supplying with commodities that he does not produce? What pretence has he to interfere between the grower and the consumer? And if he has a pretence, how can Government want one, whose duty nay, whose first duty, is to fill the mouths of its subjects ?"-[But this doctrine was not unopposed.]

"For some time past, some creatures of some of our ministers have been attempting to direct the discontents of the public, at the high price of provisions, against various useful classes of the community, in order to withdraw the odium from themselves and their ruinous measures. They want to devote to execration those very men who feed the public, tossing them overboard without remorse, as a tub to the whale, which they feared might threaten themselves. In the course of this project the most senseless arguments, and, at the same time, the most dangerous principles, have been avowed. These Jacobins have had recourse to everything absurd, and everything wicked, which the economical system of Robespierre ever enacted. The law of the maximum is but a part of what our Jacobins would establish.

"One of their writers who has broached an infinite deal of inflammatory nonsense on these points, now complains of large farms as the cause of the scarcity. He proposes registers of produce, buyers and sellers, &c., to be kept in parishes, hundreds, and so forth, till they are transmitted to the Secretary of State's office. This is neither more nor less than to make the Secretary of State corn merchant general for the whole kingdom. These people tell us, likewise, of qualified property in articles of the first necessity, and so forth. We are tempted to think, that the fools who circulated such stuff are not quite aware of the extent to which their principles may justly be carried. If there be but a qualified property in corn, it is quite easy to show that there can only be a qualified property in that which raises corn,-land. Thus it is easy to prove, that large estates (more necessarily than large farms) are the cause of the scarcity, till the ignorant are at length convinced, by their false and absurd doctrines,

1 From the Star for 4th August 1800; but at second hand, but from what original newspaper is not stated.

that it would be just to rob the Marquis of Buckingham of his property, and to establish an agrarian law, because large estates are not favourable to cultivation. We notice these consequences of the monstrous speculations sent abroad, merely to show certain persons that they should have a care how they venture, for a temporary purpose, to teach doctrines and to enact laws which are in the worst spirit of Jacobinism. If the rage for interfering with all sorts of trade in articles of food be continued, a check will be given to all enterprise and improvement in agriculture; we shall see revived the ridiculous restrictions which ignorance established in the ages of barbarism. It will then be seen whether these speculators can feed the nation with parchment and wax, and their paper regulations, after they have banished all industry, capital, and enterprise from those trades on which the supply of the market depends."

From a late decision it would appear, that the rules of English law on this head are extended, by the judges, at present beyond the articles which constituted the necessaries of life when they were first introduced, to whatever articles have since come under that description, in consequence of the progress of luxury. During the last winter,* (according to the report of the newspapers,) a rule for a criminal information was granted in the Court of King's Bench against Samuel Ferrand Waddington, accused of monopolizing hops. On this occasion, it was stated by the counsel for the prosecution, that "buying hops on the poles is an offence against the common law of this land ;" and, in support of this position, the authority of Lord Coke is quoted, who says, "it is against the common law of England to buy corn in sheaves, for that the market is thereby forestalled." Lord Coke adds, that "the forestaller should not be allowed to live in the habitations of mankind, being the oppressor of the poor, and the enemy of the community."

The opinion of one of the judges is thus reported :-"I am glad that this motion is made. I know an idea has prevailed

From the Morning Chronicle, August, 1800.

* [1800? No reference for this case has been given.]

with regard to some modern Acts of Parliament, that by their enactments this practice has ceased to be an offence; that the old common law of the land with regard to forestalling and engrossing is at an end. This motion will correct a great deal of misconception upon that subject.-Certainly," he adds, “ this continues to be an offence at common law."

For my own part, I am much inclined to agree with those authors who assert that no sort of monopoly can well be injurious to the public without the assistance of Government. "We have heard in England," says Mr. Young, "of attempts to monopolize hemp, alum, and cotton, and many other articles; speculations that ultimately have not proved to be beneficial, as they have always ended in the ruin of the projectors. But to monopolize any article of common and daily supply and consumption, to a mischievous degree, is absolutely impossible; and in truth the natural and obvious effect of this very unpopular trade is in the highest degree useful to the community; to take from the market a portion when the supply is large, and to restore it to the market when the supply is small, so as to level as much as possible the inequality of prices. Government cannot do this without erecting granaries; which we know from the experience of other parts of Europe, to be a system at once expensive and pernicious. It can only be accomplished effectually by that description of men, to whom the odious name of monopolizer is commonly applied." It is justly, however, observed by Mr. Young, that "in France the necessity for them is much greater than in England. In the former country, the prevalence of small farms emptying the whole crop into the markets in autumn, without making any reserve for summer; there is no possible remedy but many and great monopolizers, who are beneficial to the public exactly in proportion to their profits. But in a country like England, divided into large farms, such corn-dealers (though highly beneficial, as appears from Mr. Smith's reasonings,) are not equally essential. The farmers are rich enough to wait for their returns, and keep a reserve in stacks to be thrashed in summer;-the best of all methods," Mr. Young concludes, "of

keeping corn, and the only one in which it receives no damage."

"1

At the moment, indeed, when I now write, (June 1800,) a Bill is pending in Parliament, which, if it were to pass into a law, would establish a monopoly in this branch of commerce of a most dangerous and destructive nature. The object of the Bill is to incorporate certain persons, by the name of the London Company for the Manufacture of Flour, Meal, and Bread. The argument against it cannot be better stated than by copying part of "The Resolutions published by the General Meeting of the Owners and Occupiers of Mills, and others concerned in the Flour Trade," in consequence of a unanimous agreement to oppose the Bill in question in all its stages.

"1. That in the confidence of the security which all the subjects of these realms enjoy alike under the laws, several millions of money have been embarked in the construction of mills, and in the manufacture of flour and meal; that these mills have of late years been greatly increased in number and capacity; that the canals by which the country is intersected have greatly facilitated and economized the circulation of grain; and that the number of persons engaged in this trade, unconnected with one another, dispersed over the whole kingdom, whose interests are constantly distinct, and even opposite, and the mediocrity of whose fortune obliges them to make rapid sales of an article which is in itself perishable, have given rise to a competition in the manufacture and sale of flour so wide, active, and incessant, as to give the best possible security to the public for a regular and ample supply at the most reasonable rate.

"2. That the Flour Trade has gradually grown up to its present perfect state by this open competition, derived from the freedom and security it has enjoyed; that from the abundance of mills, no obstruction by contrary winds, frosts, floods, droughts, or other accidents, has been found to interrupt a regular and ample supply; that no speculation, artifice, fraud, or combination, can now affect the markets, as the supplies come to the metropolis by so many channels, and from so [Travels in France,] pp. 480, 481, note; [not an exact quotation.]

many persons unknown to one another, that the wheat, by being purchased in small quantities, in different places, and in the most quiet and unconnected manner, is bought at the cheapest rate, the interest of the millers being the check between the grower and consumer for keeping down the prices, while the very great contention among the millers themselves serves to reduce the expense of the manufacture; so that the price of flour is almost invariably in the London market much under the proportionate rate of the price of mealing wheat.

"3. That the erection of one great corporate establishment, by Act of Parliament, with the enormous capital of £150,000 divided into 4800 shares, and which, in its progress, may be increased ad infinitum-the proprietors of which are to be absolved from all responsibility for their transactions, beyond the amount of their shares, may become the source of most serious calamity, and cannot possibly be productive of any benefit to the public.

That it is called for by no proved or apparent necessity, since experience has shewn that the manufacture of flour, meal, and bread, may be satisfactorily carried on by men unconnected, and whose private fortunes are answerable to the community for their acts.

"That to grant a charter with exclusive privileges, to a numerous body of persons, who must confide in agents to carry on a trade which may be better conducted in an open manner by persons for the maintenance of themselves and families, would be inconsistent with the protection to which all tradesmen are entitled under the law, and by which they enjoy the fruits of their own labour, in return for the diligence, skill, and attention which they exert therein.

"That the first operation of this charter would be to annihilate all the small mills and bake-houses now dispersed over the town and country, by which not only great accommodation is given to the people in their vicinity, by the supply of offal for their domestic animals, and by a saving of time and fuel in the preparation of their victuals; but by which also the competi

VOL. IX.

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