The inevitable result of the continuance of such a state of
matters is too clear to admit of argument. The land must go out
of cultivation. The process may be slow, but it will be sure. It
may, doubtless, be retarded by remissions of rent not sufficient
to cover the farmer's losses, but great enough to induce him to
renew his efforts for another year with the like miserable result;
until at length the tiller of the soil is made bankrupt, and the
landowner occupies his place. We can hardly trust ourselves to
depict the effect of such a social revolution. All the misery which
has been already felt--and that is far greater than our rulers will
permit themselves to believe--would be as nothing compared with the
calamitous consummation of Free Trade.
Yet it is towards that point that we are rapidly tending. Some
of the fierce and more plain-spoken Radical journals are so far
from contradicting our views, that they openly rejoice in the
havoc which has been already made, and in the wider ruin which is
impending. They say plainly, looking to the funds, that they see
no method of escaping from the domination of the moneyed interest,
except through the prostration of the landlords. Their meaning
is quite distinct and undisguised. They want to get rid of the
national debt, by reducing the value of produce so low, that the
usual amount of taxation cannot possibly be levied; and their
scheme, however nefarious, is by no means devoid of plausibility.
There can be no doubt that the Currency Act of 1819 has operated
most injuriously upon the industry of the nation, by enhancing the
value of the claims of the creditor; and that these claims, along
with the necessary expenses of government, must be paid, _ante
omnia_, from the industrial produce of the year. The cheapening
process, therefore, is one directly antagonistic to the maintenance
of taxation. The anomaly in legislation of forcibly reducing the
value of produce, and yet maintaining stringently an artificial
standard of taxation, has been reserved for our times; yet, strange
to say, though its effects are visible and confessed, few persons
have courage or patience enough to grapple with the difficulty.
Free Trade and a Fettered Currency are things that cannot possibly
co-exist for any length of time; and our sole surprise is, that any
statesman could be shortsighted enough to attempt to reconcile them.
Taken singly, either of them is a great evil to a country situated
like ours--taken together, they become absolutely intolerable. But
we have no wish, at the present time, to depart from the point
before us. We are merely taking the evidence of adversaries, to
show that our views as to the position and prospects of the great
productive classes of Britain are so far from exaggerated that they
are acknowledged by the most strenuous advocates of Free Trade. The
fundholder, nevertheless, may derive a useful lesson from these
financial hints, which indicate an ulterior purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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