incendiarisms, of which several take place every night. Two
great farmhouses burnt down within the last few days; in Cambridgeshire
four great farmhouses, Hertfordshire one, and besides these, fifteen
other incendiarisms in different districts. December 30th, in Norfolk
one, Suffolk two, Essex two, Cheshire one, Lancashire one, Derby,
Lincoln, and the South twelve. January 6th, 1844, in all ten. January
13th, seven. January 20th, four incendiarisms. From this time forward,
three or four incendiarisms per week are reported, and not as formerly
until the spring only, but far into July and August. And that crimes of
this sort are expected to increase in the approaching hard season of 1844-
45, the English papers already indicate.

What do my readers think of such a state of things in the quiet, idyllic
country districts of England? Is this social war, or is it not? Is it a
natural state of things which can last? Yet here the landlords and
farmers are as dull and stupefied, as blind to everything which does not
directly put money into their pockets, as the manufacturers and the
bourgeoisie in general in the manufacturing districts. If the latter
promise their employees salvation through the repeal of the Corn Laws,
the landlords and a great part of the farmers promise theirs Heaven upon
earth from the maintenance of the same laws. But in neither case do the
property-holders succeed in winning the workers to the support of their
pet hobby. Like the operatives, the agricultural labourers are
thoroughly indifferent to the repeal or non-repeal of the Corn Laws. Yet
the question is an important one for both. That is to say--by the repeal
of the Corn Laws, free competition, the present social economy is carried
to its extreme point; all further development within the present order
comes to an end, and the only possible step farther is a radical
transformation of the social order. {268} For the agricultural labourers
the question has, further, the following important bearing: Free
importation of corn involves (how, I cannot explain _here_) the
emancipation of the farmers from the landlords, their transformation into
Liberals. Towards this consummation the Anti-Corn Law League has already
largely contributed, and this is its only real service. When the farmers
become Liberals, _i.e_., conscious bourgeois, the agricultural labourers
will inevitably become Chartists and Socialists; the first change
involves the secon