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SECTION 2.- Prices of agricultural Produce from 1824 to 1827, examined in Connection with the Circulation.

In the commencement of 1824, a considerable advance took place in the price of corn, wheat especially, of which the crop of 1823, having been found to be deficient in quality and in quantity, in a degree beyond, the previous estimates, rose rapidly, the average price having advanced to 59s. 8d. in January, and to 65s. 10d. in February, 1824. And as this advance was accompanied by an increase of Bank notes, the rise is as usual, according to the received theory, ascribed to that increase. The average of Bank notes of 51. and upwards was, for the quarters ending

L

31st Dec. 1823,
31st March 1824,

18,603,210
19,174,890

Price of Wheat.

52s. 8d.
65s. 10d.

Here then again it may be said is a clear case of cause and effect.

But in this, as in former instances, the facts of the case, if pursued, are destructive of the theory in question. If the increase of Bank notes raised the prices, a farther increase ought to have sustained, if not farther to have advanced them. But there was an increase of Bank notes in the following six months, during which the price fell upwards

* As a proof how inferior the crop of 1823 had proved in quality as well as quantity, it may be sufficient to refer to the quotations in Mark Lane, in January, 1824, namely, for

New Wheat,
Old ditto,

48s. to 63s.
55s. to 78s.

And, according to Messrs. Cropper, Benson, and Co.'s survey, the yield of that crop was computed to be short of an average in the proportion of 27 to 32, which, estimating an average crop to be about twelve millions of quarters, would make the deficiency nearly two millions of quarters.

of 10s. the quarter, the average for September being 55s. 4d. Thus, for the quarter ending

30th June 1824,
30th Sept.

Bank Notes. £19,442,730

20,177,820

Price of Wheat.

62s. 5d.

54s. 6d.

At the same time, even admitting that the rise. in January and February, 1824, had been the effect exclusively of an increase of Bank paper, that increase was not commensurate with the increase of bullion, which in January, 1824, had reached the enormous amount of 14,200,000l. If the act of 1822, for prolonging the circulation of the country small notes, had not been passed, and sovereigns had been substituted for those notes, the Bank treasure would still have been in a fair proportion to its liabilities, there would have been the same quantity of money in circulation, prices would have been just as they were, and we should have heard nothing of the tampering with the currency in 1822 (objectionable as that measure was on other grounds), as the cause of the rise in the price of provisions in 1823 and 1824. It is clear, therefore, that the same argument by which the negative has been established, of the supposed influence of a designed enlargement of paper in producing the rise in the price of corn in 1823, is equally applicable to the renewed rise here noticed in the first quarter of 1824.

After the rise of the price of wheat to 65s. 10d. in the early part of 1824, it was discovered, by the large supplies from the farmers, that, although the crops of 1823 had on all hands been allowed to be deficient, yet, with the old stock from previous years, it was adequate to supply the consumption at its ordinary rate till after the ensuing harvest. conviction of this kind, when there is no ground for speculation upon the coming crops, is always attended with dull and drooping markets; and there was, as we have seen, a progressive fall of upwards

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of 10s. per quarter in the six months following, namely, to 55s. 4d. in September, 1824.

The weather, however, during the harvest of 1824, was unsettled; and the latter part of it, in the more northern districts especially, was remarkably · wet. The produce was, according to all reports, again deficient.* The stock on hand had in the interval been further reduced, there being no longer, as heretofore, samples of wheat of three or four years old at market. Under these circumstances, an advance of price, after the harvest of 1824, proceeded upon perfectly reasonable and adequate grounds. And it is a very strong presumption that the corn market at that time was not influenced by the prevailing spirit of speculation, that the rise was so moderate in the spring of 1825, viz. to 67s. 6d. for wheat, being only 2s. higher than it had been a twelvemonth before, when there had been still a considerable old stock, and when the markets for commodities had been in a quiescent state.

The agitation of the question of the corn laws, in the spring of 1825, contributed probably among other causes to preserve the corn market from the effects of the spirit of speculation which then prevailed in other branches of trade. But such was the general impression of the progressive reduction of the old stock of grain, and of our consequent increasing dependence on the produce of the forthcoming harvest, that, notwithstanding the admission in April of 525,231 quarters of foreign wheat for home consumption, at a duty of 10s. the quarter, the price did not fall below 68s. the quarter till the commencement of an unusually early and a promising harvest. It was not till after the crops in the

* Independently of the injury sustained by the wet weather in harvesting, the crops were supposed to have suffered from very heavy rains, followed by cold winds, in the latter part of May.

The season of 1825 presented nothing remarkable in the winter and spring of either severity or mildness; but the summer proved to be very fine, dry and hot, and so continued, except

great corn districts were secured in good condition, and found to be productive, that the price gave way at all, and then very slowly. But while, after the harvest of 1825, wheat fell, although slowly, all other grain, of which the produce was comparatively deficient, rose in price, as will be seen by the following statement. Aggregate average of the six weeks ending

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Hence it will appear that, notwithstanding the great contraction of the circulation of the whole kingdom during the last six weeks of 1825, the price of all grain, wheat excepted (of which there had been a large admission of foreign), was higher than it had been during the excitement and speculations of the first three months of that year. The prices of meat, too, appear to have been uninfluenced by the state of discredit, and the great pressure on the money market, at the close of 1825, inasmuch as the quotations were then within the merest trifle as high as they had been in the spring of that year.*

In the first three months of 1826, the price of

ing a few beneficial showers in August, till the securing of the crops in good order throughout the kingdom. The wheat harvest was general in the home districts, in the latter part of July.

*The following prices of the best meat in Smithfield Market are from the "Farmer's Journal."

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wheat fell from an average of 60s. in January, to 55s. 6d. in March. This decline might be owing, in some degree, to the state of discredit, and to the great pressure for money which was then felt; but it was in a greater degree apparently owing to the apprehension which was then generally entertained, that the wheat in bond would be liberated, as had been done in the spring before, at a low duty. There is reason to believe that the latter was the preponderating cause, inasmuch as, upon a declaration made by ministers in parliament, in the early part of the session, that there was no intention of admitting the wheat then in bond, the average price rose in April to 60s. This, in the distressed state of the manufacturing population, was a high price; and other descriptions of food were still higher in proportion. But, under the uncertain prospect of the coming crops, the appearance of which in the spring was not promising, and the conviction of a greatly diminished stock on hand, apprehensions were entertained of a further advance. As a measure therefore of immediate relief, as well as with a view to allay the complaints of the working classes, which were becoming very loud, and were breaking out into acts of violence in some of the manufacturing districts, government, contrary to its former expressed determination, proposed to parliament, on the 1st of May, 1826, the release of all the corn then in bond. And ministers further proposed, as a precaution against the contingency of an unfavourable harvest, to be invested with discretionary powers to admit, during the recess of parliament, such additional quantity, not exceeding 500,000 quarters, as circumstances might dictate. An intimation was at the same time given of the intention of government to propose early in the following session of parliament an essential change in the corn laws, involving a great relaxation of the prohibitory part of the system.

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