of the prices of corn were, for the most part, in a direction exactly opposite to the variations of the circulation ; but, in as far as whether in its influence on the money market, or on the markets for corn and other produce, uniformity, or a certain equableness in the amount of the circulation, is considered to be desirable, it must be admitted that the regulation of the Bank issues, in the five years ending in 1832, presented more uniformity than could have been preserved if the notes had varied as the amount of bullion varied.

SECTION 4.- Summary of the preceding Survey.

The interval that has passed under review, not having been marked by such great changes in the rate of interest or in prices, or in the state of credit, and in the general circulation as characterised the former epochs, presents fewer prominent points to be borne in mind. Those which it is most desirable to keep in view, with reference to the conclusions to be drawn as to the influence of the currency, are,

1. That after the cessation of the circulation of the country small notes, and during a contracted state of the currency, the price of wheat was, on the average of five years, ending in 1832, 61s. 2d. the Winchester quarter, which price, adding only, at a very moderate computation, the extra charges which formed the condition of a foreign supply in the interval from 1808 to 1813, namely, 44s. per quarter, would render the average of the more recent period, if the same political obstructions had existed, equal to that of the last five years of the war. And if there were superadded in the five years ending in 1832, the apprehension which prevailed, and indeed was realised in 1811 and

1812, of not receiving any foreign supply at all, there is every reason to believe that, in the more recent instance, the prices would have been considerably higher than in the closing years of the

war.

2. That the prices of imported raw materials, and of the mining products of this country, were mostly falling during the period under review, but that in every instance the circumstances affecting the cost of production, and the supply compared with the ordinary rate of consumption, were sufficient to account for the fall.

3. That in this, as in some of the former intervals, the circumstance of the opposite tendencies of the markets for provisions, to those for other produce, is decisive against the hypothesis of the influence of a single cause, such as that of the currency.

4. That with reference to the regulation of the Bank issues in this interval, there were considerable variations in the amount of bullion, while the securities were preserved in a considerable degree of uniformity, and the circulation varied much less in proportion than the treasure.

CHAPTER X.

STATE OF PRICES AND OF THE CIRCULATION, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1833 TO THE CLOSE OF 1837.

In the period which we are now about to enter upon, and which will bring to a close the historical sketch of prices and of the circulation which it has been the purpose of this work to exhibit, the fluctuations of markets, and of the circulation, and of the state of credit, although not so striking as those which occurred in some of the preceding periods, have been attended with circumstances of no ordinary interest, and have opened fresh grounds of controversy on the long agitated topic of the regulation of the currency.

We have seen in the interval which has just passed under review, that, during the greater part of it, while corn had been rising and had ranged at prices which, allowing only for the difference of the charges of importation, were as high as the average prices of the five years from 1808 to 1813, most other descriptions of produce had been falling, and were at an extreme, and in some instances an unprecedented, degree of depression. We shall now have to see that while, in the three first years of the epoch which we are entering upon, the prices of wheat fell progressively, and experienced a degree of depression below any that is recorded within the last sixty years, the prices of most other descriptions of produce were rising. The variations. in the markets for these different descriptions of produce in the two last years, namely, 1836 and

VOL. II.

1837, have been more irregular, but not less susceptible of being accounted for on grounds distinct from the currency theory. The explanation, however, will in each case be more conveniently and clearly afforded by a subdivision of the interval under examination into two periods, the one embracing the fall of the price of wheat from the close of 1832 to the close of 1835, and the coincident rise of the prices of other descriptions of produce; and the other, and the closing period of the present sketch, will exhibit the variation of markets, connected, among other causes, with the recent derangement of credit in the commercial intercourse between this country and the United States of America.

SECTION 1.-Fall of the Price of Wheat from the Harvest of 1832 to the Close of 1835.

We have had occasion, in the review of the last epoch, to observe, that the produce of the harvest of 1832 was found to be generally abundant, and that from the completion of that harvest till the close of the year there had been a considerable fall of the prices of corn. The prices of other descriptions of food had likewise fallen. This transition from the comparatively high range of the prices which had prevailed during the preceding four years, to a state of relative cheapness of provisions, while it greatly improved the condition of the bulk of the community, gave rise, as usual on such occasions, to complaints of agricultural distress.

In the speech from the throne, on the opening of the session of 1833, the distressed state of agriculture formed one of the topics recommended to the consideration of parliament. A select committee of the House of Commons was in consequence appointed to inquire into the state of agriculture. În the examinations by that committee a question to

the following effect was put to nearly all the witnesses, who, as occupiers, or surveyors, or land agents, were supposed to be competent judges: "Speaking of the district you are best acquainted with, should you say that the cultivation was stationary, was improving, or going back, on a comparison of the last ten or twenty years?" The answers, with very few exceptions, were to the effect, that the cultivation of the inferior soils and heavy clay lands was in a state of progressive deterioration; and some of the witnesses stated, that the gross produce of such lands had undergone a diminution to the extent of from one fifth to one fourth. One or two instances indeed were mentioned, in which the cultivation in certain parishes had been wholly abandoned. It was upon such evidence that the committee in their report stated as follows: The committee of 1821 assumed, what they believed to be then true, that the annual produce of corn, the growth of the United Kingdom, was, upon an average crop, about equal to the annual consumption.' Your committee, on the contrary, is satisfied, by the strongest concurrent testimony from different parts of Great Britain, that the occupiers of the inferior soils, especially of heavy clay land, have of late expended less capital and labour in their cultivation. This neglect, arising from low profit, and prices inadequate to the cost of production, combined with a series of wet seasons, peculiarly disadvantageous to land of this description, has caused a diminution in the gross amount of produce; and the discontinuance of the use of artificial manures, together with a system of overcropping, has impaired the productive power of these inferior soils; and in some cases, where the poor rate is heavy, their cultivation has been entirely abandoned."

The above passage would lead to the inference, that the wet seasons were only accessaries, and that o o