Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.

From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting. Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place between the Barrière de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands. We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In 1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city, away he went for St Denis—got without the city walls in safety, and made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle. But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the spot where the wafer was suspended, when, presto, down it popped into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it," roared the abbot—and a regular scramble took place. But the little curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September, the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct Pierre d'icelle église, où sont aussi quelques vers François, contenans partie d'icelle histoire."

THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT

In days of old it was the remark of more than one philosopher, that, if it were possible to exhibit virtue in a personal form, and clothed with attributes of sense, all men would unite in homage to her supremacy. The same thing is true of other abstractions, and especially of the powers which work by social change. Could these powers be revealed to us in any symbolic incarnation—were it possible that, but for one hour, the steadfast march of their tendencies, their promises, and their shadowy menaces, could be made apprehensible to the bodily eye—we should be startled, and oftentimes appalled, at the grandeur of the apparition. In particular, we may say that the advance of civilization, as it is carried forward for ever on the movement continually accelerated of England and France, were it less stealthy and inaudible than it is, would fix, in every stage, the attention of the inattentive and the anxieties of the careless. Like the fabulous music of the spheres, once allowed to break sonorously upon the human ear, it would render us deaf to all other sounds. Heard or not heard, however, marked or not marked, the rate of our advance is more and more portentous. Old things are passing away. Every year carries us round some obstructing angle, laying open suddenly before us vast reaches of fresh prospect, and bringing within our horizon new agencies by which civilization is henceforth to work, and new difficulties against which it is to work; other forces for co-operation, other resistances for trial. Meantime the velocity of these silent changes is incredibly aided by the revolutions, both moral and scientific, in the machinery of nations; revolutions by which knowledge is interchanged, power propagated, and the methods of communication multiplied. And the vast aerial arches by which these revolutions mount continually to the common zenith of Christendom, so as to force themselves equally upon the greatest of nations and the humblest, express the aspiring destiny by which, already and irresistibly, they are coming round upon all other tribes and families of men, however distant in position, or alien by system and organization. The nations of the planet, like ships of war manœuvring prelusively to some great engagement, are silently taking up their positions, as it were, for future action and reaction, reciprocally for doing and suffering. And, in this ceaseless work of preparation or of noiseless combination, France and England are seen for ever in the van. Whether for evil or for good, they must be in advance. And if it were possible to see the relative positions of all Christendom, its several divisions, expressed as if on the monuments of Persepolis by endless evolutions of cities in procession or of armies advancing, we should be awakened to the full solemnity of our duties by seeing two symbols flying aloft for ever in the head of nations—two recognizances for hope or for fear—the roses of England and the lilies of France.

Reflections such as these furnish matter for triumphal gratulation, but also for great depression: and in the enormity of our joint responsibilities, we French and English have reason to forget the grandeur of our separate stations. It is fit that we should keep alive these feelings, and continually refresh them, by watching the everlasting motions of society, by sweeping the moral heavens for ever with our glasses in vigilant detection of new phenomena, and by calling to a solemn audit, from time to time, the national acts which are undertaken, or the counsels which in high places are avowed.

Amongst these acts and these counsels none justify a more anxious attention than such as come forward in the senate. It is true that great revolutions may brood over us for a long period without awakening any murmur or echo in Parliament; of which we have an instance in Puseyism, which is a power of more ominous capacities than the gentleness of its motions would lead men to suspect, and is well fitted (as hereafter we may show) to effect a volcanic explosion—such as may rend the Church of England by schisms more extensive and shattering than those which have recently afflicted the Church of Scotland. Generally, however, Parliament becomes, sooner or later, a mirror to the leading phenomena of the times. These phenomena, to be valued thoroughly, must be viewed, indeed, from different stations and angles. But one of these aspects is that which they assume under the legislative revision of the people. It is more than ever requisite that each session of Parliament should be searched and reviewed in the capital features of its legislation. Hereafter we may attempt this duty more elaborately. For the present we shall confine ourselves to a hasty survey of some few principal measures in the late session which seem important to our social progress.

We shall commence our review by the fewest possible words on the paramount nuisance of the day—viz. the corn-law agitation. This is that question which all men have ceased to think sufferable. This is that "mammoth" nuisance of our times by which "the gaiety of nations is eclipsed." We are thankful that its "damnable iterations" have now placed it beyond the limits of public toleration. No man hearkens to such debates any longer—no man reads the reports of such debates: it is become criminal to quote them; and recent examples of torpor beyond all torpor, on occasion of Cobden meetings amongst the inflammable sections of our population, have shown—that not the poorest of the poor are any longer to be duped, or to be roused out of apathy, by this intolerable fraud. Full of "gifts and lies" is the false fleeting Association of these Lancashire Cottoneers. But its gifts are too windy, and its lies are too ponderous. To the Association is "given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies;" and out of this mouth issues "fire," it is true, against all that is excellent in the land, but also "smoke"—as the consummation of its overtures. During many reigns of the Cæsars, a race of swindlers infested the Roman court, technically known as "sellers of smoke," and often punished under that name. They sold, for weighty considerations of gold, castles in the air, imaginary benefices, ideal reversions; and, in short, contracted wholesale or retail for the punctual delivery of unadulterated moonshine. Such a dealer, such a contractor, is the Anti-Corn-Law Association; and for such it has always been known amongst intelligent men. But its character has now diffused itself among the illiterate: and we believe it to be the simple truth at this moment, that every working man, whose attention has at any time been drawn to the question, is now ready to take his stand upon the following answer:—"We, that is our order, Mr Cobden, are not very strong in faith. Our faith in the Association is limited. So much, however, by all that reaches us, we are disposed to believe—viz. that ultimately you might succeed in reducing the price of a loaf, by three parts in forty-eight, which is one sixteenth; with what loss to our own landed order, and with what risk to the national security in times of war or famine, is no separate concern of ours. On the other hand, Mr Cobden, in your order there are said to be knaves in ambush; and we take it, that the upshot of the change will be this: We shall save three farthings in a shilling's worth of flour; and the honest men of your order—whom candour forbid that we should reckon at only twenty-five per cent on the whole—will diminish our wages simply by that same three farthings in a shilling; but the knaves (we are given to understand) will take an excuse out of that trivial change to deduct four, five, or six farthings; they will improve the occasion in evangelical proportions—some sixty-fold, some seventy, and some a hundred."

This is the settled practical faith of those hard-working men, who care not to waste their little leisure upon the theory of the corn-laws. It is this practical result only which concerns us; for as to the speculative logic of the case, as a question for economists, we, who have so often discussed it in this journal, (which journal, we take it upon us to say, has, from time to time, put forward or reviewed every conceivable argument on the corn question,) must really decline to re-enter the arena, and actum agere, upon any occasion ministered by Mr Cobden. Very frankly, we disdain to do so; and now, upon quitting the subject, we will briefly state why.

Mr Cobden, as we hear and believe, is a decent man—that is to say, upon any ground not connected with politics; equal to six out of any ten manufacturers you will meet in the Queen's high road—whilst of the other four not more than three will be found conspicuously his superiors. He is certainly, in the senate, not what Lancashire rustics mean by a hammil sconce;28 or, according to a saying often in the mouth of our French emigrant friends in former times, he "could not have invented the gun-powder, though perhaps he might have invented the hair-powder." Still, upon the whole, we repeat, that Mr Cobden is a decent man, wherever he is not very indecent. Is he therefore a decent man on this question of the corn-laws? So far from it, that we now challenge attention to one remarkable fact. All the world knows how much he has talked upon this particular topic; how he has itinerated on its behalf; how he has perspired under its business. Is there a fortunate county in England which has yet escaped his harangues? Does that happy province exist which has not reverberated his yells? Doubtless, not—and yet mark this: Not yet, not up to the present hour, (September 20, 1843,) has Mr Cobden delivered one argument properly and specially applicable to the corn question. He has uttered many things offensively upon the aristocracy; he has libelled the lawgivers; he has insulted the farmers; he has exhausted the artillery of political abuse: but where is the economic artillery which he promised us, and which, (strange to say!) from the very dulness of his theme making it a natural impossibility to read him, most people are willing to suppose that he has, after one fashion or other, actually discharged. The Corn-League benefits by its own stupidity. Not being read, every leaguer has credit for having uttered the objections which, as yet, he never did utter. Hence comes the popular impression, that from Mr Cobden have emanated arguments, of some quality or other, against the existing system. True, there are arguments in plenty on the other side, and pretty notorious arguments; but, pendente lite, and until these opposite pleas are brought forward, it is supposed that the Cobden pleas have a brief provisional existence—they are good for the moment. Not at all. We repeat that, as to economic pleas, none of any kind, good or bad, have been placed on the record by any orator of that faction; whilst all other pleas, keen and personal as they may appear, are wholly irrelevant to any real point at issue. In illustration of what we say, one (and very much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers, was this—"Was not the object," he demanded, "was not the very purpose of all corn-laws alike—simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed; and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low." Now, we pause not to ask, why, if the law already makes the prices of corn ruinously low, any association can be needed to make it lower? What we wish to fix attention upon, is this assumption of Mr Cobden's, many times repeated, that the known object and office of our corn-law, under all its modifications, has been to elevate the price of our corn; to sustain it at a price to which naturally it could not have ascended. Many sound speculators on this question we know to have been seriously perplexed by this assertion of Mr Cobden's; and others, we have heard, not generally disposed to view that gentleman's doctrines with favour, who insist upon it, that, in mere candour, we must grant this particular postulate. "Really," say they, "that cannot be refused him; the law was for the purpose he assigns; its final cause was, as he tells us, to keep up artificially the price of our domestic corn-markets. So far he is right. But his error commences in treating this design as an unfair one, and, secondly, in denying that it has been successful. It has succeeded; and it ought to have succeeded. The protection sought for our agriculture was no more than it merited; and that protection has been faithfully realized."

We, however, vehemently deny Mr Cobden's postulate in toto. He is wrong, not merely as others are wrong in the principle of refusing this protection, not merely on the question of fact as to the reality of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what is the end of the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another. This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn—viz. its inevitable oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think, that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law—that is, a restraint upon the free importation of corn—affects the case, is this:—Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed, except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself. Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys, from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence, the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The high price compensates grossly the defect of quantity; the overflowing quantity in turn compensates grossly the low price. And thus it happens that, upon any cycle of ten years, taken when you will, the manufacture of grain will turn out to have been moderately profitable. Now, on the other hand, under a system of free importation, whenever a redundant crop in England coincides (as often it does) with a similar redundancy in Poland, the discouragement cannot but become immoderate. An excess of one-seventh will cause a fall of price by three-sevenths. But the simultaneous excess on the Continent may raise the one-seventh to two-sevenths, and in a much greater proportion will these depress the price. The evil will then be enormous; the discouragement will be ruinous; much capital, much land, will be withdrawn from the culture of grain; and, supposing a two years' succession of such excessive crops, (which effect is more common than a single year's excess,) the result, for the third year, will be seen in a preternatural deficiency; for, by the supposition, the number of acres applied to corn is now very much less than usual, under the unusual discouragement; and according to the common oscillations of the season according to those irregularities that, in effect, are often found to be regular—this third year succeeding to redundant years may be expected to turn out a year of scarcity. Here, then, in the absence of a corn-law, comes a double deficiency—a deficiency of acres applied, from jealousy of foreign competition, and upon each separate acre a deficiency of crop, from the nature of the weather. What will be the consequence? A price ruinously high; higher beyond comparison than could ever have arisen under a temperate restriction of competition; that is, in other words, under a British corn-law.

Many other cases might be presented to the reader, and especially under the action of a doctrine repeatedly pressed in this journal, but steadily neglected elsewhere—viz. the "devolution" of foreign agriculture upon lower qualities of land, (and consequently its permanent exaltation in price,) in case of any certain demand on account of England. But this one illustration is sufficient. Here we see that, under a free trade in corn, and in consequence of a free trade, ruinous enhancements of price would arise—such in magnitude as never could have arisen under a wise limitation of foreign competition. And further, we see that under our present system no enhancement is, or could be, absolutely injurious; it might be so relatively—it might be so in relation to the poor consumer; but in the mean time, that guinea which might be lost to the consumer would be gained to the farmer. Now, in the case supposed, under a free corn trade the rise is commensurate to the previous injury sustained by the farmer; and much of the extra bonus reaped goes to a foreign interest. What we insist upon, however, is this one fact, that alternately the British corn-laws have raised the price of grain and have sunk it; they have raised the price in the case where else there would have been a ruinous depreciation—ruinous to the prospects of succeeding years; they have sunk it under the natural and usual oscillations of weather to be looked for in these succeeding years. And each way their action has been most moderate. For let not the reader forget, that on the system of a sliding-scale, this action cannot be otherwise than moderate. Does the price rise? Does it threaten to rise higher? Instantly the very evil redresses itself. As the evil, i.e. the price, increases, in that exact proportion does it open the gate to relief; for exactly so does the duty fall. Does the price fall ruinously?—(in which case it is true that the instant sufferer is the farmer; but through him, as all but the short-sighted must see, the consumer will become the reversionary sufferer)—immediately the duty rises, and forbids an accessary evil from abroad to aggravate the evil at home. So gentle and so equable is the play of those weights which regulate our whole machinery, whilst the late correction applied even here by Sir Robert Peel, has made this gentle action still gentler; so that neither of the two parties—consumers who to live must buy, growers who to live must sell—can, by possibility, feel an incipient pressure before it is already tending to relieve itself. It is the very perfection of art to make a malady produce its own medicine—an evil its own relief. But that which here we insist on, is, that it never was the object of our own corn-laws to increase the price of corn; secondly, that the real object was a condition of equipoise which abstractedly is quite unconnected with either rise of price or fall of price; and thirdly, that, as a matter of fact, our corn-laws have as often reacted to lower the price, as directly they have operated to raise it; whilst eventually, and traced through succeeding years, equally the raising and the lowering have co-operated to that steady temperature (or nearest approximation to it allowed by nature) which is best suited to a comprehensive system of interests. Accursed is that man who, in speaking upon so great a question, will seek, or will consent, to detach the economic considerations of that question from the higher political considerations at issue. Accursed is that man who will forget the noble yeomanry we have formed through an agriculture chiefly domestic, were it even true that so mighty a benefit had been purchased by some pecuniary loss. But this it is which we are now denying. We affirm peremptorily, and as a fact kept out of sight only by the neglect of pursuing the case through a succession of years under the natural fluctuation of seasons, that, upon the series of the last seventy years, viewed as a whole, we have paid less for our corn by means of the corn-laws, than we should have done in the absence of such laws. It was, says Mr Cobden, the purpose of such laws to make corn dear; it is, says he, the effect, to make it cheap. Yes, in the last clause his very malice drove him into the truth. Speaking to farmers, he found it requisite to assert that they had been injured; and as he knew of no injury to them other than a low price, that he postulated at the cost of his own logic, and quite forgetting that if the farmer had lost, the consumer must have gained in that very ratio. Rather than not assert a failure quoad the intention of the corn-laws, he actually asserts a national benefit quoad the result. And, in a rapture of malice to the lawgivers, he throws away for ever, at one victorious sling, the total principles of an opposition to the law.29