eign cattle
enough to make one week's show at Smithfield. But mark, _the power_ of
admitting foreign cattle and poultry, (on payment, however, of a
considerable duty,[24]) conferred by the new tariff, is one that must
be attended with infinite permanent benefits to the public, in its
_moderating influence upon the prices of animal food_. Its working is
in beautiful harmony with that of the newly modeled corn-laws, as we
shall presently explain. In years of abundance, when plenty of meat is
produced at home, the new tariff will be inoperative, as far as
regards the actual importations of foreign cattle; but in years of
scarcity at home, the expectation of a good price will induce the
foreigner to send us a sufficient supply; for he will then be, and
then only, able to repay himself the duty, and the heavy cost of
sea-carriage. As prices fall, the inducement to import also declines.
In short, "the inducement to importation falls with the fall, and
rises with the rise of price. The painful contingency of continued bad
seasons has thus, in some measure, been provided against. The new
tariff is so adjusted, that when prices threaten to mount to an unfair
and extravagant height, unjust to consumers, and dangerous to
producers, in such contingencies a mediating power steps in, and
brings things to an equilibrium."[25] These great and obvious
advantages of the new tariff, the opponents of Ministers, and
especially their reckless and discreditable allies called the
"Anti-corn-law League," see as plainly as we do; but their anxious aim
is to conceal these advantages as much as possible from public view;
and for this purpose they never willingly make _any allusion_ to the
tariff, or if forced to do so, underrate its value, or grossly
misrepresent its operation. But we are convinced that _this will not
do_. Proofs of their humbug and falsehood are, as it were, daily
forcing themselves into the very stomachs_ of those whom once, when
an incompetent Ministry was in power, these heartless impostors were
able to delude. "A single shove of the bayonet," said Corporal Trim to
Doctor Slop, "is worth all your fine discourses about the art of war;"
and so the English operative may reply to the hireling "Leaguers,"
"This good piece of cheap beef and mutton, now smoking daintily before
me, is worth all your palaver."

[24] Poultry L5 for every L100 value; oxen and bulls, L1 each;
cows, 15s.; calves, 10s.; horses, mares, foals, colts,