tle market. And such a time may, we
are afraid, be anticipated on the abolition of the corn-laws. Nay, it
is probable that, even when the transition state shall be over, there
will be a general lowering of price to the average of that of the
Continent and America,--an average heightened by little more than the
amount of the true protective duties of the trade,--the expense of
carriage from the foreign farm to the British market. And woe to the
poor tenant, tied down by a long lease to a money-rent rated according
to the average value of grain under the protective duties, if the
defalcation is to fall on him! If he has to pay the landlord according
to a high average, and to be paid by the corn-factor according to a
low one, he is undone. And his real danger in the coming crisis
indicates his proper battle. It is not with his old protector Sir
Robert that he should be preparing to fight; it is, we repeat, with
his old ally the landholder. Nay, he will find, ultimately at least,
that he has no choice in the matter. With Sir Robert he _may_ fight if
it please him, and fight, as we have shown, to be beaten; but with the
landlord he _must_ fight, whether he first enter the lists with Sir
Robert or no. When his preliminary struggle shall have terminated
unsuccessfully, he shall then without heart, without organization,
without ally, have to enter on the inevitable struggle,--a struggle
for very existence. We of course refer to landlords as a class: there
are among them not a few individuals with whom the tenant will have no
struggle to maintain,--conscientious men, at once able and willing to
adjust their demands to the circumstances of the new state of things.
But their character as a class does not stand so high. Many of their
number are in straitened circumstances,--so sorely burdened with
annuities and mortgages, as to be somewhat in danger of being
altogether left, through the coming change, without an income; and it
is not according to the nature of things that the case of the tenant
should be very considerately dealt with by them. When a hapless crew
are famishing on the open sea, and the fierce cannibal comes to be
developed in the man, it is the weaker who are first devoured. Now we
would ill like to see any portion of our Scotch tenantry at the mercy
of wild, unreasoning destitution in the proprietor. We would ill like
to see him vested with the power to decide absolutely in his own case,
whether it was his tenant tha