Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
maintenance of the struggle, which must end by the British farmer,
overloaded with rent, taxes, and public burdens, giving way to
his competitors, who, with no such impediments, and with a better
climate and richer soil, will monopolise his proper function. We
shall then experience in corn, what our West Indian colonists, under
the same kind of legislation, have experienced in sugar. The greater
part of the soil of Britain will be diverted from cereal growth;
and, as the earth does not yield her produce without long wooing, we
shall be at the mercy of the foreigner for our supplies of food, at
any rates which he may choose to impose.
As to the matter of freights, about which so much was at one time
said and written, we need not complicate the question by entering
into minute details. From information upon which we can rely, we
learn that, at this moment, steamers are constructing for the sole
purpose of effecting rapid and continual transit between foreign
and British ports, for the conveyance of grain--a circumstance
which speaks volumes as to the anticipations of the Continental
traders. We may also observe that ordinary freights form no bar
to importation, since they are now hardly greater from the Baltic
to this country than from Ross-shire to Leith, or from many parts
of England to London. One fact, communicated by a correspondent
connected with the shipping trade, has peculiarly impressed us. We
give it in his own words: "I enclose you a price-current, which will
give you the prices of all grain. Grain from America has lately come
home, both in American and British ships, at 4d. per bushel freight,
and flour at 6d. per barrel--but much more frequently shipped on the
condition _that, if it leaves a profit, the one half goes to the
shipper, and the other half to the owner of the ship for freight_."
He adds, "The freights from Quebec and Montreal are higher--say 2s.
6d. or 3s. for flour; but as British shipping ceases being protected
after 1st January, they will be equally low there." So much for
pulling down one interest by way of compensation to another!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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