intéressées peuvent se résumer ainsi qu'il suit: 1° reduction des frais de perception et d'administration, par suite de la suppression des rayons de douanes entre les États associés; 2° rapide developpement industriel, par suite de l'application d'un tarif modéré; 3° élevation du chiffre primitif des recettes de douane, par suite de l'accroissement de consommation résultant de l'application de ce tarif; 4° conclusion de traités de commerce avantageux avec l'étranger, plus disposé à faire des concessions à un État qui lui offre un débouché considérable qu'à des pays sans importance; 5° usage gratuit ou à des conditions tres modérées des grandes voies de communication terrestres, fluviales ou maritimes, qui n'existaient auparavant qu'au profit d'un ou de quelques-uns d'entre eux; 6° rapide essor de certaines industries indigènes, auxquelles la libre ouverture d'un marché intérieur de 33 millions d'habitants,1 ainsi que l'usage en franchise de matières premières fournies par l'un ou l'autre des États associés et autrefois frappées de droits de douane, permettent de produire plus économiquement; 7° création d'une forte marine marchande. L'institution du Zollverein a eu des avantages correspondants pour le commerce étranger. Au lieu d'avoir á traverser 40 lignes douanières, défendues par des droits plus ou moins compliqués, plus ou moins élevés, et appliqués par des administrations plus ou moins tracassières, il s'est trouvé en face d'un pays unique, recevant ses produits à des conditions relativement modérées. Au lieu d'avoir à traiter avec des consommateurs peu aisés, restreignant leurs dépenses au plus strict nécessaire il a profité du developpement de la richesse publique dans le Zollverein devenu, aprés quelques années, un grand pays, non-seule. ment par le territoire et la population, mais encore par le bienêtre croissant de sa population. Le Zollverein n'est cependant pas, dans son organisation et ses résultats actuels, la formule la plus complète, la plus heureuse du principe de l'association commerciale. Le mode compliqué de ses délibérations; 2 la difficulté, pour ses membres, d'arriver, sur les questions les plus graves, à une solution favorable aux intérêts souvent très-opposés qu'ils représentent; les influences politiques qui s'agitent dans son sein et l'empêchent de discerner toujours 1 D'aprés le dénombrement de 1861 dont les résultats officiels nous arrivent en ce moment, de 34,705,694 habitants. 2 On sait que toutes les délibérations du Zollverein, pour être valables, doivent être prises à l'unanimité. Ainsi, dans ces délibérations, la Prusse ne pèse pas d'un plus grand poids que Francfort-sur-le Mein avec ses S0,000 habitants! clairement la voie à suivre pour tirer de l'union les résultats économiques les plus considérables, telles sont les justes critiques dont il a souvent été l'objet. On peut encore lui reprocher de maintenir, malgré l'exemple de l'Angleterre et de la France, des droits qui, pour certains produits fabriqués, dépassent très-sensiblement, par le fait de la diminution considérable, depuis la formation du Zollverein, du prix des produits grevés, cette moyenne de 10 p. 100 de la valeur, destinée, d'après le programme de l'association, à son début à devenir la base de son tarif. Cette protection exagérée est une double faute, d'abord parce que les consommateurs de l'association, moins aisés que ceux des deux pays que nous venons de citer, sont moins en état de payer des prix élevés; puis, parce que le Zollverein, par les perfectionnements introduits dans ses procédés de fabrication et le bas prix de la main-d'œuvre, est aujourd'hui tout à fait en mesure de lutter efficacement contre la concurrence étrangère. 1862. IX. THE CORN LAWS. FROM LEVI'S HISTORY OF BRITISH COMMERCE, 2D ED. THE Corn laws had long been a bone of contention in England. Maintained for the interest of a class who clung to them as their anchor of safety, they had always been attacked as an obstacle to the well-being of the middle and lower classes. In the opinion of their advocates, protection was necessary in order to keep certain poor lands in cultivation, and to encourage the cultivation of as much land as possible in order to provide for the wants of the country. Let the cultivation of such lands cease, they said, and we shall be dependent on foreigners for a large portion of the people's food. Such dependence, moreover, may be fraught with immense danger, inasmuch as, in the event of war, the supplies may be stopped or our ports may be blockaded, the result of which may be famine, disease, or civil war. According to the defenders of protection it was the advantage gained by the corn laws that enabled landed proprietors and their tenants to encourage manufactures and trade. Abolish the corn laws and half the country shopkeepers will be ruined, mills and factories will be stopped, large numbers of the working-classes will be thrown out of work, disturbances will ensue, capital will be withdrawn, and no one dare venture to say what may be the fatal consequences. In 1801 the price of wheat reached the high limit of 155s. a quarter, and we may well imagine what sufferings that price entailed among the people, at a time especially when trade and manufacture were so much paralysed by the Continental war. Happily, for two or three years afterwards, a succession of good harvests changed the condition of things, and in March, 1804, the price of wheat fell to 49s. 6d. per imperial quarter. But what was anxiously desired by the people was regarded a great disaster by the agricultural interest. They complained that with the high cost of production, in consequence of high wages, high rate of interest, and the heavy cost of implements of husbandry, they could not afford to sell at such prices. Meetings were held throughout the country to consider the case of the farmers. Mr. Western brought the state of agriculture before the House of Commons, and a committee was appointed on the subject. The farmers contended that at a time when all foreign supplies were shut out from our markets, and when we were more than ever depending on home production, it was the bounden duty of the legislature to pass laws which would encourage the production of grain at home, so that the nation might be as much as possible independent as regards the first necessaries of life. Unfortunately all the measures hitherto taken for the protection of the farmers resulted only in the aggravation of the sufferings of the people. It was easy by means of prohibitions and bounties to raise the price of corn and to give an artificial stimulus to agricultural prosperity, but the people were not able to buy bread at famine prices, especially at a time when taxes were so heavy. The report of the committee of the House of Commons, presented the same session in 1804, was to the effect that the price of corn from 1791 to the harvest of 1803 had been very irregular, but that upon an average it had increased in a great degree in consequence of the years of scarcity, and had in general yielded a fair profit to the grower. It appeared to the committee, moreover, that high prices had the effect of stimulating agricultural industry in bringing into cultivation large tracts of waste lands, and that this fact combined with the abundance of the two last productive seasons, and other causes, occasioned such a depression in the value of grain as would tend to the discouragement of agriculture, unless maintained by the support of Parliament. Nor was there much difficulty in persuading the legislature to give heed to such recommendations. Very soon after the presentation of the report a corn law was passed,' which imposed a duty of 24s. 3d. per quarter on wheat so long as the price of the home market should be under 63s.; of 2s. 6d. so long as the price should be at or above that rate, and under 66s. ; and of 6d. a quarter when the price should be above that rate. It does not appear, however, that the fear entertained by the farmers and the agricultural interest had been very substantial, for in the same year the harvest was deficient in quantity and inferior in quality, and all appre 1 44 Geo. III. c. 109. hensions that bread might become too cheap were entirely out of the question. A proposal, indeed, was made to encourage the growth of corn in Great Britain, and yet to diminish the price thereof for the benefit of the people by exempting farmers from all direct taxes. But such a plan would have only transferred the burden from one class to another. The time had not yet arrived for acting on the "laissez-faire" principle. Artificial aid was sought for on all sides, and that always ended in disappoint ment. At the conclusion of the French war, in 1815, precisely the same state of matters arose as in 1804. By the opening of the ports, wheat which hitherto averaged 51. 10s. a quarter suddenly fell to 31. 5s., and immediately the farmers raised a cry of distress. Again a committee of the House of Commons was ap pointed to inquire into the state of the law affecting the corn trade, and once more the legislature was engaged in framing a corn law,' which resulted in an act prohibiting the importation of wheat when the price was under 8os., and rendering it free when above 80s. Yet, serious misgivings existed as to the ultimate effect of the restrictive legislation respecting corn in the minds of many, and in the very House of Lords, which traditionally stood in bold defence of a protective policy, protests were lodged, which indicated the existence of a more enlightened opinion on the real bearings of the whole question. Lord Grenville and his compeers protested against this new corn law, because they were adverse in principle to all new restraints in commerce, deeming it most advantageous to public prosperity to leave uncontrolled the free current of national industry. In their opinion "the great practical rule of leaving all commerce unfettered, applied more peculiarly, and on still stronger grounds of justice as well as of policy, to the corn trade than to any other. Irresistible, indeed, must be that necessity which could, in their judgment, authorize the legislature to tamper with the sustenance of the people, and to impede the free purchase and sale of that article, on which depends the existence of so large a portion of the community. They thought that expectations of ultimate benefit from any corn law were founded on a delusive theory. They could not persuade themselves that such a law would ever contribute to produce plenty, cheapness, or steadiness 155 Geo. III. c. 26. |