|All kinds |Flour. | | Imported, month|of Grain. | Cwt. | Total. | Authority. ending-- | Qrs. | | | |----------+-------+---------+------------------------------- April 5, 1849, |1,110,306 |320,764|1,213,888|London Gazette, April 20, 1849. Aug. 5, 1849, | 990,270 |295,667|1,088,776| Ditto, Aug. 20, 1849. Sept. 5, 1849, | 928,258 |332,434|1,039,269| Ditto, Sept. 20, 1849. Oct. 10, 1849, |1,123,434 |290,713|1,213,640| Ditto, Oct. 30, 1849. That it is this fatal dependence of the currency, and consequent credit of the country, on the retention of its gold circulation, under circumstances when, from the vast importation of grain going forward, _it is impossible to retain it_, which is the real cause of the calamitous state of the country for the last three years, and not either the potato rot or the European revolutions, to which the Free-traders ascribe it, is evident from the slightest consideration. The potato rot of 1846, which has been the sheet-anchor of the Free-traders ever since--the scapegoat which they hoped would answer for all their sins--was never, by the most determined of their party, set down as having occasioned a loss of above £15,000,000 sterling. Call it £20,000,000 to avoid cavil. The strength of the case will admit of any concession. Now, the value of the agricultural produce of the United Kingdom, prior to the free trade in grain, was generally estimated at £300,000,000.[24] A deficiency of £20,000,000, or a _fifteenth part_, might occasion, doubtless, the most acute _local_ distress in the districts in which it was most severely felt; but it could never, _irrespective of its action on the currency_, occasion a general monetary and commercial crisis. England and Scotland exported little or nothing to the boys of Munster and Connaught, where the failure occurred. There is no more reason, had it not been for the currency laws, why a failure of the potato crop in Ireland should have produced a monetary crisis in Great Britain, than a failure in the potato crop of Norway. [24] Viz.--19,135,000 arable acres, at £7 each, £133,945,000 27,000,000 acres of grass, at £6 each, 162,000,000 15,000,000 do. wastes, 5,000,000 ------------- £300,945,000 --PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 158; 2d edition.