EBENEZER ELLIOTT
(1781 - 1849)
Facts & Figures on the Corn Laws
as
stated by the Corn Law Rhymer
The Sheffield Mercury newspaper of August 13th 1836 contained a long article about Ebenezer Elliott. A short section has been extracted from the article & presented below so the reader can study Elliott's view of the Corn Law & its impact on the economy of the nation. The rest of the article is of no great interest except for revealing that Ebenezer's son, William, died in 1836 aged 23. Previously the date of William's death had been unknown.
The article, which is long & fairly uninteresting, consists of a dialogue between a stranger & Elliott. Given the way the article becomes a platform for Elliott to trumpet his ideas, it is quite possible that the whole article was written by the bard. Thus the dialogue is simply a device used by Elliott to gain newspaper space; a technique known in more recent years by the term "spin."
A little editing of the extract was necessary.
Facts & Figures on the
Corn Laws
as stated by the Corn Law Rhymer
STRANGER.
- I admire the poetry of many of your diatribes against the
Corn Laws, but I consider the sentiments, in most instances, as very
objectionable. But surely complaint as to the working of those laws is
ill-timed at present, when flour is selling for as little, if not less than
probably it has ever sold for in our times?
ELLIOTT.
- The Corn Laws, Sir, if not repealed, will be the ruin of
this country - there ought to be an anti-bread tax society in every town.
The Corn Law, Sir, is working tremendously whether you perceive it or not:
it is arresting the winds, and the tides, unteaching the art of navigation, as
if there had never been a Columbus, and literally compelling the stars in their
courses to fight against England.
STRANGER.
- Is it not a common estimate that the Corn Laws have
cost the country, ie the consumers, as you would say, about 12,500,000
pounds a year?
ELLIOTT. - I will
give you the calculation I made in 1834. If the fair average price of
wheat on the Continent is 40s. per quarter, while the robber's price in England
is 60s., the difference in favour of the thieves is rather more than 33 per
cent. on the gross, or exactly 50 per cent. on the neat sum; and if the annual
value of the whole agricultural produce of Great Britain and Ireland is
250,000,000 pounds, then the direct yearly cost of the bread-tax, at 33 per
cent. on the amount is, 82,500,000 pounds; or a yearly tax of 3 pounds 8
shillings and 9 pence - nearly twice as much as all the other taxes
together - upon every man, woman, and child in Great Britain and Ireland,
supposing the population to be twenty-four millions.
STRANGER. - By your mode of
calculation the tax payer will more than have paid the freehold price of all the
agricultural lands in the kingdom.
ELLIOTT. - Paid the price! aye,
indeed - and more - if we would know what the Corn Laws have taken directly out
of our pockets from 1815 to 1834, we have only to multiply the annual cost by
the number of years - or 82,500,000 by 18. The answer will be
1,485,000,000 pounds, or 485,000,000 pounds more than all the lands are
worth at twenty years purchase, supposing the rental to be 50,000,000
pounds. The direct cost of the Corn Laws to the consumer, being 82,500,000
pounds, ought surely to frighten any patriotic man; but look at their indirect
consequences:- They destroy the farmer as well as the productive powers of the
soil itself - they blast, as with a curse, the best blessings of Providence;
they are a declaration of war against every useful and honest person in the
realm; they justify every possible or conceivable abuse and villainy; they
discourage honesty, and reward crime; they convert our best customers into
rivals; they offer a premium to idleness; they render the people hopeless; they
have a tendency to prolong their own iniquity; they take one third of his
savings from every trader or other producer who invests his surplus in land;
they have a direct tendency to dismember the empire; they keep the exchanges
against us; they lower the value of men; they fill the realm with lies and
liars; they are paid twice over; they allow us no alternative but utter
extinction, or the lowest food that will support life; they offer a premium to
rebellion; they are edicts for the prohibition of trade - in short, taken
collectively, the Corn Laws are a tax for the gratuitous ruin of the
people.
STRANGER. - A pretty formidable list of evils truly - well is it for us that so much may be borne, while so little is felt: but I dare not enter into a discussion upon so many topics.
ELLIOTT. - You will find each head discussed in one of the numbers of my friend Tait's Magazine; but the drollest part of the business is that the mealy-mouthed Scotsman not only sent one passage to the stars, but not content with the asterisks of his compositors, said he did not like the violence with which I expressed myself - it being of no use thus to rail at the landlords!
STRANGER. - Assuredly, Mr. Elliott, you must have administered a strong dose to have called for dilution from Tait.
Elliot had a single-minded view of the Corn Laws as the source of all evil; here, for instance claiming they influenced even the stars to work against the nation's good. Exaggeration of this type tends to act against the rest of his arguments. Thus when the poet shows an impressive knowledge of trade figures, it is coloured by the thought that he may still be tempted to exaggerate. The slickness with which the Rhymer calculated the figures would be consistent with Elliott himself having drafted the article, rather than it being the work of a journalist reporting back on a public conversation between two figures. Further, a journalist would very likely have identified "the stranger." Again we see a pound of hyperbole with Elliott's "pretty formidable list of evils."Elliott's concluding remarks are interesting. Odd that the bard called Tait a friend & then referred to him as mealy-mouthed.
William Tait had a book shop in Edinburgh & was the owner of a radical journal which published poems by the Corn Law Rhymer. "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine" over the years printed about 50 poems & 13 articles by Elliott, so the journal was a very valuable outlet for the Poet of the Poor. (A number of letters from the poet to Tait are kept in the National Library of Scotland.) In 1840, Tait published an edition of "The Poetical Works Of Ebenezer Elliott," which is often referred to as Tait's edition.
It is amusing to see that Tait found some of Elliott's offerings too forceful, & that the poet was disgruntled about it. Tait's observation that it was no use railing against the landlords showed that he had one eye on the well-to-do people who subscribed to his journal.The second edition of the Corn Law Rhymes
A Corn Law Letter from 1831
The second edition of the Corn Law Rhymes (from which this letter was taken) is extremely rare. The only copies are in Harvard and in University College London, according to the Canadian researcher, Jayne Hildebrand. The London copy bears the handwritten dedication: "To Joseph Hume Esq. With the thanks of the Author and his Children". A puzzling statement from the Corn Law Rhymer. Hume (1777-1855) was a Scottish MP who fought for the establishing of savings banks - which may explain Elliott's dedication. Hume campaigned fiercely for universal franchise & for parliamentary reform - his radical views would have found much common ground with the Poet of the Poor.The back cover of the book shows that Elliott actually wrote Hume's address directly on the book itself; ie the book was sent through the post unwrapped. The address was simply: "To Joseph Hume Esq, MP, London." The back cover bears two frank marks from the Post Office, one showing the book to have been posted from Sheffield on March* 1st 1831; the other is marked "FREE" and is dated March* 3rd 1831 - presumably showing when the book was received in London & indicating that the postal dues for the book had been correctly paid in Sheffield.
* This could have been May, not March, as the abbreviation "MA" was used.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE
SIR - I
learn from the Independent of Saturday last that at
It is
in evidence that the remunerating price of foreign wheat at
"These are your wondrous deeds, kinglings of
Gatton!
Yourselves how wondrous then"
Behold, and if you can,
blush - But if we must be cursed with the most impolitic of all taxes, a
bread tax - why not at once, impose a fixed duty of eighteen shillings per
quarter foreign wheat, importable at all times, a duty, no part of which would
go into the pockets of foreign merchants or growers, but the whole into our own
treasury, at the same time preventing, or misplacing some other tax to an equal
amount. The loss proved above on the transactions supposed is about 34 per cent
but such losses are the very least of the evils inflicted on the people of this
country by the corn laws. Let it be remembered, however, that all which is
destroyed by those laws increases the cost of production here, and is
consequently a premium paid by us to our rivals. But the most deadly power armed
against us by the corn laws, is that which a merchant might call the reaction of
discount; I mean the result of subtracting a sum which has a certain tendency to
increase, from a sum which is constantly decreasing. If the 34 percent loss were
suffered to remain as capital in the hands of the British people, there would be
in twelve months a profit of at least 10 per cent upon it, and if five pounds
are ten per cent upon fifty pounds, I need not tell you that they are more than
ten per cent upon forty pounds. But what is the per centage of reaction of
discount upon ten per cent added to thirty-four per cent? Let your loyal ass, Mr
Editor, discount the remaining 56 pounds of the hundred, and if stone blind
he may see with his ears, or if more than stone stupid, be instructed by his
manger. Yes, it is this deadly power, this reaction of discount, this constant
subtraction of the increasing sum from the lessening one, that, always at work,
and always working the wrong way, must ere long make
itself tremendously felt. If the patron of all evil, the father of all lies,
wished to overthrow the British empire, he could not find or invent means better
suited to his purpose than the present corn laws, which do mischief in every
way, and good in none. We are destroyed by a power tenfold more ruinous than
that of compound interest on a borrowed capital employed in the cultivation of a
profitless farm. The thing may go on as other losing concerns do, so long as
persons can be found to pay the tax, and no longer. The most horrible of
revolutions, recorded or conceived, is coming as one that travelleth. In the
mean time, what are our absolutists, - alias Waterlooists, alias Peterlooists,
alias Bourbonists, alias Ferdinandists, alias Miguelites, doing? They are
shaking their clenched fists in the face of Eternal Wisdom, and crying "Thou
fool!" But instead of insuring their own destruction, by waging war on nature,
instead of listening to the ravings of the
Duke of Newcastle's Sadler - if they would save their estates, and avoid
the necessity of breaking stones on the highways for a subsistence, let them
while there is yet time, if there is yet time, imitate the Parliamentary conduct
of Lord Milton, whose words are things, and but for whose efforts in opposition
to the wool tax, England would not at this moment have been able to sell without
loss in any foreign country, a single yard of woollen
cloth.
Why
are persons who boast of their ignorance, and who are really a century behind
the people of
Ebenezer
Elliott
The Corn Laws: A Speech from
1836
This article started life as a vote of thanks which Elliott gave to a speaker at a meeting about the Corn Law in October 1836. The speaker was William Ibbotson, a local man & father of 13 children, who had gathered much information on the Corn Laws.The Sheffield Independent newspaper was scathing and dismissive of Ibbotson in its column of 15th October 1836, but gave extensive coverage to Elliott's vote of thanks, which the poet used to promote his own thoughts on the Corn Laws.
The meeting took place in "the Music-Hall" - an amusing point for the modern reader.
The article below reproduces the text which appeared in the Independent. It is thanks to Diane Gascoyne, my fellow Elliott enthusiast, that this article has been rescued from the newspaper. * ie the London Gazette
In delivering his lecture, Mr.
Ibbotson laboured under the inconvenience of being burdened with three times as
much matter as he could possibly deliver. This led to a too hasty delivery,
which neither gave him time to breathe; nor his hearers time to express their
sentiments. We rejoice, however, that a man so well qualified has taken such
effective means for drawing attention to the subject.
After the lecture, Mr. EBENEZER ELLIOTT, in rising to move a vote of thanks, said - Ladies and Gentlemen, - I think you will admit that the lecture which you have now heard is one of the most important ever addressed to a commercial audience; and that not only has the lecturer the merit of taking a profound and original view of his all-important subject, but that of shewing us, that we may reasonably expect the gigantic evil, which we deplore, may be got rid of; inasmuch as he has proved that its continuance is opposed to the true interests of those magnificent personages who have done us the honour to curse us with it. He has demonstrated, that the result of any bread-tax must be diminished consumption of agricultural produce, consequent on commercial and other distress, caused by the bad legislation itself, and tending inevitably to national ruin; a demonstration which has long been wanted, and which Mr. Ibbotson alone has had the courageous industry and genius to accomplish. I thank him for admitting that there is distress in this country, and for proving that we are not, and, while the Corn Laws continue, cannot be really prosperous.
How can we be prosperous, if we are not safe? Our sleep is like that of a mouse, in a cat's ear. Prosperous indeed! If we see a bird tired of flying, and yet not suffered to alight on the earth, do we call that bird prosperous? If we see a tree withering, with its roots in the air, and yet forcing out leaves destined to perish suddenly, do we call that tree prosperous? Like that bird, and like that tree, are the people of Britain, and their vaunted prosperity, at this moment; witness the death struggle of competition for the shadows of farthings which is raging like fire round us, wherever we turn our eyes. Dare you relax in your exertions? No; if you do, you go to prison, or the Gazette.* Are you rooted in the soil? No; your roots are in the air. Do you possess an inch of land? Yes; when you are dead, some of you have graves: they are then landowners; for the cormorancy of these realms dare not yet manure their lands with your bodies, although that would be a cheaper method of ridding your surplus numbers than sending you to Australia, at an expense of twenty five pounds per head, after you have cost, at least, eighty pounds each to your plundered country.
It is worse than mockery to talk of the prosperity of an
unpropertied people. You have no country. Although you are undeniably the most
industrious people in the world, you are the only unpropertied people in Europe,
except the nobility-cursed Italians. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of the
Continent possess freehold estates of from four to thirty acres each. How much
more safe would be the condition of this country, if one person out of every
three possessed only a single acre of freehold land? There is scarcely a slave
in the Russian dominions who does not enjoy, at least, twenty acres of land -
not freeholds, but better still, tax-free and rent-free; while the great mass of
the productive people of Britain possess no land whatsoever! And such of
you as possess any at all, measure it by yards, not acres, and hold the greater
portion of it by leasehold tenure!
Concurrent with this frightfully perilous fact, is another equally important - namely, that although we have got our democratic Reform Bill, yet, of six millions of adult males, scarcely one million possess the elective franchise; and those who do possess it, are in danger of ruin, if they exercise it honestly! Can this state of things last? It has lasted; for never, perhaps, was there a time when Englishmen were not robbed of their birthright - the land which God made for all.
And, concurrent with this hideous fact, is another equally worthy of observation, namely, that never was England invaded without being conquered! What have you to fight for? The Bread Tax? Why, if the Russians were to conquer Constantinople tomorrow, and then make a steam highway from the Dardanelles to London Bridge, they could not, after conquering you, do worse to you than inflict a bread-tax on your commerce, offering to your rivals an enormous premium for its destruction, by limiting the food of a full-peopled nation, whose numbers they could not limit. Every honest and wise man, then, will do his best to alter the unpropertied condition of the great mass of the British people, if only to prevent the fatal increase of a pauperized population, such as that which is kept down in Ireland, and hardly kept down, by thirty thousand bayonets, which you pay for; but I want to know how those starving Irish will be kept down by bayonets, when you, having suffered the bread-tax to destroy your trade, will be poorer than they are? Do the aristocracy and their homagers really wish to see here horrors like those of the French Revolution? Let me warn them, that it is easier to provoke such horrors than to outlive them. And I wish they would ask themselves what was the true cause of that Revolution? An immense pauperized population was one of the horrible effects of the cause; but the cause itself was this - that the lands of France were monopolized by a few persons, who (as now in England) converted their stolen possessions into a legalized nuisance, a monopoly of law-making, the curse of curses. Those persons were endured until they became unendurable, when God shook them down like rotten leaves. For this act of God, the foes of man blame the French people, and stupidly ask us what that people gained by their Revolution? I will tell you what they gained: they gained their country! They were landless slaves, like you. What are they now? A nation of freeholders! no longer like birds tired of flying, and yet not suffered to alight on the earth. The earth is their own; and, no longer like trees, withering with their roots in the air, and forcing out leaves destined to perish suddenly, like England's bread-taxed prosperity, but prosperous, because safe, - and safe, because rooted in the soil.
If the Corn Laws continue, a similar convulsion, and similar consequences, are inevitable in this country. God forbid that I should live to see them; and yet, if I were hostile to the landowners, I should wish for the continuance of their bread-tax, because nothing but its speedy repeal can avert their ruin.
Your deep thinking, and thirteen-childed townsman, Mr. Ibbotson, has shown the suicidal folly of that bread-tax; and I, in a few words, will shew you its shameless iniquity. They who call you rabble - the landowners, who could not subsist an hour without you, - they, living in palaces, riding in coaches-and-fours, which they call their own, and possessing nineteen twentieths of the soil of the kingdom, - declare by act of Parliament, (a declaration, thank God, which can neither be disproved nor contradicted) that they cannot live, as worse than idle annuitants, unless they feed from the trenchers of the industrious. Now, their declaration must be either true or false. If it is true, why don't they go to the workhouse? If it is false, why are they not sent to the treadmill, or pilloried from one end of the nation to the other, for obtaining money under false pretences, without being able to plead necessity as an excuse for their cruel scoundrelism? People of Sheffield! you are said to read your bibles, let me, then, implore you not to forget the words of Him who did not err when he said, "The wages of the poor are his life; he who robbeth the poor, is a murderer; they who toll the bread of the poor, fight against God; their names shall become bye words; the heavens shall declare their iniquity, the earth rise up against them, and 'a fire not blown' consume their soul!" And yet are they not the indescribable miscreants who dream and talk of a reaction in public opinion favourable to them, and expect you to join the conservators of abuses? If they succeed, you are clever. But hoping better of you, I will conclude by moving a vote of thanks to Mr. Ibbotson for his lecture, which I repeat, is one of the most important - let the homagers of palaced paupers sneer or hiss what they please to the contrary - that ever was addressed to an assembly of self-supported men. [Cheers].
* ie the London Gazette which listed those who had gone bankrupt.
Elliott's vote of thanks to Ibbotson serves for the Corn Law Rhymer to lecture the audience himself. He is knowlegeable and controversial; his colourful ideas & rhetorical style hold the listeners' attention and are even interesting to the modern student.
