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FEBRUARY 22, 1847.

The Rev. J. BOOTH, LL.D., F.R.S., PRESIDENT,

in the Chair.

An Extraordinary Meeting of the Society was held to receive the report of the Council on the result of the negociations between the Committee of the Royal Institution and the Council of the Society, with a view to obtain for the Members admission to the Museums, Galleries, &c., of the Royal Institution.

The Report, which was read by the Secretary, entered into a detailed account of the preliminary steps of the negociation, the correspondence, and concluded by recommending that the following conditions be ratified by the Society:

1st. That any Member of the Society shall have the privilege of visiting the Museums, Galleries, &c., at such times as they may be open to the public generally, and shall also be at liberty to personally introduce (not by ticket), as a visitor, a lady, or other person, being a bona fide stranger in Liverpool.

II. That when any paper shall be brought before the Society, and which might be illustrated or elucidated by the aid of models, specimens, &c., in the Royal Institution, it shall be an instruction to the Curator to produce them for that purpose, at the request, in writing, of the President, Vice-Presidents, or Secretary of the Society.

III. That the Society shall make to the Royal Institution a donation of twenty guineas annually, and that they shall also present it with any books, maps, models, or specimens that may from time to time become the property of the Society.

IV. That this arrangement shall hold from year to year,

(commencing on the 1st of January, 1847;) until one of the contracting parties shall give notice of their desire to terminate it.

The Report was adopted.

The Ordinary Meeting of the Society was then held, the President in the Chair.

The SECRETARY read a letter from Mr. Price, of Birkenhead, thanking the Society for their subscription of ten guineas to his forthcoming work on Natural History, entitled "The Birkenhead Shore."

Dr. TRENCH gave notice of motion, "That the Society discontinue publishing its Transactions."

Mr. PRICE, in a letter read before the Society, called the attention of the members to various localities interesting to the geologist, botanist, &c.

Dr. DUNCAN introduced Mr. SOUTH, who exhibited and explained a Model of the Patent Ramoneur Machine for Sweeping Chimneys.

Mr. SUTTON read a Paper on the Importance of Agricultural Statistics.

The object of this Paper is, to advocate the adoption of some system by which the supply of food for our overgrown population may be evenly regulated, by some properly acquired and duly authenticated information,—and not as it is now, by the mere guess work of the farmer and

merchant.

That it is now governed by a mere system of speculation, founded upon the most crude and imperfect statements, and such as would be considered totally insufficient for any other commercial purpose, must be admitted on all hands. I find that the first mention ever made of Agricultural Statistics in the House of Commons, was by Mr. Stafford O'Brien, at the close of the last session, and that he has recently called attention to it again. I cannot

help feeling, however, that there must have been gross negligence somewhere, or we should, long ere this, have had some regular and established statistics on so all-important a subject. Our merchants and agriculturists have, in fact, been too local in their ideas and information, and it is to be hoped that the advancement of the age, and the present deplorable state of the country, will, ere long, bring about a more systematic and better state of things.

Without further prelude I purpose proceeding at once to my subject, which I shall endeavour to treat as briefly as possible under the two following heads:

1. The necessity of having an even and regular supply

of food in a country so thickly populated as ours; and the ruin and misery caused by a contrary state of things.

2. The consideration of the expediency of such a system of published Agricultural and Commercial Statistics of Food, as would give us timely notice of our probable wants and requirements. This would be the best and most certain means that could be adopted to bring about such evenness and regularity in their supply, and would, upon the ordinary and acknowledged principles of "supply and demand," have a direct tendency to produce a

greater uniformity in the prices of food.

In the first place then, I think all will admit that an even supply of the necessaries of life in any country, but more particularly in this,-where we have a dense population, which, including Ireland, amounts to, from 26,000,000 to 27,000,000 and upwards,-is of paramount importance. We have only to look to some periods of the past, and indeed to the present state of things, for a striking proof of this assertion. There are at the present time thousands of human beings in Ireland and Scotland in actual starvation; and in England and Wales, though we have little of open and

apparent starvation, there is very great want and destitution, (owing to the extremely high prices of food,) which have caused an enormous increase in the mortality.

The advantages of an even supply of food, and as a natural consequence, of evenness in its price, are selfevident. The labouring population form by far the largest proportion of the consumers; and their wages and resources, from a variety of causes (some of which may be afterwards mentioned), instead of increasing with the cost of the necessaries of life, on the contrary, decrease. This, as a matter of course, makes the extra cost the greater burthen, if it does not altogether incapacitate them from purchasing. If you diminish a man's earnings half, and at the same time double the price of food, it is, as far as he is concerned, equivalent to the price being quadrupled.

All, in a country like this, are more or less dependent on one another; and when things are in a healthy state, the employment caused by mutual wants creates a system which almost deserves the name of self-supporting. Any thing which disturbs this Providential arrangement of society, is like the stopping of the circulation of the blood in the human frame, and produces a feverish state of affairs. It destroys confidence between men in trade, and diminishes (if it does not entirely annihilate) many sources of employment, upon which the mass of the population are solely dependent. A sudden and unforeseen scarcity in the food produced in the United Kingdom, has at all times had this effect; and it arises from a variety of causes. From its being an absolute requisite to all, (for, whether they have the means to buy or not, the cravings of hunger must be satisfied in some way or other,) the consequence of any derangement which takes the supply out of its ordinary course is universal.

One of these causes is, that when the masses of the population have to pay more for their food, they are obliged

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to curtail their expenditure in those things which are less essential, such as articles of dress, and other comforts, which they would otherwise purchase. This, while it has a demoralizing effect, at the same time it throws out of occupation that portion of the population whose employment is dependent upon the demand for such things; and this portion includes every labouring individual in the country, excepting such as are exclusively agricultural.

The derangement causes at the same time a stagnation in the importation and sale of the raw materials used in the various manufactures, &c. All these things curtail the expenditure of the merchant as well as the master manufacturer, both as respects their luxuries, and their employment of the lower classes; by reducing the sources of enterprise and profit. Thus we have another diminution of labour. There is, in fact, a diminished demand for everything beyond the mere necessaries of life, and its effects, more or less, reach every one.

One of the usual effects of a large and unexpected demand for food, (and as it is most universal and disastrous in its operation, I propose to treat of it at length,) is a monetary panic in the country, and it is one which is easily traced, by those who are acquainted with business transactions, to that cause. When the nation is starving, or when there is a prospect of immediate scarcity, we are obliged to import an extraordinary quantity of food, and that in a limited period. There is no time for the usual deliberate movements of trade; food must be had, and nations, like individuals, when it is wanted in a hurry, must get it wherever it is to be found, in the greatest and most available quantities; and they must pay a price in proportion to the urgency of the requirement.

What is the effect of all this? Why, trade loses for the time every characteristic of reciprocity which it might otherwise have borne. The Foreign Exchanges, owing

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