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Leader (1850-1860), 30th November 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 852, Untitled Article

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      EAKL FITZWILLIAM AND HIS TENANTRY . Ik glancing over the official return of the imports of grain and flour into the United Kingdom during the month ending the 5 th of November , 1850 , we have been struck with the very great encrease in the quantity of wheat and flour imported , compared with the same period of last year . Of wheat the encrease is 194 , 888 quarters , and of flour no less than 399 , 736 cwts . But the most surprising thing in connection with this enormous importation of grain and flour , is the fact that prices do not fall . Even million

      when we have been importing at the rate of a quarters of grain , flour , and meal , per month , we find very little difference at Mark-lane . The whole of it goes into consumption , along with all that our own farmers are bringing forward , and yet the averages still remain about 40 s ., a price at which the farmers will have no difficulty in making a decent livelihood , if they only get fair play from the landlords . Unfortunately there seems very little disposition on the part of the great majority of the landlords to act liberally , and the result will be ruinous to many a thrifty , hard-working farmer .

      Here and there , indeed , we find a landlord treating his tenants in a fair and liberal manner . Thus , for example , we are glad to see that Earl Fitzwilliam , who took so prominent a part in the free-trade agitation , has set an example which will , -we trust , find many to follow- it throughout the country . . At his rent audit , which was held last week , after drinking the healths of the tenantry , his lordship addressed them to the following effect : — " Gentlemen , —I have a communication to make to you in which all are interested . Owing to an act of the Legislature the price of agricultural produce has experienced considerable reduction , and it is my opinion that

      the average price of corn will rule low—lower , probably , than the present price . Holding this opinion , it is only an act of justice on my part towards my tenantry to make such an equitable adjustment of their rents as the nature of the case may require ; and I shall at once cause a minute investigation to be made into the merits of each farm , with a view to the reduction of the rent , which will be retrospective , so far as relates to the last half year . ( Loud applause . ) I see no grounds for an expression of thanks or applause . That which I propose to do is only an act of common justice , inasmuch as the staple articles of your production have greatly fallen in price . "

      Earl Fitzwilliam , it will be seen , is of opinion that " the average price of corn will rule low—lower , probably , than the present price , " and , therefore , he proposes to make a corresponding reduction in rents . But many of the Protectionist landlords are utterly unable to follow his example without sweeping away their entire available incomes . To act fairly toward the farmer , by making a large reduction of his rent , would in many instances , be equivalent to a declaration of insolvency on the part of the landlord . Few of them have virtue enough to brave the consequences of such an act of justice . If there must be suffering , they will try to shift it from their own shoulders to those of the farmers .

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      SOCIAL REFORM . EPISTOL . 7 B OBSCUBOBUM VIROItUM . XIX . —JLb Droit a . v Thavail , No . 4 . To Thornton Hunt , Esq . Where there is a will , there is a way "—out of the pit of pauperism . „„ , „ - „ Rnwden , near Leeds , Nov . 26 , 1850 . Dear Sib , —At the close of my last letter I alluded to a third cause of pauperism , which , in my hurry , I termed an infringement of the law of population , — a loose , illogical mode of expressing myself , but you will have understood well enough what I meant by the law of population , viz ., the law that the material condition of a nation must deteriorate unless

      exceptions , such as parks , preserves , &c , not affecting the general rule , he does take care that all the food is produced that it will pay him to produce . If land lie waste , it is because it will not pay him to reclaim it ; and if more labour be not employed on land already in cultivation it is because it will not pay him to employ it ; and , in either case , the reason it would not pay him , is because the labour , if not more efficient , would be less productive , that is , would cost him more . TVifca wocori tvahIH rp . mfnn . thmncrh the camtalist

      lost his place , or were dismissed from his superintendence ; or , rather , if Proudhon ' s bank were opened to-morrow , and each labourer became his own employer , having capital found him ^ by the community , — more food , it is true , might be produced , but why ? not because the same labour would be more productive , but because there would be more labour employed . If the

      labourer employed himself noc pay the capitalist to employ him , it would be because he was willing to work for less pay ; that is , give the same labour for less return . No change in human relations can make Nature more generous ; no love of man can modify the laws of matter ; if the earth yield more fruit it will be because it is forced to do so ; if the land give more produce it will be because more labour is given to it . Nor , should you succeed in giving each man his " landed

      estate , " would it help the matter , as he would not bring his estate with him into the world ; the land would be no less limited , though its owners might change . Possibly the new owners may discover resources undeveloped by the old ones : may find fields lying waste or producing little , by reason of the neglect of man rather than the niggardliness of Nature ; neglected by the capitatist , not because it would not pay him to employ labour upon them , but because he did not know that it would pay him ; possibly , but not probably , for mistakes of that kind he rarely makes ; his mistakes lie in setting men to work upon what will not pay rather than in neglecting what will . Capital in England , according to our present system of distributing it , is constantly seeking investment or profitable employment ; and if land could have been found which would have paid for cultivation with our certain knowledge , depend upon it that land would already be cultivated ; like a stream let loose upon a meadow , caoital overflows all below its level .

      So , then , if the population of England encrease ten per cent , in ten years , it needs ten per cent more food ; but the land will not supply that need unless more than ten per cent , encrease of labour , either in quantity or quality , be put upon it . This is , in truth , the law of the land , which no dwellers upon the land can repeal . No effort of individuals , nor change in the form of society—no , not even the coming of the millennium—would do away with this fact , that if there be more food-eaters they must either eat less , or work harder , or do better work .

      But if men cannot repeal this law how can they keep it , and so escape the penalty of breaking it ? How ? That is the question . Must they work harder ? In England , at least , that is hard to do : we may say that , as a rule , Englishmen cannot work harder if they would , and their Ten Hour Bills , Early Closing Movements , and the like , prove that it is their conviction—a well-founded conviction , I doubt not—that they should not if they could . Well , then , they must do better work ,

      or each man ' s share must be less , unless , indeed , after all his fellows do not encrease in number ; for then , of course , neither need his work encrease nor his share lessen ; but if agriculture be not improved population must be kept stationary , or its comfort will not be maintained . Practically speaking , there are only these two modes of keeping this law ; either by keeping down the number of the labourers or encreasing their

      productive power : which mode is easiest , most practicable ? We have lost the right path ; which way is likeliest to bring us hack to it ? We have the disease ; which prescription has the best chance of curing us ? Which dose is easiest to get ? The preventive check of population or the encreased power over nature ? Doctors differ ; and , indeed , almost all differences in the application of political economy may be traced to this fundamental difference . Mr . Mill belongs to the check school , —

      is , in fact , its greatest doctor . " The preventive check" is hia pet prescription ; it would almost seem as though he would cure all the ills of men by this one remedy of keeping down their numbers . He seems to fancy that there is a certain fixed amount of happiness in the world , which cannot vary , how many men soever there be to

      share it . I confess this seems to me a fixed idea unworthy of his expansive intellect . He supposes his remedy a simple and easy one , merely needing the will to use it : but do you not agree with me that , in fact , no remedy is less easy ; because men have not , and , till human nature changes , never will have , this will ? And why ? Because the remedy is , and is felt to be , and always will be felt to be , almost , if not quite , as bad as the disease . Men may be driven by the force of circumstances to cheat their instincts , and paralyze their passions , and deaden their affections ; but they will not , therefore , worship the power that forces them ;

      they will not consider such circumstances ideal circumstances , nor hail them as material perfection , nor aim at submissive acknowledgment of their justice and conscious obedience to their rule as their highest moral development . Man will never arrive at the " stationary state , " for he never will believe in it . To do so would be to deny the destiny of his race and disown its purpose , which is progress . This state is no abiding place , —no station for humanity in its inarch , —much less the goal at which it aims . The world is a vast machine which never stands still , neither it nor any one of its wheels—or the web of life would be broken . All

      our powers and instincts are given us to use and to expand , not to deaden or destroy . It is our duty to develope to the utmost all the resources of our nature ; not merely of part of our nature , but of the whole of it . This we know to be our duty , and feel to be our destiny , and , therefore , we have faith in the progress of our race—faith that this duty

      will become easier , not harder , as the world grows older ; for man will gain more power over matter , and so have more scope for the exercise of his powers . " The stationary state" will be our fate when our dominion over nature has reached its limit , and not before . But what right has Mr . Mill to fix that limit ? He knows neither the extent of

      nature ' realm nor of man ' s strength to conquer it : he only knows the rule according to which this conquest must be attempted , —the formula by which this force must be applied ; and this formula he himself misapplies , the lesson of this rule he disregards ; for while , in seeming sternness but true mercy , the rule ordains that man ' s power over nature must encrease , or his instincts be sacrificed , and so makes his instincts a spur to his intellect . Mr . Mill would sacrifice the instincts , and

      thusdestroying the spur—make the lesson of no avail . Nevertheless , the lesson is of avail ; we may shut our ears against it—stuff them full of theories , but fate blows the theories away , forces us to hear the lesson , and to learn it , and to write it down on the page of history . We may talk what we will about the " stationary state , " but we never stand still , for we are ever on the march , —going forth against Nature to fight her and to conquer ; and though as we wrestle with her , she resists more and more , what then ? We do not disband our . army , nor

      thin our troops , but we discipline them anew , give them fresh arms , direct them with greater skill , m a word , make our brains help our muscles ; and thus , though each day the fight is harder , yet the triumph is sure , and its trophy more glorious . Individuals may hold what opinion they please , but Society believes in its instincts , and , therefore , it puts its faith , not in preventing the production of the producers , but in strengthening their power to produce . But though our hopes and aspirations , our faith in the future , point us to the one remedy , yet the necessities of the present often drive us to the other ; alas ! our ideal often cannot be our hecie

      practice . Ceasing , then , all guesses or prop s as to the future , what is our present plight , what must we do ? Grant that there is progress in civilization ( for improvement in production is civilization ) as well as in population , that each will reach its limits , finish its course at the end of time , and not before , yet which inarches quickest ? our condition depends on that . It may be that man as a race both waxes stronger and grows taller , as he gets older , and will do so till his head reach the stars , and he fall to rise no more ; yet if his strength wax not equally with his stature , he may be overgrown long ere he has attained his full height .

      Population and improvement in production are , as it were , two mighty spirits which have been running against one another ever since the world began , and will continue to do so until its end . We have a heavy stake on this race—the existence of some of us , the comfort of us all—for fate forces us to bet the wage of labour against population . Alas ! the odds seem sadly against us , —population keeps up such a steady run , its speed sometimes faster than at others , but never walking , running

      agricultural improvement keep pace with an encrease of its members : or , in other words , that with an encrease of food-eaters there will not be an equal encrcase of food , unless that food be more skilfully produced . I will not stay to give proofs of this law , so familiar to every student of political economy ; but , if any one of our friends be inclined to question it , must content myself with referring him to Mr . Mill ' s excellent work , where he will see not only that it is deduced from the facts and

      principles on which society is founded , but that it is itself a necessary condition of society , and , therefore , no possible social arrangements can enable individuals to escape it . If more food be wanted , it is harder to getneeds more sense or more labour in the gettingharder work or more skilful work , any way , more dl ' icient work : and no machinery which the workman can devise will nullify , though it may supply , this need . To meet an encreased demand for food ,

      there must be more than an equal encrease in the efficiency of the labour employed in its production , or there will be less food for each labourer . Take , for example , our own country , or any country of like circumstances that is as well peopled as Engl . 'jud : with us the capitalist superintends , looks after the production of food ; and , with special

      Untitled Article

      852 SC 60 ZLeatieV * [ Saturday , __ - - - - - — —¦ " -

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 30, 1850, page 852, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1861/page/12/