In

able distinction exists between different parts of the kingdom. Scotland, embarrassment has doubtless been experienced, such as will never fail to be felt in any trade when a falling market occurs, and some districts, where the rents were very high, have suffered from local causes; but that any thing approaching to that destruction of farming capital has taken place in Scotland, which is represented as having occurred in the largest and finest districts of England, does in no degree accord with our observation, or with the fact. Soon after the termination of the war the rents of land in Scotland very generally fell from about 25 to 30 per cent; and, at this rate of reduction, rents have continued to be pretty steady ever since; and at the present time few farms are brought to market without exciting competition on these terms. In England, however, if we are to credit the concurrent testimony of respectable individuals from every part, matters are in a greatly more gloomy condition, and a rapid wasting of the capital stock of farmers is going on. Amongst other circumstances, these two may perhaps be stated as conducing to this difference in the condition of the two parts of the kingdom: 1st, In England, particularly in the south of England, crops have been much more defective for these last two years than in Scotland, and consequently the pressure of the low prices has been more severely felt; 2d, The burdens falling upon the English farmer, at all times greater than those falling upon the Scottish farmer, bear a larger ratio to the gross produce, and consequently are more felt when a fall occurs in the value of that produce; and not only so, but one great part of these burdens, namely, the poor's-rates, increases in actual amount, while the real means of the farmers to pay are diminished. The tithe, too, at all times an odious tax, becomes peculiarly grievous upon a fall in the value of produce, and that whether the tithe shall be commuted into a fixed payment in money, or levied in kind. Attention to circumstances thus partially operating, and affecting the part of the kingdom understood to be the most favoured by nature, and the most wealthy, may perhaps lead to some correcter views of the causes, of a part, at least, of the present distresses of the agriculturists in England, than many of those doctrines and systems of which we hear so much,-each with its corresponding remedy, put forth by its supporters as a panacea for the complicated evils of which we complain.

Some will have it that excessive taxation is the cause of all the suffering of the landed classes; and yet it is certain that all this suffering has arisen since taxation was reduced. Taxation is doubtless an evil, and a great one; but it does not appear that it is now the immediate cause of

that lowness in the price of raw produce, of which the agriculturists complain. On the contrary, the State having ceased to become the great buyer and consumer, a powerful means of enhancing the price of commodities has ceased with the lowering of taxes. Some will have it that we can only be saved by a repeal of the Malt and Beer Duties,—an opinion which we trust has been sufficiently disposed of in our preceding pages: The same individuals, however, would resort to a permanent system for the entire exclusion of foreign corn, except at the prices of a famine; thus, with wonderful consistency, proposing to relieve our famishing artisans, by giving them cheap porter with the one hand, and dear bread with the other. Others will have it that we owe all our misfortunes to what it somewhat erroneously termed Free Trade; and yet, if we shall look abroad to other countries, where the reverse of a system of freedom of trade has been acted upon, we shall find a distress complained of at least equal to our own, and apparently as far removed from the operation of a practical remedy. In France, the ministers of the Bourbon family have not only not relaxed, as we have done, the severities of the old mercantile system, but have so overloaded with protection, under the form of prohibitions and restrictions, their various branches of manufacture and domestic trade, that they seem to have gone far to anuihilate the foreign commerce of their country altogether; while the landlords and farmers raise the cry that they cannot find a sale for their productions. The politicians on the other side of the Atlantic, again, with their tariffs and prohibitions, have not been more fortunate; and, with all their boasted freedom from taxation, distress so far pervades the community, that no English farmer possessing capital would be contented with the wretched return which it yields on any farm from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Others amongst us maintain, that all our misfortunes flow from the state of the Currency, and propose remedies for the evil which are sufficiently startling. We do not deny the evil that resulted to the community from the restoration of the ancient standard by the act 1819, nor the embarrassment-temporary, we believe-that has resulted from the silly measure of 1826; but we do gravely question, whether another change in the standard would be just or wise, with a view to meet the evils of the present time.

Had the money standard been altered on the termination of the bank restriction act, the measure would have been submitted to without a murmur, and would have been regarded generally as an act of necessity and public justice. Were it attempted now, in a period of perfect peace, it would be regarded as nothing less than an act of national bankruptcy and fraud. One wrong, we should keep in mind, is but ill

redressed by committing another. Our legislators, when they restored the standard, by the act of 1819, ought to have considered that, for nearly the fifth part of a century before, the dealings of men had borne reference to money of a different value; and that, in money of this value, a vast public debt had been contracted. It was not an act of public or of private justice to make the debtor pay more than he owed, by raising the value of money in 1819: So neither would it be an act of public or private justice, to make the creditor receive less than he has lent, by lowering the value of money in 1830.

It were

Into the question, however, of mere political expediency, as regards another change in the value of money, we do not propose to enter. This project, we apprehend, like several others, will meet with little support from the sober sense of the country; and those who have proposed it, have not yet shown themselves well qualified, if we must judge by their harangues and writings, to solve the difficult political problem of, how the country is to be freed from its present embarrassments. It is possible that this problem may baffle the wisest, and be only resolved in the end by time and the progress of events. hard, in the mean while, to believe, that the prosperity of England, having reached its limits, is now about to decline. If we can only believe, that the resources of this great agricultural and commercial country are not exhausted, that public industry languishes, but is not destroyed, we may well entertain the hope, that the present period of depression will be followed by that reaction, which at other times has been seen to follow a period of depression and difficulty. In the general condition of the country, as evinced by the state of its great foreign trade, its capital ready to overflow in loans to every country, and its wonderful powers of production, we think, that if we cannot see the certainty of a return of better times, we can see, at least, no reason for despair. That the want of means to consume, on the part of the labouring population, is at least a proximate cause of the depression in the price of the necessaries of life, can scarcely, we think, be questioned. Could we suppose our artisans and labourers to be better employed and better paid; it cannot be doubted, that the effect upon the value of the produce of the soil would be immediate and direct. Perhaps, then, it is to the better employment of our vast manufacturing population, that we are to look for the means of prosperity. We have here, at least, a more rational ground of hope, than in the many crude schemes which are pressed upon our notice. The meeting of Parliament will be looked to with some interest, not because any sudden effect from legislation, however well directed, can be expected, but because questions of great moment, as affecting various branches of domestic industry, must necessarily form the subject of deliberation.

TABLES of the Average Prices of the different kinds of GRAIN, per Imperial Quarter, and of BUTCHER MEAT, sold at the following Markets, from 1st October to 31st December 1829.

AVERAGE PRICES OF GRAIN AS SOLD IN THE MARITIME DISTRICTS.

Quarters. Price. Quarters. Price. Quarters. Price. Quarters. Price. Quarters. Price. Quarters. Price.

4/6 @ 5/6 4/6 @ 5/6 5/3 @ 6/6 5/6 @ 6/6 5/6 @6/9 5/6 @ 6/3
5/6 6/9 5/3 6/ 5/3 6/6 5/
5/ 6/6 5/ 5/9 5/9 6/9 5/6 6,6

TABLE of the Average Prices of GRAIN in the DUBLIN MARKET,

from 1st October to 31th December 1829.

PRICES of English and Scotch WOOL.

ENGLISH, per 16 b.-Merino, Washed, 12/ @ 16/6; in Grease, 7/6 @110/6.-South Down, 7/ @10/6; Leicester Hog, 9/6 @ 10/6; Ewe and Hog, 8/ @ 10/.-Moor, Ewe and Hog, 3/@4/6' SCOTCH, per 16 fb.-Leicester, Hog, 9/@ 10/; Ewe and Hog, 8/ @9/6.-Cheviot, Hog, 6/6 @ 8/6; Ewe, 5/6 @7/6-Moor, Ewe and Hog, 3/6 @ 4/9.