course under a method of estimate, and a habit of seeking the truth, such as prevails in other departments of business.
On the disclosure of the truth I need not dwell. We shall none of us forget what the crops were found to be like, when they were looked into. The “Agricultural Gazette” of August 16th brought us face to face with our calamity. “There can be no doubt,” said that trusty Journal, after summing up the evidence it had obtained from all parts of the country, “that the wheat harvest crop of 1862 is one of the worst we have had for many years.” The estimate is, in fact, unequalled for badness; for, though there are always some among the two hundred reporters to that Journal who are wont to see things couleur de rose, there is this year only one of the whole 188 of that week (and he writes from an Irish county) who reports the wheat crop to be “very good.” Only thirty-seven declare an average crop; and 150 pronounce it a very inferior one. There is nothing under other heads to compensate in any degree for this misfortune. Barley is hardly an average, and oats not above it, pulse about an average; and roots, it is to be feared, very much below it. I need not remind my readers how the hay-crop has disappointed expectation,—how much difficulty there has been in saving it, such as it was; nor how the weather has spoiled thousands of acres of pasture and tillage by flood, and then soaked the swaths and sheaves which were cut in the few days of sunshine. Of potatoes the accounts are still uncertain, as they usually are till the middle of autumn, unless the quality is unquestionably good: but the reports do not grow more encouraging as the weeks pass on. The plain truth is that, after a very indifferent harvest in 1859, a deplorably bad one in 1860, and a barely average one in 1861, we now find ourselves in the midst of “one of the worst we have had for many years.”
It ought not to be a question with Britons whether to face a great misfortune frankly, or to tamper with it, and try to disguise it. I will not make it a question, but assume that, as Englishmen, we do not flinch from any necessary pain, but rather feel our spirit rise to meet and bear it.
What we have to consider, therefore, is this. We are already, though the most blest of the nations of the earth, in adversity. The mere money loss of the cotton failure,—of the suspension of the industry,—is computed at many millions. I have seen forty-eight millions assigned as the probable loss from the suspension of the cotton manufacture, up to last month. I have no means of judging how far this is correct. But we all know that our chief manufacture has nearly stopped; and that we have to sustain four or five millions of persons connected with the manufacture for many months to come, at best. The bad harvest, in addition, will cost us twenty or thirty millions more. As I have said on a former occasion, we usually spend twenty millions in the purchase of food. The bad harvest of 1860 cost us sixty millions, from first to last. This shows us what to expect for 1863. Instead of floating pleasantly along the tide of our national life, with no heavy care on our minds, and no stringent difficulty on our hands, we must now, for some months to come, endure to see and hear of much that is painful, and be ready to give up our indulgences, and our leisure, and our repose of mind and complacency of national feelings, if by such sacrifices we may hope to mitigate in the slightest degree the general adversity. We should begin now by thinking about what we may expect, and what we can do.
We hear from two quarters accounts which at first sight appear to be contradictory. We are told that New York is shipping vast quantities of grain to Europe, and particularly to England: and, again, that there is a great rise in the price of food in Jamaica, because the troubled state of America prevents the present unusual demand of Jamaica from being met as on former occasions. It is good news for us that so much grain and flour are coming; and we may account for it by a great mass of American securities having changed hands, and being paid for in wheat, as more convenient than gold—a species of demand which does not exist in the case of Jamaica.
Next to the United States, Russia has hitherto been our main dependence for corn: but Russia has never, perhaps, had so little corn to sell as this year. Not only is the labour-system broken up, and the tillage of much soil neglected, but there has been so much drought that Southern Russia is in a comparatively barren state. So we are told; and we shall soon know whether it is true or not. At the moment when we are threatened with the stoppage of this source of supply, we are invited to rejoice at the first shipment of wheat and flour to London from the colony of Victoria. It is not much; but it is a beginning,—a new resource for future years. We may hope that the Turkish and Baltic provinces may send us as much as we shall ask for. If Hungary were but through her troubles, we should want nothing more than she could give us. She might be the granary of Europe, if her industry were freed and restored.
On the whole, there can be no fear of our being disappointed of any supply that we may be able and willing to pay for, at the price that the circumstances of the year will determine. Since the corn trade of the world has been thrown open, there has been an end of all apprehension of famine, in a country like England. There is always enough to be had by those who have ports to receive it, roads for its transit, and money to pay the price that it may bear.
Next comes the consideration,—how much more than usual we shall want to buy, and how it is to be brought within the reach of the largest and poorest classes. Before we can ascertain these conditions, we must know more than we yet do of the quality of our own grain. Some, grown in the best way on the best soils, is sound and good: much more, it is to be feared, will turn out ill,—blighted, damp, shrunken,—needing a large admixture of hard old wheat, if it can be made into flour at all. Now, what can we do in such a case?
The common idea is that we can only let things take their course,—pay our poor-rates, pay high for our flour, give away more money in alms than usual, and wait for better times,—that easy waiting, which means for some of us no more