Chapter II.: The Plough and the Loom.

There is obviously a strong disposition in ministers and the reformed parliament to show special favour to agriculture. On the opening of the late session his Majesty is made to lament “the continuance of distress amongst the proprietors and occupiers of land.” All the more important measures subsequently introduced, as the repeal of taxes on husbandry and the reform of the tithe and poor laws, appear to have been deemed chiefly valuable as modes of rural relief. Now an important question offers,—is there any thing in the present state of agriculture, or its relative importance as a branch of national industry, that fairly gives precedency to the Plough over the Loom? or is the preference merely a feudal prejudice, or selfish desire on the part of the territorial classes to forward those pursuits in which they are most deeply interested?

As to the existence of agricultural distress, that is a condition inseparable from the cultivation of the soil. But that there is general and unusual distress among the farming classes, we deny, and for proof refer to the evidence (not Sir James Graham’s Report) given before the Agricultural Committee of last year. Relative distress will always subsist in agriculture. Farming is and always must be a poor trade. The inducements to invest capital in land are such, that the profits of farming must always be depressed below the profits of commerce and manufactures. This is not the only cause of depression. In England, where two-thirds of the land occupied are held by tenants-at-will, if a farmer’s profits increase, his rent will be proportionately increased. So that, pressed on one side by the greater competition of capital in his employment, and on the other by the increasing exactions of his landlord, it is obvious that he can never enjoy, for a lengthened period, an exuberant state of prosperity.

From this dilemma no protection can save him. Were the price of corn, by restrictions on importation, artificially forced up to 120s. a quarter, his condition would not be permanently bettered. There would still be agricultural distress for him. The exorbitant price of corn would force inferior land into cultivation, the produce of which, owing to the greater outlay in its cultivation, would barely remunerate the grower; so that the occupier would be still only able to obtain a bare subsistence; and as to those occupying the richer soils, they would be reduced to their wonted level by the increase of rents.

The partial distress of landlords, though it originates in different causes, seems as inevitable as that of their tenants. In Poland, in Russia, in Spain, and in every European community, the landed interest is in a state of pecuniary embarrassment. Every where estates are encumbered by debts, mortgages, and settlements. This, however, is not because their revenues are small, but because they are enormous. It is men of moderate, not of large incomes, that live within them. The former are compelled to practice economy, to look after their affairs, and live according to rule; the latter are exempt from these precautions. George IV. had a million a-year and was constantly in debt, and many of the great landholders, from similar improvident courses, are involved in a like predicament.

It follows that the mere existence of poverty among the proprietors and occupiers of land is no proof of the existence of general agricultural distress entitled to legislative relief. The landed interest has always been the favoured interest in this country; it has been favoured by the progress of commercial and manufacturing industry, and it has been favoured by a most partial allocation of public burdens, and the general course of legislation. After shortly elucidating these circumstances in the progress of agriculture, we will proceed to show that, from changes in society, the time has passed when the landed interest ought to be considered the primary interest of the community.

Notwithstanding the complaints of the decay of agriculture, of farmers living on their capital, and of whole parishes being abandoned from the pressure of poor-rates, there can be little doubt that agriculture has been constantly extending. How otherwise can we account for the comparatively low prices of produce? Population has been steadily increasing, and unless the increase of food had kept pace with the increase of consumers, prices must have been enhanced by competition. It may be alleged that prices have been kept down by importation from abroad, but this is refuted by facts. In the last two years the foreign wheat and flour entered for home consumption have been very inconsiderable. The quantity of foreign wheat and flour kept for consumption in Britain, in the ten years ending in 1820, amounted to 5,206,321 quarters; and in the ten years ending in 1830, it amounted to 5,349,927 quarters. No great difference. Yet in the interval from 1820 to 1831, population had increased two millions. Now whence has the food been obtained for this vast addition to the number of consumers? Certainly not from Ireland. The imports from Ireland during the last ten years do not exceed on the average 350,000 quarters a-year. But an increase of two millions of consumers requires an increase of at least two millions of quarters of wheat for their sustenance, and that the supply has been obtained is evident from the fact of the steadiness of prices. It may be concluded, therefore, that as this supply has neither been obtained from Ireland nor abroad, it has been obtained from the increasing produce of our own soil.

General facts of this nature entirely negative the idea of the decline of agriculture. They are much more satisfactory than the testimony of individuals; since the last, when honestly given, can only be founded on a limited observance and their own peculiar circumstances. Even witnesses examined by the Agricultural Committee of last year testified to the thriving state of husbandry. In Norfolk, Mr. Wright, an extensive land-agent, bore testimony to the progressive improvement in farming; and in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk the land is as well cultivated as ever, (p. 96.) In Cornwall, Mr. Coode stated that agriculture had improved. In Lancashire, Mr. Reed said (p. 179) the quantity of arable land had increased within the last seven years. Other witnesses testified to the same effect.

No doubt the profits of farming have fallen since the war, but the depression extends to every other department of industry. Taken as a body, in no other country do the agricultural classes enjoy such pre-eminent advantages. Their estates have been fertilized by the wealth flowing from the successful pursuit of commerce and manufactures. They have better turnpike-roads to roll their carriages on, and canals to transport their produce, than can be found any where else. By the help of unrivalled mechanical inventions, they are enabled to buy their wearing apparel, their woollens, linens, silks, and calicoes, cheaper than in any other country. The possession of vast colonies brings within their reach all the choicest luxuries of the earth. Through these and other advantages the English aristocracy has become the richest and most favourably circumstanced in the world. It is remarked of lord Clive, (Universal Magazine, July, 1760,) who had killed himself, that he had £70,000 a-year, and was the richest subject of the king. Many individuals at present have four or five times that income. Foreigners view with astonishment the splendid seats of the nobility, their gorgeous and crowded assemblies, their massive sideboards of plate, splendid equipages, and other indications of territorial opulence!

Mere wealth, however, constitutes only a tithe of the social and political advantages enjoyed by the landed interest. 1. A landed qualification is the basis of eligibility to most civil and legislative functions. Without a qualification in land, no person is eligible to be a member of parliament, a sheriff, a justice of peace for the county, or a commissioner of land and assessed taxes. 2. By the law of entail, their property is protected from the just demands of creditors, when that of persons engaged in trade would be liable. 3. Their possessions are exempt from the legacy and auction duties. 4. A mass of sinecures in church and state are kept up solely for their profit and emolument. 5. In the levy of the assessed taxes and the imposition of turnpike-tolls, special favour is shown to all interests connected with agriculture. Lastly, it is now admitted by sir R. Peel and sir James Graham, that the cornlaws, which levy a tax of twenty or thirty millions on the people, are kept up solely for the preservation of the landed aristocracy as essential parts of the community.

The only drawbacks of the landed interest are tithes, poor-rates, and county-rates. The unfairness of representing these as peculiar burdens on land has been so often exposed, that it appears superfluous to advert to them. For a landowner to complain of tithes, it has been justly observed he might as well complain that his neighbour’s field is not his own, or that he is lord of only 900 in lieu of 1000 acres. For 1000 years at least the tithe-owner has been co-proprietor of the soil, and subject to his claim the landlord has succeeded to his possessions. The lien of the poor is hardly less inalienable; they have always been a charge upon the land, and justly so in return for their services. Then, again, as to the county-rates, the burden properly falls on the landowners, as it is chiefly for their convenience and security that the highways, prisons, and bridges are kept in repair.

Leaving these matters, let us come to the allocation of public burdens. The progress of taxation is a most instructive lesson in the science of government; it shows how a class, enjoying a monopoly of political power, will pervert that power to its own selfish purposes, and to the neglect or depression of all the non-represented interests of the community.

The land-tax is a practical illustration of this truth. This impost has been stationary for a hundred and forty years, notwithstanding the vast increase in the value of landed property. Of forty-nine millions raised by taxes in the thirteen years of the reign of William III. the land-tax furnished £19,174,000. The landowners of that day, therefore bore two-fifths of the whole public revenue, and paid a direct tax to government, which was nominally one-fifth, and might be in reality one-sixth of their entire income.

As the old valuation and rate of assessment of 1692 have been continued to the present, the produce of the land-tax at this day, including the value of what has been redeemed, is the same as it was at the end of the seventeenth century, namely, two millions a-year. But two millions at the former period was about one-fifth of the land-rents, whereas it is now only one-fifteenth. It then formed nearly one-half the public revenue; it now constitutes about the twenty-fifth part. Here, then, is a striking instance of the dexterity with which the landowners have evaded their fair proportion of taxation, and this without being subjected to any countervailing burdens; for it must be borne in mind that when contributing one-fourth of their incomes to the state, they were subject then as now to the additional assessment of tithes, poor-rates, and county-rates.

Let us now advert for a moment to the continental landowner. More the subject is investigated, and more enviable and favoured will appear the position of the British agriculturist; less ground there will appear for perpetuating the injustice of corn-laws, and seeking relief from existing burdens.

In France, the fonciere, or land-tax, produces about one-fourth part of the entire revenue of the country. The landowners of Austria are supposed to pay at least one-fourth, probably one-third of the entire mass of national taxation. From the statements of Mr. Jacob, it appears that in Hanover, Mecklenberg, Holstein, and Sleswick, the land-tax on the owner’s net profits varies from 20 to 25 per cent. including, however, tithes and school and poor rates, which are generally trifling in amount. In Prussia, the king’s tax on rent is 25 per cent.

It thus appears that in the most improved and civilized countries of the continent, about one-fourth of the whole public revenue is derived from a direct tax on land, while in Britain the land-tax supplies only one twenty-fifth part of the revenue. The landowners of the continent pay about one-fourth of their incomes to government, those of Britain about one fifteenth part.

It is worthy of remark, too, that while the land-tax in this country has been stationary since the reign of William III. it has been in a state of progressive increase on the continent, the cadastres, or valuations, being raised or altered, from time to time, or superseded by new ones.

Having adverted to the privileges, exemptions, and special favour extended to agriculture, let us next inquire whether there is any ground for this preference, either in the superior numbers, industrial character, fiscal contributions, or intelligence and moral power of the agricultural classes: in a word, let us ascertain whether agriculture is, as heretofore considered, the primary, or only the secondary interest of the empire. A solution of these questions will determine the soundness of the policy, which has long been predominant in the legislature, of rendering the interests of the town subservient to the country population.

First as to numbers. In England, the proportion of the population employed in agriculture is smaller, perhaps, than in any other European community. In Italy, the proportion of agriculturists to non-agriculturists is as 100 to 31; in France, as 100 to 50; in England, rather more than as 27 to 100. It is a remarkable fact, that the proportion of persons employed in agriculture during the last thirty years has been gradually decreasing, while the proportion employed in trades has been increasing. A similar change in the industrial character of society is observable in Scotland and Wales, as will appear from the following statement of Mr. Rickman, inserted in the Appendix to the Report of the Agricultural Committee.

Mr. Marshall, in his Statistics of the British Empire, has classed the counties of England into the agricultural, manufacturing, and metropolitan, and given the following table of the increase per cent. in the population of each.

From this and the preceding table, we derive two important facts:—First, that the number of persons employed in trade and manufactures far exceeds the number employed in agriculture, and, secondly, that the disproportion is rapidly augmenting. From 1700 to 1831, the population of the agricultural counties increased only 84 per cent., while the population of the manufacturing counties increased 295 per cent. Or, if we limit attention to the more authentic censuses taken from 1801 to 1831, it is obvious how rapidly manufacturing has been gaining on agricultural industry at each decennary enumeration.

So far then as numerical superiority is involved, the loom may claim decided precedency over the plough. This determines the most important consideration, for it is obviously men and not things that ought mainly to decide the course of legislation. But we shall find that trades and manufactures have another point of superiority, namely, in their power to augment the wealth of the community.

There are no authentic data for determining the relative proportion in which the different branches of industry add to the national income. Mr. Colquhoun, with his usual hardihood, has attempted to solve this question. He has given an estimate of the wealth annually realised in Great Britain and Ireland; we give his statement more as a curiosity and the conjectures of a shrewd calculator, than any thing else.

This estimate is chiefly valuable, as shewing the relative productive power of the several branches of national industry in the opinion of an ingenious writer; it is not applicable to existing circumstances, being prepared when the country was involved in war and paper-money, and when agriculture was of far greater relative importance than at present. We have no data for correcting the estimate up to the present. But the superior productive power of manufactures over agriculture may be readily inferred from the obvious facts of the greater number of persons employed therein, and the higher wages and profits realised. These are infallible criteria for determining the amount of wealth annually created in the two branches of national industry. Agriculture barely provides the community with its coarser food; all our luxuries, clothing, domestic conveniences, tools and machinery, shipping, navigation, and vast exports and imports are the results of commerce and manufactures. They have been the source even of agricultural wealth, as well as provided the means for internal improvements and a vast government expenditure.

The third point of superiority we claim for manufacturing industry is, that it contributes in a greater proportion to the public revenue of the country; agriculture not only contributes less to the mass of taxes in proportion to the smaller number of persons connected therewith, but absolutely less as will appear from a representation which appeared in the Times newspaper, April 2, 1834.

Our population in round numbers is 24,300,000, of which one-third or 8,100,000 is engaged in agriculture, and the remaining two-thirds, or 16,200,000, are engaged in other pursuits.

By the English scheme of taxation, the government taxes are for the most part common, and apply uniformly, and are paid by all classes of the community.

These taxes may be ranged under the following heads:—

And the agriculturists being one-third of the population, the proportion of this sum of £51,040,351, which they ought to pay according to their numbers, is £17,013,450: and now let us see what these men actually do pay, and then:—

So that the agriculturists not only contribute in a small degree to the general revenue, but less by £3,418,018 than they ought to contribute in proportion to their numbers. Yet mirabile dictu! these men are considered the mainstay of the country, and the class for whose interests, in the opinions of a majority of a reformed Parliament, the interests of all other classes should be sacrificed.

Let us advert to the fourth and last consideration—the superior intelligence and moral power of the trading and manufacturing population.

The entire mind and soul no less than the industrial activity and physical power of the community are concentrated in the metropolis and great towns of the kingdom. It is here where institutions of science, of education, and benevolence are founded and maintained. It was here even where civil liberty had its origin, was first claimed and conquered for the entire nation. Among the scattered population of the country, there is as little intelligence as combination for accomplishing objects of general utility. There is hardly any thing like personal independence—from the land-owners down to the farmer and mere labourer, it is a gradation of comparative slavery without the freedom either of thought or action which animates the manufacturer and operative. Hence it is that all great political movements, all great social ameliorations have had their origin and achievement in towns, not in the rural districts. It is commerce and manufactures, not agriculture that have impelled nations onward in the career of improvement. They have been the foundation of the freedom, glory, and magnificence of all great communities, of Tyre, Carthage, and Palmyra, no less than of Venice, Genoa, and the Netherlands. Wherever we find agriculture the sole or predominant industry of a state, there we may be well assured the people are poor and abject in spirit—poor in all the comforts and luxuries of living—women socially and physically degraded—and the whole frame of society debased by tyranny and superstition. Before our eyes, it is so even now in Italy, Spain, Poland, and Hungary. Without Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles, France would have had no revolution,—she would have still groaned under the double yoke of regal and ecclesiastical bondage. Without London, Birmingham, and Manchester, England would neither have had religious freedom nor parliamentary reform, but would have still been in the trammels of a plundering oligarchy and intolerant church.

Pursuing the contrast in its moral and municipal bearings, we are led to similar conclusions. The most degraded part of the population are the cultivators of the soil. Among them it is we find the cases of improvidence, vice, and illegitimate births most numerous. It is not in Leeds, Liverpool, or Manchester, but in the domain of the squire and parson that have been found the worst examples of parochial misgovernment.

But enough: with such facts, moral, statistical, and historical, does it not appear like national infatuation to tolerate the ostentatious imbecillities propounded by sir James Graham and sir R. Peel of the superior importance of agriculture, and that the landed aristocracy is the most essential interest of the community, in whose favour not only the great principle of commercial freedom should be violated, but every man, woman, and child in the country barefacedly and openly robbed!