IN consequence of a strong desire, expressed by the tenantfarmers of the United Kingdom, that a Central Society should be formed in the metropolis, composed of landlords, tenantfarmers, and others, whose province should be, by a greater unity of purpose and economy of means, to give better effect to the objects of the Associations lately formed in the country; which objects are, to disabuse the public mind of misstatements actively circulated on the subject of protection to industry, and to maintain, at least, the protection it at present enjoys to British agriculture :

On the 19th of February a Society was formed, composed of landlords, tenant-farmers, and others interested in the agriculture of this country, called "The Agricultural Protection Society for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," which, through its Committee, has issued the following resolutions as the basis on which the Association was founded:

1. That a Society, to be called "The Agricultural Protection Society for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," be now formed for the purpose of upholding, by constitutional means, protection to British agriculture.

2. That the object of this Society is to maintain protection to British agriculture, not less than at present existing.

3. That the Society shall, through the press, repel the imputations, and point out the inconsistencies contained in the statements of those who oppose such protection.

4. That party politics shall not be introduced into the proceedings of this Society, and that the Society shall on no account interfere in any election for a member to serve in Parliament.

From these rules, by which this Society promises to guide itself, it will be at once perceived that it proposes to pursue its objects by strictly constitutional means; whilst the very dilatoriness in its formation, although the same necessity for its exertions has existed for some years, shows an indisposition in the parties composing it to agitate the public mind. They would rather that the work which they have to perform were to be executed by other hands. Peaceably and legally to follow that calling in which it has pleased Providence to place them, and to allow to others the privileges they enjoy themselves, are at once the desire and habit of the agricultural body. It is duty alone which summons them to their present task.

A Society, calling itself the "The Anti-Corn-Law League," has now for some years been engaged in unremitting efforts to destroy all legislative protection to the labour and productions of this country. The Corn Laws have been the first object of

their attack.

To differ on abstract questions; to the same practical result to attribute opposite causes; and from the same theory to predict different consequences; seem not only natural characteristics of the human mind, but the liberty (within certain limits of law and order) of expressing publicly a difference of opinion, is a privilege belonging to every free country; and one, of which the members of this Association gratefully trust never to see this country, the great example of freedom, deprived. But freedom of discussion, rightly understood-a true liberality— does not consist in attributing to opponents, by way of argument, wrong motives and selfish interests; it does not consist in endeavouring to depreciate opponents in the public regard by calumny and misstatement; nor does it consist in an attempt, by an adroitness of sophistry, to alienate from each other such portions of the community as are by natural ties the most intimately linked together; thus endangering the peace and wellbeing of society. It is to protect the agricultural classes from such an abuse of the freedom of discussion, by publishing what it conceives to be the truth, that this Association has been called into existence. At the same time, with the information it proposes to promulgate to the public on the subject of protection, the Society trusts that there will be mingled no acrimony, or spirit of retaliation. Truth, in its perfect plainness, is the safest guide; and by the truth it is willing that the country should judge of the principles it advocates. British agriculture does not stand

alone; its soil, its produce, and its handicrafts, give employment to the great majority of the people. To a multitude of our people the various manufactures likewise give occupation: and while these two great sources of industry interchange their produce with each other, their interests are identical. The home. trade of manufactures and the home trade of agriculture are, in effect, one and the same. Together they employ at least five parts out of six of the population. It is impossible, therefore, that ill-will should really exist between them for any lengthened period. During some short intervals of time it may, indeed, be in the power of interested parties, by general statements, to carry away with them multitudinous meetings, which have no opportunity, on the spot, to test the truth of intricate propositions, or of imposing theories, but, sooner or later, the plain good sense of the people will distinguish between truth and error. To that good sense this Society, relying on the fairness of its motives, will confidently make its appeal.

One class of the members of the Society are, indeed, accused of a spirit of monopoly. It is a charge against the landlords that, in their support of the Corn Laws, they are actuated by a selfish view merely to their rents. That some small portion of every class is influenced in its conduct through life by selfish feelings principally, it may, perhaps, be impossible to deny. But no evidence has yet been adduced to show that the landlords of this country are more amenable to this frailty of our nature than the members of any other class. On the contrary, it might possibly be shown that their country occupations, the nature of their property, and of the population living upon it, are strong inducements to them to live on terms of intimacy and of Christian kindness with the tenants and labourers around them. And there are substantial grounds for the opinion generally entertained by landlords, that their wealth and welfare are entirely dependent on the thriving condition of the farmer and the labourer. As the largest body of producers, the custom of the farmers and the labourers is the great support of the inland trade of the country. The agricultural labourers are, at the same time, producers, and the largest consumers of their own produce. When, therefore, the farmer is unable to obtain such a price for his produce, as will enable him to give employment and good wages to his labourer, the latter must curtail his purchase of goods from the retail trader, who again must limit his purchases of the home manufacturer. The result of which

limitation of expenditure is, that neither the tenant, labourer, retail tradesman, the handicraftsman, the home manufacturer, nor his workman, can afford the same price for corn as he could if the farmer, in the first instance, could have given sufficient wages and employment to his labourers. And as these producers and trades form the great mass of the people, any limitation to their power of purchasing reacts upon the rents of the landlords, and causes them to fall. It is thus that the landlord's interest is identified with that of the rest of his countrymen.

But, to use the words of an authority much quoted on this subject, Dr. Adam Smith, "Whatever keeps down the price of produce below what it would otherwise rise to, keeps down the revenue of the great body of the people, more than it reduces that of the proprietors of land." The same authority, in another place, goes on to say, "That the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country divides itself into three parts, and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by the profits of stock. The interest of the first of these great orders, those who live by rent, is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other. The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first. The interest of the third order has not the same connexion with the general interest of the society as that of the other two: master manufacturers and merchants are of this order." The foundation of this latter opinion is, probably, in the fact that stock or capital is easily transferred to another country, where rival manufac tures or commerce could be established. Or the opinion may be founded in the possibility that some portion of these useful classes, with a view of carrying on a more profitable exchange for their surplus commodities with foreign countries, might attempt to effect a change in the law, detrimental to the welfare of the great mass of their countrymen. Whereas the proprietors of land, the cultivators of the soil, and the great body of the labourers and artisans, have an abiding interest in the country in which they live, with which no other interest, foreign or otherwise, can ever compete.

What has here been adduced, is advanced in no spirit of jealousy or animosity, but as a matter of experience and strict

truth, confirmed by the authority of a writer in whom all parties place greater confidence than in any other. And it is not reasonable that the manufacturers of this country should evince distrust in those connected with the land, or in the protection which the land receives. It was to establish manufactures in this country, and to secure to manufacturers a fair return for their industry, that protection, as a system, first began in the reign of Edward III., five hundred years ago. The coarser woollen manufacture was then protected from Flemish competition. In the reign of Elizabeth the finer manufacture of wool was still more protected; and, as one means of effecting this protection, the British farmer, from that period to 1825, was prohibited, by penalties, from exporting his wool to foreign countries; and for a long time was subjected to capital punishment if he exported it. By similar means, and at various times, were the other manufactures of this country fostered and matured; and as, in the legislature of those times, the influence of the owners of land for the most part predominated, these laws to protect our rising manufactures certainly betray no ungenerous desire on their part to discourage the growth of trade. In those times a limit was likewise placed on our export of corn, which was another apparent disadvantage to the British farmer for the benefit of trade, and of the population at large. At this moment almost every small handicraft of the country is protected by restrictive duties.

It was under this system of protection that the manufactures of England, and the cultivation of its land, reached a degree of excellence unequalled by any other nation. Yet, in spite of this superiority, since in its progress it tended to create a higher standard of living in this than in other countries; if we attempted to enter into an unrestricted competition with the productions of all the world, we might bring down the living of the British workman to a level with the coarser fare of the working classes of other countries. And one especial cause of such a result would be, that the industry of the United Kingdom is fettered by a debt, in relation to its numbers, many times larger than that of any nation in the world. It is the pressure of this burden, mainly, which disables the industry of this country from a fair competition. Except, therefore, under some extraordinary superiority of machinery (which can only be considered as a temporary and accidental advantage), to admit, by free trade, the cheap, comparatively untaxed labour of foreign