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SIMPSON" AT HOME . War ought no longer to be reckoned among the deadly occupations—at least not peculiarly so . We let alone white-lead-works , aquafortis , and vitrol manufacture , or any other campaign in which the British workman continually enlists . We speak only of the ordinary business of life—of the conditions that attend upon us when we open our shutters every morning as stationers , put together our goods as l ' men drapers' assistants , answer customers as shoemakers' shopmen , or pass along our streets on our way to the lawyer ' s desk . Southwood Smith used io tell us that the deaths in the old war did not equal the . deaths inflicted upon this country by ^ -sanitary arrangements ; and we are now told by Dr . Farr the same thing of the new war . " If all the deathaof British soldiers in the Crimen during the last three months were added to the deaths in England , the sum would be less by some 20 , 000 than the doaths registered in England during the three summer months of 185-1 . More lives may bo saved by sanitary arrangements at homo every year than have ever perished abroad in the yeara of our greatest losses in war ; and the onlightened people of thia kingdom will suitor no sucb embarrassment as the registrar of Workington hna recorded if this result bo realised , as they know that all effectual measures for the improvement of the human race receive the blessing , because they are the inspirations of divino Providence . " This establishes the fact that the same gallantry is required to walk about London streets as to face the Bussians . It is true that on the storming of the Redan we see a more concentrated amount of carnage ; but lifo in the trenches was comparatively healthy . Our Bodau is chronic , only we do not sec the corpses . Instead of being exposed to view , hanging over the wall , or lying in the trench ; they are up courts , and down alloys , veiled by tho obsourics of the poor . Besides , as Eiinest Jones says , iu " 1 S « Factory Town , " the deaths that tho Rsoistkak-Gwnjgral records do not tit all express tho total amount of death inflicted upon the
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iSbstract from our means , just as from one reservoir lowers the level of all those fliat are open to it . There is yet a farther reason why food is Nearer . At present we do not know what the Actual deficiency on the Continent is , and we &o not know , because Government has not established the means of collecting statistics , what the actual produce in this country is . We have therefore no accurate measure of the short-Bess of the supply , either at home or abroad . Those who deal in corn naturally desire to obtain as good a price as they can . Not knowing accurately what the price ought to be , they wait to see if it will not rise more , and their keeping corn out of the market helps t he rising of the price . It is this that makes the people inidignant . There is yet one more cause . Those who Seal in grain not only wait to see "what will be the natnral price—wait , as it were , for information—but hold back for the express purpose of & > remg the price up . Since the establishment of free-trade , this class of people have to a great extent lost their power . They can only cxer-• cise it when artificial laws are established—when powers are concentrated , and they can abuse " those powers for their own purposes . The accidental coincidence of a deficient and a delayed harvest , with the uncertainty upon the subject , perhaps enable these people to drive their trade 3 u little more briskly than usual . How can bread be made cheaper ? There Trere fonr proposals before the meeting in Hyde Park on Sunday last . One was to appoint a People ' s Provisional League , admission 2 d ., in order " to resist the combination . " It is pro-Imble , however , that before such an organization can "be fairly at work , the combination of the < dealers will , be effectually swamped by the arrival of the supplies . It will at all events be superseded by our knowing proximately the amount which we are to have , and then prices , finding J 3 su&x natural level , will no longer be at the mercy 4 > f the dealers . In free trade there is only one ^ circumstance which can enable dealers to take advantage of an opportunity like the present—it 4 & complete ignorance , for a period , of the natu-^ ral produce . If we had an effectual knowledge vof onr own produce in this country , as we have abroad , coupled with free trade , coming prices ( would settle themselves , and dealers could no . more control them than they could control the ,, rise of the tide in the sea . There was a second proposal . It was " to -create a fund , " by which bread might bo purchased and " sold to the poor at a reasonable rate . " ¦ Oorn for tho poor can , of course , only bo pur-, ^ chased at the current rates ; and unless gentlemen picked out of tho Park , and conversant with other . kinds of business , can do the bakers' work better .. and more cheaply , it is probable that the Com-. jmitteo of tho Provision League , carrying on this .. bread business , would either sell their bread at , a dearer price a or shortly find themselves bankrupt and stop . Would they return all tbo twofences paid on admission ? There was a third proposal ; it was " to present the export of corn . " The French Government has just adopted this plan , and wo see one - . of tho most immediate and most certain effects . As tho export of corn is prohibitod , ' although tho . import is not , no dealoi \ can land corn in Franco unless ho has determined to soil in tho French . market without power of drawing back his corn , i JIo will not , of course , carry it whore the price . "will not remunerate him . If ho takes it to an , XSnglish market , ho can carry it away when ho , . pleases , should pricos fall in England . If ho . lakes it to a French market , ho cannot retract it , ' . and tho price must bo permanently and certainly idearer in Franco before ho will finally commit himself to - that choice . He ironid prefer to go io England for tho chmices of trade , although the
price should be a little below the French levelbecause in the one case he is free , and in the other not . Hence , no additional supplies will be taken to France , unless the level of French prices keeps above the level of English . There is , however , a still greater reason why we should not jwohibit exports . Freedom of trade can never be one-sided . France , which permits imports , and refuses exports , cannot claim credit for freedom of trade , and will not be a customer in whom the corn producing countries can have confidence , since she may treat them according to her own caprices or temper , rather than her permanent interests . With England it is exactly the reverse , and we gain far more by imports than we lose by exports . No amount that we are lively to send over to France or Germany will equal the amount we are certain to draw from America . There was a fourth proposal , which was , that the Government of Great Britain should buy corn , make large stores , and " throw it into the market to keep down rising prices . " If the English Government resorted to any such practice , they would proclaim to the producers of corn in all parts of the world , ——in the Baltic , in the Black Sea , or America , — that if they ventured to send supplies to this country , they might , in the moment of realising their profits , be met by the reserves of the stores ; and it must follow as a matter of course , not only that dealers in America , the Baltic , and the Black Sea , would refrain from sending their supplies to this country , but that growers in those parts would discontinue tho practice of growing for a market so capricious and so dangerous . Hence prices would be ijermanently raised . No Government could command such supplies cc to throw into the market" as would equal the supplies that come to us from the great corngrowing countries . It is those supplies that really keep down prices as they do , and will do , with much greater force than any Government reserves . Our true security , therefore , is to continue that freedom of trade which constantly checks any attempt to make England a close market . We only want one thing "to complete the efficiency of this plan ; it is that more accurate knowledge of our own produce and demands which would be supplied by agricultural statistics . There 13 one assistance which the State can give and which it ought to give . Under the existing constitution of society , there are great inequalities in tho condition of various classes . Our extremely systematised arrangements preclude the poorer and less educated class from finding those substitutes for employment which are to be found on waste lauds iu wilder countries . Justice , therefore , requires that society , "which keeps these people oft * the land , should secure to them an equivalent for the simple occupation of land , by giving thorn bread if they cannot get it by hired labour . Society only consults its own advantage in preventing those irresistible incentives to disorder—hunger and despair . It is for this purpose mainly , that our poor law is established . It is at present administered partly on tho now exploded " repulsive " system , which presumes for its principle that tho people have no right to bo aidod , and that the aid ought to bo accompanied by disgrace and confinement to prevent tho people from seeking it . There is no disgrace in socking food from tho hands of tho State which ought to give it ; there is disgrace in withholding aid that ought to bo given , and there is danger in oxasporating hungry poople by a stinted diet and an insulting form oh charity . During a hard winter , aid ought to bo given to tho vory poor , liberally , and without any humiliating accompaniments ; and if the Euglisk people understand their own rights , they will see that the aid for the vory poor is administered iu that just and woloomo spirit . By this time tho reader understands how
bread can be made as cheap as it can possibly be . It is to be done by preserving that openness for our market , that perfect safety for the dealer , that perfect fairness in dealing , which will make the grower and the merchant , in every part of the world , feel that it is safe and certain to seek England as the central market . It is by this means that bread is actually cheaper with us than it is on the Continent ; for , although the labourer may sometimes see the money price lower in continental countries , he will find thafc in these same countries the money-price of labour is proportionately low , and that the cost of conveyance is much higher than in this country ; and he will be able to "test the consequences , by finding that the people actually eat a less amount of bread than our own people are able to com rnand . There is one other reason against any such measure as prohibiting the export of trade . If corn is expoi'ted , it' is because the people of other countries want it more than we do . Their dearth is greater , their need more severe- ; and if we were to prohibit the export , we should save ourselves at the cost of much greater suffering to them . If nations understood their true dignity and interests , they would feel the same sympathy for each other as the individuals feel . If I have half a loaf , but see my neighbour with no loaf at all , I am willing to share my dole with him . It is not in human nature to refuse , and the half loaf would be agaia halved . It should be the same with nations . And we know that those individuals and those nations who seek most to consult the laws that regulate tho universe in which we live , find , in the long run , that their own material interest is promoted by their fidelity to the laws that regulate life and production .
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water drawn | O 56 , THEA HEADER . [ No . 293 , Saturday'
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 1056, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2113/page/12/
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