somewhat less corn than there would be if the trade was free. You have no wish for a famine -nobody can imagine it; your characters, your dispositions, forbid it but you do wish, (or, if you do not, you act as if you did,) that the supply of coru, in this country, should be just so much (not more) below what may be termed the natural supply, as may cause the price to rise above the natural price. The object of thus raising the price of corn, is to raise the rent and price of land. In this rise of the letting and selling price of land you have an interest, but you exaggerate this interest greatly. The excess of the artificial rent, thus produced above the natural rent, is not all clear gain to you. The artificial excess, in the price of bread, is a clear loss to others; but the artificial excess, in the rent and price of land, is not a clear gain to you. Consider, therefore, I beseech you, whether the course you are pursuing upon this important question, either conduces to your welfare, or redounds to your honour. I do not propose to you, to investigate at present the anti-commercial character of the Corn Laws, their effect upon the expences of the Government, or their connexion with many evils which oppress the country. Curious and instructive as are the views that may be taken of them in these lights, any details, upon these branches of the question, would lead me further than I have any disposition to proceed upon this occasion. Passing them over, therefore, for the present, let me entreat you to reflect more seriously, than you appear to me to have done heretofore, upon the effects which a high price of corn produces upon the population at large, and upon the operations of our industrious capitalists. Recollect, that it must either abridge the comforts of the former, or frustrate the exertions, of the latter. Consider, whether your own welfare is promoted by it. Look back calmly upon the last seventeen years; take a deliberate survey of the varying fortunes of the agricultural classes during that period. Apply yourselves to the subject dispassionately. Assume, that the Corn Laws had effected their purpose with the most complete success; that . is to say, that they had prevented wheat from ever falling below 80s. a quarter; and then calculate what must have been the effect of such a state of things upon every class of society, upon every interest, upon every section of the community. If you can but persuade yourselves, to sift carefully the arguments on either side; if you can but divest yourselves of the desire to discover truth in one direction rather than in another; if, in short, you will but review the question with impartiality, I feel the most perfect confidence that you will very soon begin to entertain doubts upon it; and when doubts have been once awakened, I am satisfied that the same process, which changed my own opinions, will change yours. Months, or perhaps years, may elapse, before these operations can be effected; but the force of truth is too great to be resisted long; and as I am sure that the great majority of you have no wish to resist her, I feel equally satisfied that wherever truth is to be found, you will, in the long run, be found also. These pages are addressed to you by one who has no interest but in common with you; all his temporal welfare is bound up with yours; whatever is for your advantage, must conduce to his, and to that of those who are the most dear to him. He would not have presumed to trespass upon your indulgence, if he had not been deeply impressed with the interest which the millions of his countrymen have in the question, and if he had not felt it a duty to endeavour to excite your attention to it. The most anxious wish that he entertains upon public affairs is, that your attention may be so excited, as to induce you to consent to the abolition of a system, which condemns you, and your countrymen, to a qualified scarcity of the first necessary of life. I have the honour to be, Fellow Countrymen, Your most faithful friend and servant, Milton, February, 1831. MILTON. |