, a proportionate diminution of consump tion must have been suffered by the loss of markets to those who had the supply of those provisions, and of clothing and other necessaries, of which a similar diminution of demand had taken place."

Mr. Colquhoun computes the population employed on agriculture at 5,500,000, and supposing those employed in manufacture and laborious occupations at 2,500,000, and the diminution of consumption should be no more than 1 bushel per head, per annum, this alone would produce a decrease of demand of 1 million of quarters per annum.

The largest import beyond the amount of the export, in any year antecedent to the existing Corn Act, was in that of 1810. It amounted to 1,454,906 quarters. It is evident, therefore, that such a decrease of consumption as that above supposed (and the actual decrease probably exceeds it), must, except in a year of scarcity, have a surplus of the home produce of the year on hand.

but the duration of the influence of either must be matter of pure speculation or conjecture. One thing is clear, i. e. that if the consumption is actually and materially decreased, the production must eventually subside proportionably, so as to adapt itself substantially to the quantum of the actual permanent future demand (for in this view importation is in effect excluded, and low price permanently established). The farmer will not, to any great extent, for any length of time, outrun the latter. The reasons given in support of the protection recommended at the close of the Considerations on the Corn Question, (viz. that of a countervailing duty) and the answers to the objections to that measure, are quite independent of the question, whether the present depression has arisen from superabundance of stock in hand, or decrease of consumption; and therefore the force of those reasons and answers, (whatever it may be) remains unimpaired by the supposition of the existence of either of those causes. They are also quite independent of the question, whether the depression is attributable in any degree to the operation of the Corn Act; for if that Act had not existed, the measure proposed would have been equally called for by sound policy.

Two opposite causes of apprehension have been urged against its adoption. The one is that in the case of a short crop it may give rise to such a sudden extravagant advance of price, as may cause internal commotion. The other is-that it may give such a spur to cultivation, as to bring sudden ruin on agriculture by the superabundance of its produce, and consequent reduction of its price to nothing, and thus "seethe the kid in its mother's milk."

These arguments are addressed more to the feelings than the understanding; and it would be a sufficient answer to such extravagant suppositions, to say "The sky may fall." They savor more of the apprehension of individual than of collective wisdom, or the extended views of statesmen; but they admit of such obvious answers, that it will be no labor to give them.-The first cause of apprehension, viz. extravagance of price, would be at once removable by a power to be lodged in the Privy Council, of suspend ing the duties in any such case of emergency as that suggested and as to the latter cause of apprehension, viz. a destructive plenty (which requires too great a stretch of the imagination to be indulged to give ear to), the dreaded evil may be safely left to work its own

cure.

It is said, that it is in the nature of an extreme to produce its contrary or opposite; and the ruinous consequence of an excess of plenty may be, a sudden stoppage of cultivation and a necessary consequent famine.

If the voice of experience be listened to, she will inform us that

neither of the evil consequences apprehended, happened in the 70 years during which the ports were wholly closed against the import of foreign corn; and it is only since that system has been abandoned, and a new doctrine broached, that England is not an agricultural country that Great Britain has ceased to be an exporting country, and has become partly dependent on other nations for the subsis. tence of her people; and it is to that abandonment that the present distress, as well as the past fluctuations and occasional distresses, from the opposite causes of scanty and over supply, are obviously to be traced. In an evil hour the policy of our ancestors, which so long upheld the well-being of the country, was departed from, and nothing but the difficulties in the way of retying the incautiously loosened band can have prevented a recurrence to it. That it would have required both decision and perseverance to have pro duced an acquiescence even of the great body of the people, cannot be denied; and perhaps it may not be too much to affirm that it would have been at all times practicable even for a Minister, with his utmost influence to effect it, in the teeth of prejudices so easily excited, and indeed so naturally arising in ignorant or unreflecting minds against it.

. It is, however, unnecessary to travel into history for counsel from experience. We have had the benefit of her instruction in our own time.

During the last war we needed not the suggestion of policy to close our ports against the importation of foreign corn. The war, not the then Corn Act, kept them shut, except in seasons of scarcity, when, in spite of Buonaparte's decrees, the high prices we could afford to pay broke through all impediments and attracted to our market a supply commensurate to the deficiency. War formed sound policy for us, and did that per force which when its power ceased, and we were at liberty to exercise our discretion, we have incautiously suffered to be undone. War closed our ports, the beneficial consequences of which became visible, in the improvement of our agriculture and in the rapid increase of its produce, in the growth of our population and in the demand for labor for mauufactures as well as for agriculture.

The question on the peace was--whether we should hazard the alteration of our then prosperous condition, by allowing peace to throw open those ports which the war had closed. We were well, and had only to take care to continue as we were, as far as altered circumstances would allow. As the exclusion of foreign corn, except in seasons of scarcity, had so manifestly contributed to our florishing condition, all that was called for was the substitution of the fence of law, for that of war, to secure us from an inundation,

to which our wealth, and the poverty of the Continent, were sure to

expose us.

It was not an alteration of policy, but an adherence to that of which we were experiencing the benefits, that was required. It was no speculative experiment to better our condition, but an obvious precaution of common prudence to prevent its deterioration, like that which dictates the practice of insurance in our private concerns.

In the new circumstances which peace introduced, a want of reflection, or want of decision, was apparent in Ministers and the Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems sensible of the importance of some future decision, but delayed it on account of the exchanges with foreign countries, which he affirmed to be such a tax on foreign corn, that there was no probability of any being imported. Upon this state of the exchanges was made to depend the fate of British Agriculture. The quantity of colonial produce accumulated in England, and the instantaneous demand for it on the Continent soon operated on the exchanges; and, before any precautions were even contemplated by men in power, the country was inundated with foreign corn, prices were ruinously depressed, and a mischief completed which years of more wise legislation will be unable to remedy.

The attempt made by Sir H. Parnel, and the amendment on it proposed by Mr. Huskisson, proved abortive for want of official support; and with that support, if some modifications had been introduced, the measure might have been safely adopted, and the ebullitions of clamor, with the disgraceful riots that ensued, would have been avoided. If the half measure ultimately adopted has partially checked the importation, it has kept alive the dread of it; and by throwing much of the mercantile capital into foreign instead of British corn, to be held in store, and rendering the market a perpetual object of speculation, it has given rise to violent fluctuations, which have destroyed all the confidence of the farmer, rendered him wavering in his plans, and by producing the depression of the price of his produce, has broken his spirit, soured his temper, endangered his loyalty, and is fast precipitating him into irretrievable

ruin.

The present season is peculiarly favorable for the adoption of the proposed protective measure. The public are alive to the existence, and in some degree to the extent, of the agricultural distress, and the necessity of some relief, either in the advance of prices, or the reduction of taxes, to a scale corresponding with prices.

As the prices of grain are at this time so much below those at which the ports open, the proposed duties can have no immediate or sudden influence on price, so as to endanger disturbance, or