LETTER XXIX.

Indications of the present general Superabundance of Produce for the Subsistence of Mankind, notwithstanding the universal Multiplication of the Populations of Europe, and other regions of the Globe.

MY DEAR SON,

Let us now consider the facts as to the general subsistence of the human race which our living world is presenting to us; and the reasonings to which they lead us, and which they

seem to warrant.

The first ascertained truths to which I will call your attention are these

We have been living as a human race on our globe for almost six thousand years, and on the present surface of it for above two thirds of this length of time; so that our European quarter of the globe has been called the Old World, and, in my younger days, was represented by agricultural writers of eminence as worn-out soil, much exhausted by continual working, and not to be compared with the fresh and untouched ground of the new continent. Yet, although while our earth was supposed to be yearly becoming thus debilitated by age in its productive powers, the states of Europe have multiplied into a larger contemporaneous population than our planet has ever held before, and therefore calling for more food; we find that the depreciated soils of our own country and of our neighbours, notwithstanding their enfeebling antiquity, are yielding to us and all, in our annual harvests, all that our augmenting numbers require. Nor is this only the case now; but, on looking backward into our history, we find that in every previous period the ratio of production has never been inferior to the ratio of our multiplication; but, on the contrary, has continually been the fully equal power. At this moment, in what have been deemed the declining years of our world, its powers of produce have been superior to its powers of popular multiplication. Our food exceeds, in its existing quantity, the present demand for it. We have more corn than we consume, and more is coming up than will be required by the rising generation. On what is the urgency

of some of several political economists, who uphold the Malthusian hypothesis-to have our corn laws abolished, founded? On the vegetable produce of the earth being as inadequate to the supply of the living numbers as the opposition of the contrasted geometrical and arithmetical laws must have long since made it? No; they require the repeal of the restrictive regulations which keep foreign corn from our shores; on their perceiving and knowing that there is more corn on the earth-now in hand, and certain to be produced -than its inhabitants will need. The demand of free importation arises from the ascertained certainty that the Continent and other regions have grown more than their populations consume, and that this could be brought thence to our coasts at such inferior prices as to be cheaper than the harvest of our own agriculture. As long as our merchants find articles of food abroad offered to them for sale, so long we may be sure that the ratio of vegetable produce is superior to that of population, instead of being at all below it. With this fact broadly before us, it is impossible that this ratio can be, or can ever have been, below the peopling one, much less so incalculably as the geometrical law supposes.

Coinciding with this fact of the mercantile solicitations for liberty of free importation are also the circumstances which I will mention, from the periodical journals of the day, as the best practical authorities. The foreign dealers in 1833 complained of the diminution of their trade, and of the value of corn, and of its fall in price, because there was no demand for it elsewhere to take off the superfluous produce which had been accumulating among them. The countries of Europe had on hand so much more than their populations wanted, that bad weather was even deemed advantageous, from the hope that, by injuring the shooting vegetation and preventing a good harvest, it would raise the prices of the stocks on sale.†

Thus, in 1833, I read from the foreign journals these passages: "Konigsberg, December 8. The corn-trade remains in a very dull, inactive state. The demand continuing very limited, has rendered all sorts of corn almost nominal in value." "Hamburg, December 23. The falling off in the demand for export has caused our stocks to in crease. Except local consumption, we have little demand for wheat." "Stettin, December 20. The accounts of the corn-trade we receive from France and England are very discouraging, and hold forth little chance of much demand for foreign wheat, until at least next spring."

Thus the letter from Bordeaux, Dec. 27, stated, "During the last

Because war having long ceased, there was no more that extraordinary consumption which had made subsistence dearer; the superabundant productions of corn and wine, from their ordinary cultivation, were so much beyond the ordinary use of them, that the wine in 1834 was unsaleable, and the corn had become so cheap that the landowners in Germany were much distressed.* The German farmers sent abundance to the foreign dealers; but other nations having enough of their own produce, it found so small a sale as to sink in its moneyworth. The effect of our corn-laws, which prevented Prussia from sending her superfluity to our market, is represented in 1834 as causing its land to fall in price, and as destroying the agricultural trade of Poland for its superabundance. So

six weeks the weather has been very inclement, and the rain almost incessant. This circumstance, more than all others, has given to the trade a degree of firmness; but on the return of fine weather we shall relapse into our dull and inanimate state."

* An article from the Hessian provinces, in the Frankfort paper of 15th Jan., 1834, stated, "We have wine and corn. The crop looks admirably. The weather is so mild that the spring flowers already show themselves. We have tranquillity and peace. We are contented with our government. We think of no unlawful innovations. We have no hotheaded agitators; and yet we are not happy. For several successive years the price of corn was high, and houses and land rose in value accordingly. At all public auctions, estates sold at high prices. But now the quarter of wheat, which a few years ago was worth thirteen or fourteen florins, is sold for five florins. Wine, which was then in great demand at 120 to 150 florins, is now not required for, but the capitalists demand payment. It is natural that such a state of things must cause distress and anxiety. They do not feel any of the happy effects which were expected from the new commercial convention, which has conferred on them the blessing of what is called free trade "

"Lubeck, Dec. 23. We are receiving good supplies of wheat and barley, with some rye; the wheat is fine, weighing full 62 lbs. a bushel. But the dulness in the Dutch and British markets has brought prices down to a very low point; and prime parcels may be bought so as to stand only in twenty-three florins a quarter, free on board, and free of all granary charges to the end of April."

"Berlin, 14th March, 1834. The late debates in the British House of Commons on the corn-laws have excited great interest here, for they affect Prussia more than any other country. Since they have been in force, the ports of Dantzic and Konigsberg, which were previously so animated and wealthy, have become changed. The price of land has fallen one fourth, and as the commerce of the interior of Poland is annihilated, the progressive decline of this hitherto flourishing province must create no surprise. Notwithstanding all the efforts made by the government to revive, by other means, the expiring prosperity, its former opulence cannot be recovered UNTIL exportations to England and the communications with Poland are re-established."

far was population in Europe from overrunning its subsistence in 1834, that a great part of Poland was not in cultivation, and of the land in actual husbandry, though only a third part was raised from it which that portion could produce, yet even this was more than its own consumption required; so that their wheat was given to the cattle, because it had grown more than its people consumed.*

The same state of things between population and produce existed also in America in 1834, both in the United States and in our Canadas, though each was so surprisingly multiplying in numbers from immigration, as one of our preceding letters showed. Here also the demand was so much less than nature's supply, that the price of it sank too low to meet the rate of wages, and to return a profit on the capital employed. +

This over-produce—its exuberance beyond the consumption of the population, was not in any one country or in the most fertile regions, but equally so in the less favoured ones; for we find Sweden, though so far in the north, and so near gelid Lapland, and so full of heaths, lakes, and mountains in herself, yet had so much more wheat than she wanted as to be urging her government in 1833 for leave to export it.‡

From the produce most generally exceeding the demand of the population for it, all countries in some years, and most countries at all times, are enabled and desirous to export their superabundance, even though some of their provinces receive

Sir James Graham, in his speech in the House of Commons on 6th March, 1834, referring to the agricultural condition of Poland, mentioned that, "from the statement of Messrs. Armand and Vering, two most respectable merchants in Dantzic, it appeared that a great part of the land in Poland was in pasture for want of encouragement in cultivating grain. The soil of Poland was lying waste. The cattle were fed on wheat, and three times more could be produced from the land then in cultivation, if there was a market for its consumption."-Public papers, 7th March, 1834.

† A Scotch traveller states, "A large capital invested in farming in America does not pay a remunerating profit. It is allowed by all the farmers, both in the states and Canada, whom I spoke to on the subject, that farms do not yield a fair profit for the amount of capital embarked. This is owing partly to the low value of produce; partly to the high price of wages; and partly to the system of bartering they carry on, which makes it very difficult to realize the cash."-Journal of an Excursion to the United States and Canada in 1834.

"Stockholm, 5th Nov., 1833. Government intends to allow the exportation of wheat without any duty until the end of June, 1834, with the view of preventing the continuance of the very low rates at which the article has been selling."-Public papers.

*

a partial importation. This has been the case in our own country. Parliament, at the revolution in 1688, enacted a bounty on exportation when wheat was at 48s. a quarter or below, and for fifty-five years England was an exporting country. In the next fifty-five years the bounty was sometimes discontinued and sometimes renewed. Importation was at times allowed and at others prohibited ; but always amounting to a very small part of our actual consumption—at present, notwithstanding our surprising increase of population, we are actually growing more than our numbers use.◊

Flanders produces so much, from a soil not distinguished for its natural fertility, that although crowded with inhabitants more densely than perhaps any other country, yet it exports every year one third of its harvest. The produce, as compared with the population, even doubles the amount of ours.¶

"From 1697 till 1751, our exports of wheat exceeded our imports by 23,000,000 of quarters. There were 23,527,868 quarters exported in these fifty-five years, which make an annual average of 427,961 quarters."— Cathcart on the Corn-laws.

"In 1757 exportation was prohibited, and in 1765 the bounty on it was discontinued, and importation permitted. In 1773, when wheat was under 44s., a bounty of 5s. was given to its exports, and importation was prohibited. In 1791 the bounty was continued when under 44s., and exportation allowed till the price became 46s."--Ib.

+ "From 1765 to 1820 we imported 29.524,562 quarters, which make an average of 536,810 annually."-Ib. This would not be more than a thirty-second part of what our present population consumes, allowing each person a quarter; but in that interval we had to supply our armies in America at one period, and on the Continent, in Spain, and elsewhere at another, and also occasionally exported.

In September, 1835, an able article in a respectable periodical states, "It seems at length admitted that the quantity of wheat in England and her dependances is equal to the consumption, a fact of immense importance. The agricultural year has been three weeks longer this season than last, and yet the stocks of wheat in hand are larger than at the commencement of the harvest of 1834. Since 1830, whether from better harvests, or the consumption of more meat or potatoes, or other substitutes for bread, it is not now to be questioned that THE GROWTH equals, and probably, during the last three years, including this harvest, 1835, HAS EXCEEDED THE DEMAND."-New Mon. Mag., Sept., 1835, p. 112.

|| Mr. Radcliffe, after thus describing the FLEMISH farmer, "He never looks beyond the enjoyment of moderate comfort, abstains from spirituous liquors, never exceeds his means, pays his rent punctually, and has always something beyond his necessary disbursements," adds, "This is done upon a soil which naturally is the reverse of rich, and, in fact, a bad soil. Yet such is the effect of industry and frugality, that although there are about five souls to eight English acres, yet one third of the produce of the land is annually exported."- Radcliffe's Report on the Agriculture of Flanders.

Mr. Radcliffe remarks, "Sadler says that in England there are ten