made in England. It is true that, under the excessive stimulus of the Government demand during the late war, very large profits were in some cases temporarily realized; but they were only temporary, and soon flowed off in increased rents, which were never afterwards lowered in any degree at all proportionate to the decline which took place in farming profits. In truth, under ordinary circumstances, it is a struggling branch of industry—able to keep its ground, to hold its head clear above water, as it were, but with no superabundance of strength, which can be taken out of it and not missed. In the days of Edmund Burke it was "a poor trade," subject to great risks and losses; and that eminent observer, who upon such a point was little likely to err, rarely knew a farmer who, after years of persevering toil, was able to do more than leave his children to begin life just at the point from which he had started himself.

In one important respect the farmer differs from the shopkeeper, the merchant, or the manufacturer. There are no weekly, nor monthly, nor even quarterly returns to his capital. The slow revolving year alone replaces what he expends, even where the replacement is quickest; and during that long revolution what things may occur to make the result a disappointment! A climate too genial in January or too harsh in May, a frost when the tender blade is springing up, or rains when, in the words of Lord Brougham, the sickle should be glancing amongst the stalks,-to say nothing of occasional visitations of blight in the ripened ear, or disease amongst the cattle,-are any one of them enough to make the gain upon the sum total of the year's labours an almost inappreciable quantity. Neither is farming one of those lazy trades which go on almost of themselves. Every business, indeed, that is worth much requires the master's eye, but none more than this. With out vigilance and toil, and constant discretion in deciding between the wise and the unwise outlay, such capital as a farmer has would melt away like snow before the fire. He does not eat the bread of idleness; and when, after being on foot early and late, the struggle does go hard with him-rent, and tithe,

and taxes, and wages flowing off very much as usual, out of sadly-diminished receipts-it is not wonderful that he should sometimes seem a little out of his wits at a protectionist meeting, or that he should take his place at a board of guardians with a grim determination to screw down the rates, which gives him an aspect of hard-heartedness very foreign to his real cha

racter.

A Stimulus wanted.

The farmers, then, have certainly been losing of late, and those in the more backward districts—the great majority of the whole class-have considerably less capital than they had ten years ago. In general they may be said to be low-spirited, discouraged, looking half-sadly half-curiously at those wealthier or more energetic members of the class, who are meeting their difficulties with true English pluck, and breasting with bolder strokes than ever these rough waters of free trade. The majority are down-hearted, and all the while desperately scolded and snubbed and lectured for want of enterprise ; landlords even, who are themselves not conspicuous amongst the working bees of the hive, showing in their speeches a much stronger sense of the evil of undrained clays, and fields too fertile in rushes, than is entertained by the melancholy listeners from whom their rents are received. The case is evidently one of those for which the medical faculty is accustomed to prescribe tonics or stimulants-something, perhaps, a little bitter on the tongue, but giving a new and delightful sense of life, when it begins to tell upon the inward parts. For the agricultural languor, accordingly, different stimulants have been suggested. Mr. M'Culloch is known to have an affection for the "stimulus of taxation;" but with a good sense, which is more valuable than theoretical consistency, he has never advised that this should be tried upon the farmers. Another eminent authority, Mr. Porter, has considerable faith in the stimulus of "low prices." I am sorry to say that I have not equal faith in the

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virtue of the remedy. It appears to me to be, like the stimulus of taxation, one of those drugs which, however useful under certain circumstances, has, upon the whole, a tendency to lower the patient. It would be difficult to find a more instructive work on economics than the "Progress of the Nation;" but those who learn from its remarkable chapter upon Agriculture the details of the period when, under the action of intense demand, one hundred and thirty-three inclosure bills were passed in a single year, will find it hard to imagine how a state of things exactly opposite to that which then existed is likely to bring about similar results.

Transfer of Local Taxation.

More reasonable would be the notion of encouraging the farmer to exert himself by lightening the load upon his shoulders, if it were possible to give him any relief in this way which would really make the burthen lighter. But, upon any large view of financial policy, nothing of the kind is possible; nor is there any one principle more objectionable in itself, than the transfer of charges properly local to a central fund. No local institution has life in it, which does not involve the receipt and disbursement of money by parties under full responsibility. Local taxation, therefore, is an essential part of that whole system of local self-government, which is the grand conservative principle of English liberty. But further, when the local taxation of England is examined, it must be quite evident that no remission of it would be more than a temporary benefit to the farmer. The farmers, indeed, will take a temporary benefit rather than have nothing; but suffering as they are, and entitled as they may be, to substantial relief, if it can be afforded, no statesman has a right to evade an immediate difficulty by a procedure which, as a permanent measure, will not bear examination. Tithes and the bulk of the local rates are distinctly a deduction from rent. If they had never existed, the present rents would have been by so much more. If they were removed, the

additional margin of profit might for a time, or during the currency of leases, be left to the farmers; but the rise of the tide after it goes back is not more certain than that rent would ultimately absorb that margin. Of course, if such removal of taxation only prevented a fall of rent, it comes to exactly the same thing. The remission would still be a remission not to the farmer, but to the landlord. No transfer of taxation, therefore, even if it were just, would afford to the agricultural interest that healthful stimulus which it requires. At best it would be a slight and temporary relief. But its chief operation would be delusive, wasteful, and, seeing the difficulty of maintaining a sufficient amount of general revenue, even for purposes of supreme national concern, in the last degree impolitic.

None of these prescriptions being admissible, and the old stimulant of protection being by general consent not only rejected, but recognised as itself the cause of that industrial prostration which constitutes the malady to be dealt with, the case of the farmers, or at least of the less skilful, wealthy, and enterprising section of the class, would seem rather desperate.

Transfer of Land to New Hands.

There are some reasoners, however, by whom the difficulty is disposed of in a short and decisive manner. They are of that class of thinkers, who are always philosophical upon the misfortunes of their neighbours, and generally very ingenious in fitting such painful facts into some neat theory of social progress and prosperity. Their view may be expressed in some such language as the following:-"The poorer and more ignorant farmers are incorrigible. They are altogether behind the age, too old to adopt new ways, too besotted with protectionist prejudices ever to understand the exigencies of free trade. To talk to them of improved agriculture, drainage, guano, and all that sort of thing, is waste of breath, a mere casting of pearls before swine. There is nothing for them but.

to go and make room for others. They must go to America, or Australia, or wherever they can; but at all events go, and leave the land to enlightened capitalists, who are up to the newest modes of husbandry, will double the produce, pay higher rents, and compete with all the world."

My impression is, that if there were nothing to be thought of but the best means of raising the largest aggregate produce, this reasoning is completely to the point. This is the way in which the thing could be most effectually done. But an addition to the aggregate of produce obtained by any considerable displacement of the existing occupiers, and by the substitution of new men who would carry into agriculture the desperate energy of those who, in Manchester language, are known as "outsiders," would be, though in itself a good, yet a good purchased at a very heavy price.

Effects of regarding only the Amount of Produce.

The Romans, whose resemblance to the English has been so often noticed, had all the English fondness for agriculture, and that prejudice which is not yet quite gone in England, that the cultivation of the land is the only kind of industry which does not soil the hands of a gentleman. In the early days of the republic, commanders and statesmen held the plough, and in the later the most original production of the literary genius of Rome was a poem upon agriculture. When, however, it happened that wealth began to flow in with a full tide, and the original severe and simple manners were succeeded by a universal fashion of refined and luxurious indulgence, the old love of agriculture for its own sake gradually disappeared, and the land came to be looked upon in the barest utilitarian light as an instrument for the production of wealth. Under the influence of this dominant principle, the original mode of occupation by what may be called a class of yeomanry gradually declined. The occupants died off or went into the towns.