obtain and to retain for a time, operates as much to the advantage of the public at large, as to that of the individual dealer or dealers purchasing with this idea; in as far as it tends to put the community on short allowance. It has also been argued that Plenty will shew itself; and that the whole herd of forestallers, regraters, and ingrossers, against whom such a cry is raised in hard times, would defeat their own purposes, if there existed a real abundance to be poured into the public market. When, however, it is known that the quantity in hand is insufficient for the supply of the year, and that difficulties obstruct a liberal importation, the intelligent dealer will naturally avail himself of this circumstance; and the immediate effect of his arrangements may indeed produce greater dearness: but the question is, does it not also serve to keep off subsequent famine?

To plead the cause of corn-dealers and other provision merchants, in opposition to the general interest, would be criminal; yet, on the other hand, we should not endeavour to propagate prejudices against any class of men, which may endanger their persons and property, and render them odious in the public eye, without possessing most ample ground of reason and of truth. The side which Mr. Girdler has taken is sufficiently evinced in the title-page, and we give him the fullest credit for fair and honourable intentions. He writes with the view of benefiting his countrymen, and of resisting monopolies and combinations, to which he believes the present enormous price of all the necessaries of life may be attributed. We are told by him, in the introduction to this volume, that he possesses vouchers the most authentic, and evidence the most complete, to prove that the avarice of man has intercepted the bounty of his maker;' and we doubt not his persuasion of the validity of such vouchers. We request him to consider, however, whether he has appreciated the full meaning of the word intercepted in this place? He denies that there was a deficiency in the crop of 1799; and in opposition to the well-known saying among countrymen, that "it is better for the vallies to feed the hills, than for the hills to feed the vallies," he asserts that in wet seasons the high and dry lands always overpay the deficiency of the low lands;' and he mistakes the meaning of another old English proverb,

"Whenever the hill assists the dale,

There is abundance of corn for sale,"

Among other assertions, he maintains (p. 47) that it was abundant.

for

for this cannot mean that, when the dales are inundated in wet seasons, and the corn in them is destroyed or damaged, the hills can compensate the deficiency; which would be contrary to universal experience: but the proverb means that, in seasons moderately favourable both to hill and dale, the country may expect full markets. Mr. G. moreover accuses the farmers and cornfactors of joining in a general declaration that the scarcity was extreme,' while they knew the very reverse to be the case: but, if the reverse were the case, is it possible to believe that a million of quarters, added by importation to this internal sufficiency, should make no impression? Mr. G. also tells us that he has been up and down the river Thames,' and in other large towns besides the capital, and has discovered granaries and uninhabited houses filled with flour, wheat, and other grain; that there were barge and lighter loads of flour in barrels, taken from the mills and mill warehouses, and other repositories, and said to be for the use of government.' The aggregate quantity of hoarded grain, however, Mr. G. does not state; nor does he give any reason for doubting that there are numerous barrels of flour shipped and unshipped every day in the river for the use of Government. The great population of London requires vast deposits of corn; and a navy of 120,000 sailors, with an army still more numerous, (to say nothing of the East India and merchant service,) must require a great additional number. To tell us, therefore, that there are strings of granaries on the river is nothing to the purpose. The question to be ascertained is, what is the quantity which a prudential care of the city, and of the public service, requires to be kept in hand; and what, if any, should be the excess over and above this quantity?

In the next chapter, when Mr. Girdler roundly asserts that every one who has not participated in illegal practices must rejoice in some late convictions,' he is surely illiberal. He must know the doctrine of Dr. Adam Smith; and that many independent and enlightened men have hesitated in admitting the principle on which these convictions proceeded *.-As to his remarks on the pernicious effects of consolidating numbers. of small into large farms, they are on the whole just: but we would not recommend the interference of the legislature in this matter, any more than we would join with Mr. G. in ridiculing the threshing machine, and other modern improvements in husbandry.

Sir Thomas Turton has very ably argued these points in his "Address," &c. See our last Review, p. 324.

་

With little consistency does the advocate for small farms urge the expediency of forcing farmers to the use of oxen in agriculture. Does not Mr. G. know that ox-teams cannot be kept on small quantities of land? Can he suppose that farmers would give the preference to horses, in certain cases, without substantial reasons? Our ancestors (he says) used oxen for ploughing, and asses for riding;' in course we ought to do the same, for many persons in London, well able to walk, keep horses out of mere vanity, whereby many of them are helped into the Gazette.'

Contrary to the declaration made in the Duke of Portland's letter, Mr. Girdler asserts that the kingdom has, for a series of years past, upon an average produced, and does yet produce, more than a sufficient quantity of grain to supply all its inhabitants, without any assistance from foreign parts.' It would give us great pleasure to have this proposition demonstrated: but here the assertion stands unaccompanied by so desirable an appendage. We are told of wheat being secretly conveyed out of the kingdom' but is it credible that merchants would smuggle corn out of the kingdom, when they must lose more than cent per cent by so doing? We have heard of smuggling being carried on with the view of great gain, but never with the certainty of immense loss.

That the necessaries of life have risen greatly in price, within a few years, all house-keepers know to their cost. Perhaps the following table may be acceptable to those who wish to compare different periods together:

( TABLE

Of the COMPARATIVE PRICES of the NECESSARIES of LIFE for a FAMILY, consisting of a Man, his Wife, and Five or Six Children.

Exclusive of House-Rent, Shoes, Stockings, Linen, Woollen, and other Articles of Apparel; Strong Beer, and various domestic Necessaries which cannot be dispensed with, not here enumerated.'

The

The truth of the reflection which immediately follows cannot be denied:

If then this rapid increase shall be suffered to continue: and, indeed, if the present high prices shall not be speedily and effectually reduced, by the means recommended in other parts of this treatise, the prices of all kinds of ingenuity, labour, and skill, and the profits of every trade, should be increased so as to keep pace with them; or otherwise the great bulk of the people, that is, the middle and lower classes, will very soon be impoverished to a degree that will greatly injure the national resources; and for which increased contributions from the rich (which, comparatively speaking, are few in number) will by no means compensate.'

Though we are sometimes constrained to question the statements and to resist the arguments of this writer, we feel pleasure in every opportunity of testifying approbation. He has taken pains to acquire information, and his reflections are animated by benevolence and public spirit. His strictures on the Act of Incorporation of the London Flour Company are truly judicious. He has no expectation of national benefit from incorporated monopoly, and he sufficiently exposes the radical defects of the act itself. The profuse praise lavished on this new company by a late pamphleteer obliged us, in a recent article, to hint our opinion of its probable operation. An incorporated company dealing in corn, flour, and bread, must. possess advantages not enjoyed by common dealers, which may be turned to the benefit of the company, and not to the public good. Governments are not in their most enlightened moments, when they encourage such schemes; so inconsistent with the liberal and expanded principles avowed by our ministers themselves, respecting the wise policy of a free trade! Let such trade be encouraged, and there will be no necessity for public granaries, nor for obliging families to manufacture their own bread; which, in great towns, where both space and time are very valuable articles, would be extremely inconvenient.

Mr. G. argues for shaking the bushel in measuring, for enforcing pitched in opposition to sample markets, and for making it a law that all corn sold shall be delivered to the buyer in open market, and that the seller shall not in the same or future market expose it at an advanced price. He may sell it, we suppose, for less than it cost him, and live (as they say) by the loss. This may be called taking care of the public: but it must be a public without trade; for under such a law, Commerce could not exist.

We have attentively followed this gentleman through the different chapters of his work, in which he remarks on the effects

Desisting from setting the assize of bread, afterward recommended, is wise only on the principle of leaving trade open and free.

of

*

of the bounties given by the Agricultural Society to promote what is termed improved breeds of sheep on carcase butchers on the fish and coal markets, &c. &c. and we are convinced by what he has advanced that, to the merit of good intention, he has added great persevering industry, in hopes of promoting the general welfare; yet we must be free to confess (to use parliamentary language) that he has deduced his conclusions of existing abundance, and extensive monopolies, from very slender and insufficient premises. The quantity of grain passing over Maidenhead bridge, and other local circumstances equally trifling, tend but very little towards ascertaining the amount of the national produce and stock of grain; and the documents which are here given do not warrant the inference, that the high price of the necessaries of life is owing to the rapacity of forestallers, who have reduced monopoly to a system, and who drink the tears of the labouring poor out of cups of silver. If gentlemen employ such inflammatory expressions in their writings, are we to wonder that the common people are instigated to violence, and that their violence is ill-directed? As inquiries are now making by parliament, it may not be amiss to hint that, when the interested are examined, it requires more than usual sagacity to arrive at the truth;' nor may it perhaps be unjust to suspect that persons engaged in the corn trade will avail themselves of times and seasons: but there seems no reason and justice in reprobating them as the authors of our present calamity, and in pointing towards them the artillery of the public indignation.

ART. XV. The Prospectus, Charter, Ordinances, and Bye-Laws, of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Together with Lists of the Proprietors and Subscribers; and an Appendix. 4to. 3s. Boards. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1800.

THE

HE Charter of Incorporation states that the Royal Institution, of the establishment of which some account is here given, is formed with the view of diffusing the knowlegè and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life. In the Prospectus, its motive and object are more fully

*In consequence of these premiums, the farmer is induced to maké the sheep more fat than is necessary, and so far to waste his pasture. However the butcher and the candle-maker may admire them for "tallowing well in the cawl and on the kidney," an useless superabundance of fat is produced on the carcase, which disgusts, and produces great waste in families.

explained