Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850
Such a moment I hope never to know again – not the least sign of the boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare above; and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of monsters had done, when they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head, as he brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the time looking at me and wading out to the shallow – by Jove! my flesh creeps at it just now– though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the matter of half a minute – till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight all at once of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together, except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating out of her straw-bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves, with her glittering eyes on the two elephants. Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the boat, and she let go with a low cry, and sank down with her hands over her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the fore-topman handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool; these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much satisfaction in a bathe, for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull-elephant seemed a dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder. However he brought up, the moment I sang out to stop: both the elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some fool of a cadet let drive at the bull-elephant from above, hitting him fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if on an anvil: the she-elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute himself turned round on the moment, lifting his trunk straight aloft with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his small red eye lighted on the Judge, who seemed quite out of breath from his sport.
"The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!" called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with his eye fixed on the elephant, and could see me, too, – a moment or two before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and the dry guinea-grass, with a savage roar between his two white tusks – and I saw what the Judge meant, just in time to throw over the whole heap of flaming cocoa-tree husk among the withered grass and stuff a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke like a black serpent, then another scream from the brute, and away he was charging into the hollow again, the flame licking up among the grass astern of him, and darting from one bough to another towards the cane-brake below. I had scarce drawn a long breath, and remembered the devil's own thought that had come into my head when the Judge called to me, ere he slapped me on the shoulder. "You did nobly there, my dear boy," said Sir Charles; "managed it well! 'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!" "I'm afraid, however, sir," said I, eying the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze rustled off, "I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our ears!" Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where scarce had we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon; then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries, whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't say, – only it wasn't likely the last would kick up such a bother for nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after they vanished, we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough to show her sharp lead-coloured bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behind it. All at once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese, "Queren sieté? who are you?" Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon. "Queren siete?" sang out the voice, louder than before, in a threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. "Amigos! Amigos!" hailed we in turn; "Ingleses, gentlemen!" shouted the cadet who knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven-sake, else they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before; they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach.
In fact the rate we all bent our backs at this time, was pretty different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat, fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly after sundown, as tired as dogs.
Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on deck startled me, – I shoved myself into my clothes and rushed on the quarterdeck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging, in the water the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in the woods, again, thickened the confusion; when all at once a dim flash off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some work if it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his ears next day – a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly, unless mud were dear.
No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch, than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he, he should know better what to say to me. "Mr Finch," said I, starting, "this won't do, sir – you'll either speak your mind before cabin and cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me, sir – as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!" The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I turned on my heel and began to walk the quarterdeck till he went below.
However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the ebb-tide, and thinking; when I saw one of the men creeping in from the bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond. The sailor came up touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw something queer off the boom-end. "Well," said I gruffly, "go and tell your mate, then." I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacob's watch, I knew. "Why, your honour," he persisted, "I knows pretty well what you air – asking your pardon, sir – but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the mates! – It's some'at rather skeary, sir!" added he. Accordingly I took hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following behind me. "Never you trouble yourself, my man," said I; "one at a time!" and back he went in board again – for something curious in his way struck me, but I wanted to see what he meant. I had just got near the flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled out – "Now ye infarnal man-o'-war hound, I have ye – and down you goes for it!" The instant I felt it, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to carry one out to sea in half an hour. I saw the whole plot in a twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. "He won't come, Harry, my lad!" said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to think twice. "He be blowed!" said Harry, scornfully; "an' why won't he, mate?" He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by a clutch of the sail. "I suppose, my fine fellow," said I, "you forgot Fernando Po, and those nigger adventures of yours – eh?" – and I went in without more ado.
I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came forward to me, with a ship's-lantern, and three or four of the men behind. "Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir," said he aloud, "I believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about it!" "What the deuce!" said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, "let me see the man to – " At the moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the deck, and I knew nothing more. – But I see 'tis too far gone in the night to carry out the yarn, ladies!
BRITISH AGRICULTURE AND FOREIGN COMPETITION
"I do say it is for the public advantage that I should say to him, (the farmer,) continue your improvements: I cannot undertake to guarantee to you, by legislation, a particular price; but this I will say, that as long as corn is under 51s., you shall not be exposed to the importation of foreign corn." So spoke Sir Robert Peel in February 1842, as the proposer of an excellent law for the improved regulation of the corn trade. The pledge was a distinct one; and the very homeliness of the language saves it from equivocal construction. In the course of the same debate, Sir Robert, with just and prudent caution, expressly abstained from committing himself to the obviously fallacious doctrine of a fixed remunerative price. He held, as we hold, that, according to varying circumstances, that remunerating price must vary. He did not, and could not, forget that, under war prices and war taxes, wheat could not be cultivated with profit in this country, unless the quarter sold for 80s.; neither was he blind to the fact, that we had seen the average price so low in 1835 as 39s. 4d., notwithstanding the operation of a highly protective law. But he also held that, although it was impossible, with all the aids which agricultural experiment and statistical science could bring, to fix an immutable price for the quarter of wheat – as he had previously done in the instance of the ounce of gold – still, from averages taken throughout the country for a series of years, it was possible to frame some general proximate conclusion, which the legislature was bound to keep in mind, whilst considering any laws or alterations of rates that might hereafter affect the interests of the British farmer. So that, when Sir Robert Peel enunciated the following opinions, we maintain that the principle which guided him was strictly correct; and we accept these as embodying the main argument that led to the conclusion, which we have placed above as the commencement and the text of this article. "Now, with reference to the probable remunerating price, I should say that, for the protection of the agricultural interest, as far as I can possibly form a judgment, if the price of wheat in this country, allowing for its natural oscillations, could be limited to some such amount as between 54s. and 58s., I do not believe that it is for the interest of the agriculturist that it should be higher. Take the average of the last ten years, excluding from some portion of the average the extreme prices of the last three years, and 56s. would be found to be the average; and so far as I can form an idea of what would constitute a fair remunerating price, I, for one, should never wish to see it vary more than I have said. I cannot say, on the other hand, that I am able to see any great or permanent advantage to be derived from the diminution of the price of corn beyond the lowest amount I have named, if I look at the subject in connexion with the general position of the country, the existing relations of landlord and tenant, the burdens upon the land, and the habits of the country."
These opinions are quite distinct, and from them we gather that Sir Robert Peel, in 1842, considered that, on an average, 54s. was the lowest price at which the British farmer could raise wheat for the market – so long, at least, as he was liable to the same burdens as formerly, occupied the same position in the country, and paid the same rent to his landlord. Following out these views, Sir Robert Peel introduced his sliding-scale of duties, and the result would seem in a great measure to vindicate his sagacity. Let us take the averages for the six years immediately following: —
It will thus be seen that the average price of wheat, during those years, was within fivepence of the calculation made by Sir Robert as the fair and natural average for the preceding ten years, and that it almost hit the precise medium between the two extremes which he assumed.
Now, we are not aware that Sir Robert Peel has ever directly retracted these opinions, although many passages might be quoted from his speeches to show that he considered increased cheapness – the necessary result of his free-trade measures – some sort of compensation for the probable decline in the value of agricultural produce. But the income-tax and increased public burdens may fairly be set against any saving on the ground of cheapness, and the question remains precisely where it was before. The averages of sixteen years, excluding extraordinary impulses to an unnatural rise or fall, entitle us to assume that the British farmer cannot raise wheat profitably at lower prices than 56s. per quarter; and Sir Robert Peel, whatever may be the effect of his subsequent measures, once gave his solemn guarantee that, when prices should fall below 51s., there should be no foreign competition.
We have no desire to rake up old matters of discussion, or to reflect upon pledges which may either have lapsed or been broken. Our present business with Sir Robert is simply to have his evidence as to the remunerating prices of corn, and that evidence we have stated above. We are, therefore, entitled to assume that any great and permanent decline of prices, following upon increased foreign imports, must have a most deleterious effect upon the agriculture of the country, unless some remedy can be found which shall lessen the cost of production. As usual, there is no lack of volunteers to suggest remedies. Dr Buckland, of iguanodon and icthyosaurus celebrity, discourses learnedly of subsoils and manures, and offers to show how acres of wheat may be raised upon soils hitherto yielding no other crop than rushes, ling, or heather. It is the misfortune of scientific men that they live in a world of their own; for, had the learned fossilist been aware of what has been passing around for the last twenty years, he would have known that no sane person ever questioned the truth of his assertions. With the aid of draining, manure, and other artificial appliances, corn may be grown almost anywhere within the compass of the British islands. No man disputes that. The simple question is: Will the corn, when grown, yield a fair return for the expenses attendant upon its growth? Until the geologists and chemists have acquired so much real practical knowledge as to be able to answer this query satisfactorily, they will best consult the public interest by confining themselves to their quarries and their laboratories. That agriculturist who should deny the advantages which his own science has derived from the aid of chemistry, would not only be an ungrateful, but an exceedingly unreasonable man; nevertheless, he cannot be charged with either ingratitude or folly if, after calculating the cost of the productive agent, and the value of the produce, he declines to expend his capital in forced improvements, which at the end of the year, and with diminished prices, must leave him a considerable loser. If high farming could be shown to be productive, high farming would be the rule and not the exception. In Scotland we have farmed so high, that we are quoted at all hands as an example to the rest of the world. If we mistake not, Dr Buckland himself, in some of his stimulating addresses, has referred to the agricultural system of the Lothians as a specimen, or rather the specimen, of what may be achieved by science combined with energy. We accept the compliment; and in the course of the following pages we shall endeavour to show him, and his friends, how the pattern farmer is likely to fare, and how he has fared already, under the operation of the new code which modern liberalism has introduced for the encouragement of British enterprise.
Next to the chemists, and moving closely in their wake, come the free-trading landlords who assented to the great experiment. If we select Lords Ducie and Kinnaird as fair specimens of this class in England and in Scotland, we shall do no more than give that prominence to their names which is challenged by their late assertions. Our occupancy of the Scottish field, from which we are unwilling to depart, precludes us from entering into any investigation of the views promulgated by the English earl. But we have no scruple at all in dealing with the Scottish baron, who, in the letter of advice addressed to his tenantry of the Carse of Gowrie, has taken infinite pains to show that the superior husbandry of Scotland has been stimulated, if not created, by the exaction of high rents; and, by an easy corollary, that future improvement depends mainly upon the maintenance of these rents, irrespective altogether of the decline in the value of produce! This, we are bound to admit, is a comfortable landlord's theory; and, if the agricultural tenants who frequent the reading-room at Inchture are convinced of its practical soundness, we should be extremely sorry to utter a single word which might tend to unsettle their faith. But we fear that Lord Kinnaird, like many other inconsiderate individuals, has committed a serious mistake in rushing precipitately into print. We agree with him, on the whole, that rent is a desirable thing, which ought not, under ordinary circumstances, to be violently diminished; still we must adhere to our deliberate opinion, that, if a great organic change, affecting the interests of agriculture to a serious degree, is consequent upon any measures of the legislature, both landlord and tenant must be prepared to suffer in a certain ratio. It is all very well to recommend the aid of chemistry, provided, at the same time, that adequate capital is forthcoming. Even with capital, to be drawn from the tenant's, and not the landlord's pocket, it will require more than mere assertion to persuade the former that, by an enormously increased outlay in phosphate of lime, sulphuric acid, magnesia, manganese, gypsum, guano, and what not, he may raise crops the abundance of which shall compensate him for a direct loss of 16s. or 20s. on the quarter of wheat, with a corresponding diminution in the value of every other kind of agricultural produce. Some of those who, according to Lord Kinnaird, have shown themselves "the best and most successful farmers," men who have heretofore been engaged in business – that is, commercial business – may be induced to try the experiment; but if there be any truth in the reply which Mr Thomas Ross of Wardheads, a farmer in the Carse of Gowrie, has made to his lordship's pamphlet, the result of the trials hitherto attempted by such enterprising persons, upon the Kinnaird estates and in the immediate neighbourhood, may be best estimated by a perusal of the Gazette, wherein the names of divers unfortunate speculators are recorded. But, to speak plainly, the time has gone by for any such absurd trifling. What we want are facts, not theories; least of all, theories so palpably preposterous as to carry their refutation on their face.
We do not, by any means, intend to insinuate that Lord Kinnaird is to be taken as a type of the Scottish or British landlords. On the contrary, we believe that he forms one of a minority so infinitesimally small, that the number of them would hardly be worth the reckoning. The position of the landlord and the tenant is, on the clearest of all grounds, inseparable; and it is in vain to suppose that the one class can, by possibility, have a distinct interest from the other. No doubt, during the currency of existing leases, entered into before the rapid conversion of the two great political rivals to the doctrines of free trade, the landlord may insist upon having the full penalty of his bond, and may wring the last farthing from the hand of the despairing farmer. We are living in times when vested interests have lost their character of sanctity: the legislature, while forcing down prices, provided no remedy for the relief of those who were tied up by bargains, reasonable when contracted, but ruinous under the altered circumstances; and the tenant, though forced to struggle against the might of foreign importation, has no legal claim on the proprietor of the soil for a corresponding deduction from his rent. But the good feeling which has always existed between the landlords and the tenantry of this country, if we assume no higher motive, will doubtless operate, in the majority of instances, to temper the rigour of the bargain, should the pressure continue to increase; and year after year, as leases expire, and as the results of practical experience become more generally understood, competition will disappear, and rents fall to a point exactly corresponding to the expectation of future prices. It is a bad sign of the times, though certainly an instructive one, when we find a wealthy peer, in a letter addressed to his tenantry, expressing his opinion that retired tradesmen and others – men who have never handled a plough in their lives, and who are far better versed in the mysteries of long-stitch than in those of draining – make much better farmers than those who have been reared to agriculture from their infancy. According to this view, the farmer is a mere booby compared to the man whose intellects have been sharpened in the shop, the counting-house, or the manufactory; and the experience which he has gained positively unfits him for the actual exercise of his profession! Such views must be corroborated by the testimony of deeper sages than Lord Kinnaird, before they pass into general acceptation; and we cannot help thinking that the noble author would have used a wise discretion had he been less explicit in his reasons for preferring the novice to the practised farmer. Besides their habits of accurate accounting, and their total freedom from prejudice, retired tradesmen appear valuable, in the eyes of Lord Kinnaird, for two especial reasons: – "In the first place, that they have capital; secondly, that they are not afraid to expend it, knowing that thus alone can their land be made productive." To such persons we would address a word of warning, cautioning them to use their acquired powers of accounting rather before than after they enter into any agricultural bargain; and in particular, we would advise them to look narrowly to the figures of their noble encourager, detailing the results of his own experience in the farm of Mill-hill, brought down, with great show of accuracy, to the close of 1847 —before protection ceased, or prices fell —but no later. In the course of such investigations, they may light upon an anomaly or so which no arithmetician can explain, and be rather chary of receiving his lordship's dogmas, that remuneration from farming is "not dependent on high prices," and that "no one possessing capital need be afraid of investing it in a farm."
The last champion of increased production as an antidote against free trade, is not the type of a class, but a single individual – whose testimony, however, being in some respects practical, is worth more than that of all the chemical doctors and interested landlords put together. We allude to Mr James Caird, whose pamphlet, entitled "High Farming under Liberal Covenants, the best Substitute for Protection," has already excited so much attention, that, if rumour does not err, its author has been deputed by government, at the recommendation of Sir Robert Peel, to visit Ireland with the view of reporting upon the agricultural capabilities of that country. We shall presently have occasion to examine the details of that pamphlet, as minutely as their importance deserves; at present we shall merely note, in passing, that it does not profess to set forth the results of the author's own practical experience, although Mr Caird is well known to be a farmer of great intelligence and ability; and, further, that it directly points to liberal covenants on the part of the landlord as an indispensable basis of the arrangement. In fact, therefore, we find that Lord Kinnaird and Mr Caird, though both writing on the same side, entertain views widely differing from each other, as to the future terms of adjustment between the two great agricultural classes. Lord Kinnaird is for "high rents;" Mr Caird for "liberal covenants." It is impossible that both of them can be right; and were we to join issue solely upon the facts which each of them has adduced, we should have no hesitation in deciding in favour of the practical farmer. But we apprehend that, even with the aid of liberal covenants, Mr Caird has failed in making out his case, as we shall shortly prove, when we proceed to analyse his statements.
We have already made an approximation to the price which, in ordinary seasons, and under existing burdens and covenants, grain ought to bear, in order to yield a fair remuneration to the British grower. That price, as we have already said, has been held to range from 54s. to 58s. per quarter. This we hold to be a moderate computation; but if a further limit be desired, we shall admit – though for argument's sake only – that with great retrenchment and economy, curtailing his own comforts, but not materially reducing the wages of the labourer, the farmer may continue to grow wheat at an average of 50s., and nevertheless pay up his annual rent as before. A glance at former averages will show that this is a remarkably low figure; and, being taken as an average, it of course implies the supposition that in some years the price will be higher, in order to compensate for others in which it may be lower. Our primary business, therefore, is to ascertain whether, under the operation of the new system, prices can ever rise, supposing the present breadth of land to remain in tillage, above this average amount; or whether they must not permanently diminish so much as to destroy the vestige of an independent average in this country, and substitute foreign growing prices for our own. The question is a very momentous one, for it involves the existence of our national agriculture, and not only that, but the existence of the larger portion of the home market for our manufactures, compared with which our exports are comparatively as nothing. It is our earnest desire to approach it with all candour, temper, and moderation; and we shall not, if possible, allow ourselves to be betrayed into a single angry word, or discourteous expression, towards those who have differed from us hitherto in opinion. Neither shall we advance or reiterate opinions upon grounds purely theoretical. Ever since this contest began, we have taken a decided and consistent part, and have not scrupled to expose, by argument, what we held to be the glaring fallacies of free trade. That argument, necessarily inferential at first, has since been borne out and corroborated by every fact which has emerged; and, on that account alone, we think we are entitled to demand a serious consideration of the matter which we now lay before the public, as the result of an investigation, in the course of which no pains or trouble have been spared, and which may help to guide us all, be our politics what they may, to a true sense of the danger which must immediately arrive, if we remain but a few months longer in a state of fancied security. Our warning may be derided by some, but the day of reckoning is at hand.