Brought forward 61 11 If to this be added, 0 2 9 0 8 0 Shipping charge, or merchant's commission or profit,' 1 - 3 £2 3 0 The bulk and perishable nature of corn, I repeat, necessarily limit the district from whence it can be drawn-it is in truth confined to the borders of navigable rivers, or to the sea-coast, and will never be found to extend to any great distance inland, except where a scarcity in England or any other country capable of purchasing corn at a dear rate, so raises the price as to cover the additional expense incurred by this long and difficult carriage, The usual supplies from Poland for instance are drawn chiefly from the mouths of the Vistula, and furnished by the immediate district through which that river runs. Mr. Jacob gives some interesting details with respect to its transport. There are two modes of conveying wheat to Dantzic by the Vistula. That which grows near the lower part of the river, comprehending Polish Prussia, and part of the province of Plock and of Masovia, in the kingdom of Poland, which is generally of inferior quality, is conveyed in covered boats, with shifting boards, that protect the cargo from rain, but not from pilfering: These vessels are long, and draw about fifteen inches water, and bring about 150 quarters of wheat. They are not, however, so well calculated for the upper parts of the river. From hence, where the Vistula first becomes navigable to below the junction of the Bug with that stream, the wheat is mostly conveyed to Dantzic in open flats. These are constructed on the banks in seasons of leisure, on spots far from the ordinary reach of the river, but which, when the rains of autumn, or the melted snow of the Carpathian mountains, in the spring, fill and overflow the river, are easily floated. Barges of this description are about seventy-five feet long and twenty broad, with a depth of two feet and a half. They are made of fir rudely put together, and fastened with wooden trenails, the corners dovetailed, and secured with light iron craposs, the only iron employed in the construction. A large tree, the length of the vessel, runs along the bottom, to which the timbers are secured. This roughly-cut keelson rises nine or ten inches from the floor, and hurdles are laid on it which extend to the sides. They are covered with mats made of rye-straw, and serve the purpose of dunage, leaving below a space in which the water that leaks through the sides and bottom is received. The bulk is kept from the sides and ends of the barge by a similar plan. The water which these ill-constructed and imperfectly caulked vessels receive, is discharged at the ends and sides of the bulk of wheat. Vessels of this description draw from ten to twelve inches of water, and yet frequently get aground in descending the river. The cargoes usually consist of from 180 to 200 quarters of wheat. The wheat is thrown on the mats, piled as high as the gunwale, and At Dantzic. left uncovered, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather and to the pilfering of the crew. During the passage the barge is carried along by the force of the stream, oars being merely used at the head and stern to steer clear of the sand banks, which are numerous and shifting, and to direct the vessel in passing under the several bridges. These vessels are conducted by six or seven men. A small boat precedes with a man in it, who is employed in sounding, in order to avoid the shifting shoals. This mode of navigating is necessarily very slow, and during the progress of it, which lasts several weeks, and even months, the rain, if any falls, soon causes the wheat to grow, and the vessel assumes the appearance of a floating meadow. The shooting of the fibres soon forms a thick mat, and prevents the rain from penetrating more than an inch or two. The main bulk is protected by this kind of covering, and when that is thrown aside, is found in tolerable condition. The vessels are broken up at Dantzic, and the men return on foot. I have made a long extract from this valuable report, as well because it is interesting itself, as because it throws considerable light on the rude mode in which poor countries send their produce to foreign markets. Equally rude is the cultivation, and we who live in a highly civilised and densely peopled country, can have but a faint idea of the smallness of the produce derived from a large surface, when produced under the simpler and more primitive forms of agricul ture. The price of grain grown for export is so low, as not to pay for those more expensive processes by which cultivation is rendered so much more efficient-there is not sufficient strength or capital to work and clean the land, enclosures do not exist, draining is not attempted, manure cannot be purchased; and what is perhaps of still greater importance than all the rest, there is not that demand for animal food, which so largely prevails in richer countries, and on account of which it is that the farm-yard abounds in that essential requisite of all good farming; and without which, every farmer knows that cultivation in this country cannot be carried on otherwise, than in a way as ruinous to the cultivator as it is destructive to the land. It is remarked by Mr. Jacob, that constant export of corn impoverishes the country where it prevails, and that Poland feels the ill effects of her long continuance in this system. The only way, in truth, in which such a cultivation can go on at all, is, by allowing the land several years to rest after it is exhausted by two or three crops; and as it remains in a very impoverished state, I leave more experienced agriculturists than myself to decide what can be expected from it, until nature has had ample time to recruit its strength. It is a poor country alone, in which an habitual system of exporting corn long continues: in one more florishing, population rapidly increases; and in proportion as cultivation improves, consumers are found who speedily take off the surplus produce. Indeed, increase of food and increase of population are so inseparably connected, that in a healthy community the latter may always be assumed as a necessary consequence of the former. The United States of America afford a proof of this; though still a country almost entirely agricultural, far from densely peopled, and possessing an extent of territory, a soil, and a climate highly favorable to the production of grain, abounding in navigable rivers, and carrying on an immense trade with this country, we still find the supplies of corn we receive from thence very limited in amount; the annual average of wheat imported from the United States for the 21 years I have before alluded to, namely, from 1800 to 1821, amounts only to 87,876 quarters. Even Ireland, which, in proportion to its extent, is perhaps the largest exporting country of agricultural produce in the whole world, as well on account of its natural fertility as the inferior description of food on which its population depend, the forced system of exports created by absentees, the stimulus caused by the possession of the English markets to the exclusion of foreign produce, its insular situation, and admirable roads, sends us far less of wheat than would have been expected by any a priori reasoning on such data. The annual average of grain and flour of all sorts imported into Great Britain from Ireland, from the year 1817 to 1826, amounts to 1,363,673 quarters, of which only 318,817 are wheat and wheat flour. Poland is, as has been already stated, the great source from whence our foreign supplies are likely to be drawn. The total amount of the exports of wheat for several years, from Dantzic and Elbing, is given by Mr. Jacob. It is remarkable in many respects; it shows, in the first place, the smallness of exporting power, in that country purely agricultural, compared with its extent; it evinces the effect of high prices in drawing supplies from a greater distance; and it demonstrates the operation of the English corn-laws in repressing this trade. The exports from 1791 to 1805, taken in periods of five years, give an annual average as follows: 1791 to 1795 1796 to 1800 1801 to 1805 260,000 quarters. 549,000 The five years ending 1825, give this result: 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 126,136 anton Average of the five years 83,523 The causes to which Mr. Jacob attributes the great increase in the exports evinced by the two periods ending in 1800 and 1805, are the deficiencies in produce which existed generally in Europe during the latter part of the last, and former part of the present century. England imported largely, owing as well to her natural position as an importing country, as to the deficient harvests of 1794 and 1795, and 1800 and 1801, during which, not only was there no impediment to import foreign corn, but bounties to a large extent were paid on its importation. The prices in those years of scarcity rose to an immense height, having at one time attained the extravagant rate of 127s. per quarter. The effect, too, of these deficient years was to work off stocks; and when once such an exhaustion has occurred, it requires some time to replace the deficiency thus caused. With respect to other countries, Mr. Jacob states, "that there was a constant demand in France for foreign corn from 1791 to 1801, owing to several deficient seasons having been experienced at the beginning of the Revolution. The agents of France were employed both in Europe and America in purchasing corn, and hiring neutral vessels to convey it to France; paying but little regard to the price they gave for it, or to the rate of freight at which it could be transported. Holland, which scarcely has ever grown corn sufficient for its own consumption, felt a great want, owing to its internal sources of supply from Germany and Flanders being diverted from the usual channels by the circumstances of the war." Sweden also participated in the dearth of that period, and took as much foreign corn as her poverty could find the means of paying for. This accounts for the range of high price which prevailed in Europe during the period in question, and sufficiently explains the increase of exports from the mouths of the Vistula. The supplies were drawn from a greater distance; and Mr. Jacob mentions that he was informed in Poland, that in those years of prosperity to Polish agriculture, "wheat was brought by land-carriage to the Vistula from distances far too great to bear the expenses without the enormous price which it bore in the markets of England and France. It was sent, according to these reports, not only from the farthest parts of Gallicia, but even from the vicinity of Brunn and Olmutz in Moravia; and that some of the wheat of Hungary was conveyed over the Carpathian mountains to Cracow, and there shipped in flats for Dantzic and Elbing, whilst Volhynia and Podolia were emptied of their stores.' Mr. Jacob mentions these circumstances as reports; but he adds, “Whether they are true or not to the full extent stated, it is natural to suppose that the very high price which wheat had reached in the years under consideration, must have vastly extended the limits of the circle from which it could be collected, and would induce the inhabitants to dispatch to the high markets whatever could be spared by the exercise of the mostrigid ecos nomy." rub Mr. Jacob further states, that with a duty of 10s. or 12sper quarter, payable on the import of foreign corn into Great Britain, and supposing the price in our markets to be from 60s. to 64s. there would not be such a profit derived as to induce any great exertions to increase cultivation in the districts bordering on the Vistula; and that none but the driest, heaviest, and whitest wheat would be imported. The inferior descriptions would not pay for importation, unless the average in England was much more than 64s. The whole of the information contained in the report from which these extracts are taken, is so valuable, that I regret it has not been rendered more accessible to the public, by appearing in a more popular form than that of a Parliamentary Report. In one respect, the opinion just quoted appears to differ from the one I have given; Mr. Jacob seems to think that, with a duty of 10s.or 12s., it would require an average price of upwards of 64s. again to re-establish the trade with the Baltic; whereas, I have assumed that that effect would be produced by an average of 55s.-the truth is, that all calculations of this kind are liable to considerable error, and that nothing but experience can decide the exact level at which prices would settle, after the existence of the trade for so long a period as to have produced its full effects. If the opinion given by Mr. Jacob be found correct, I should be disposed to ad vocate a lower rate of duty than the one above stated, being convinced of the necessity of a regular trade in corn, and feeling some doubts whether, under these circumstances, it would be found to exist. A duty so high as to amount to a prohibition, except in periods of scarcity, would retain much of the evil of the present system; it would equally tend to create that fluctuation of price, and that difference of price between this and other countries, from whence I anticipate so much of injury. This uncertainty respecting the effect which an alteration in the law would produce, induces me to be of opinion, that it would be desirable, in the first instance, to commence with a graduated scale of duty, by which we should attain our object of re-establishing the trade, without exposing ourselves to the risks contingent on experiments of this nature: this is the more necessary in the first introduction of the improved system, on account of the effect opinion commonly produces for some time after any material change of this description. 913 or 3d 20 of latuter zi by An attentive examination of these effects will show, that grea |