time the ports remain shut, will be the degree of accumulation, and the depression of price to the foreign grower; and, on the other hand, the knowledge and dread of that accumulation, and of its violent influx on the opening of the ports, keep down the price of the English market below the opening limits. Thus, the foreign farmer, who cannot afford to hold his grain, is no less a sufferer by the Act, than the English farmer; and the speculator, with all the hazard he runs, is the only gainer.

The rate at which the foreign grower now sells his corn, rather than keep it in hand, is a clear proof that it would equally come into the English market loaded with the proposed duty, as it would do if there were no duty. The duty would leave him an equal profit as the English farmer; the duty would be kept and circulated within the kingdom. The single difference of there being a duty, and no duty, would be, that in the one case its amount would be circulated here, in the other it would gratuitously go into the pockets of the foreign grower, and be circulated in the country in which he resides.

If this view is correct, it will follow :

1st. That the Corn Act itself has been, and is, a principal cause of the existing distress.

2nd. That its total repeal would be preferable to its continuance.

3rd. That if repealed, the probable consequence would be, that the price of English and foreign grain would find an equilibrium, which, though bearing hard on the English grower, would still leave a living price; while it would yield enormous profit to the foreign farmer.

4th. That if the proposed duty were imposed, the foreign grain would equally find its way into the English market, but not in such overwhelming quantities; because, loaded with the duty, it would still yield the grower a profit equal to that of the English farmer; and the duty would be clear gain to the revenue and the country.

5th. That the total repeal, or the imposition of the proposed duty, would equally put an end to the violent fluctuations, and sudden influxes, to which the alternate shutting and opening of the ports give rise; and, as the price of the English market would be that of the foreign eorn, the English merchants would have no temptation to hold that in store in preference to English corn, and consequently their capitals would be employed and circulated, to a great degree, if not wholly, on this instead of the other side of the

water.

The plain result, therefore, of all these considerations appears to be, that the expedient best adapted to restore agriculture to its

proper condition, without hazard of any injurious consequence to trade or the general welfare, is, the repeal of the present Corn Law, and the throwing the ports permanently open to the importation of foreign produce of all kinds, subject to such a duty as shall leave to the foreign farmer an equal profit to that enjoyed by the English farmer; placing them on a level, in the cost at which they would bring their corn into the market.

REMARKS

ON

SOME PASSAGES IN SCRIPTURE

RELATING TO

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE;

WITH REFERENCE TO THE PAMPHLET UNDER THAT TITLE IN NO. XXXIV.

"Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerit."

ORIGINAL.

LONDON:

FURTHER

REMARKS

ON

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

AT first sight there is the appearance of discordance between the passages in the 5th and 19th of St. Matthew and the passages in St. Mark and St. Luke, respecting Divorce: the two former making an exception of fornication; the two latter making no such exception. But on an attentive consideration, the passages appear to be reconcileable with each other; and the inference to be drawn from all of them taken together is, that the contract of marriage is indissoluble. The proposition affirmed in the 5th of St. Matthew is, that "whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." In the 19th the proposition is, that "a husband putting away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, and marrying another, commits adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery."

In the 10th of St. Mark is the same affirmation, without the exception, but with the addition, that "if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery." In the 16th of St. Luke the affirmation is the same as in the 19th of St. Matthew, saving that there is no exception of the cause of fornication. The apparent difference of the passages is, that the two former seem to afford an inference that fornication is an allowable cause of divorce, and that in the latter it is forbidden absolutely without any exception. To understand the passages aright, it is necessary to observe, that our Saviour is not laying down or promulgating any new law, or abrogating or altering the existing Mosaic law; he merely points out and forewarns his hearers of the real crimes they would fall into by putting away their wives, which

the law in certain cases was supposed to allow. These crimes are enumerated in the several passages, and are as follow: viz.

1st. Causing the wife put away to commit adultery, i. e. by exposing her to the engaging in a second marriage.

2nd. The commitment of adultery by the husband himself by a second marriage.

3rd. The commitment of adultery by the second husband, in the marriage of the divorced woman.

4th. The adultery of a woman putting away her husband, and making a second marriage.1

There is still another party who may be drawn into adultery; viz. the second wife of the husband who is particeps criminis, or becomes an adultress. It is to be further remarked, that the crime is not described to be completed in the simply putting away, but in the second marriage of either party. The liberty of putting away is not expressly denied; but the use of it is condemned, as contrary to the original institution of marriage, and as leading and tempting to the commission of heinous crimes. Christ does not say, that whosoever putteth away his wife is guilty of a breach of the law; but that he exposes his wife and himself to the temptation to commit adultery in second marriages, and to draw others into the same crime. The question now arises upon the meaning of the exception, and how far it operates. As the proposition affirms, that whoever puts away his wife causes her to commit adultery, so the exception is a negation of it in the case excepted; and therefore the putting away a wife guilty of fornication, and marrying another, is not the commitment of adultery. How then are the passages containing the exception, to consist with those which make the affirmation without it, and therefore absolutely? Is not this a contradiction? Whether it is or not, depends on the construction of the word for nication.

That fornication must bear a distinct meaning from that of the word adultery, is obvious from what has been before observed It is a crime which married persons cannot commit; it is the illicit intercourse of unmarried persons; if either is married, it is adultery in both. From hence it necessarily follows, that if a wife has been guilty of foruication, the commitment of the fact must have been antecedent to the marriage. This would vitiate the marriage ab initio, for by the 22nd of Deuteronomy, 28, 29, if a man lay with a virgin not betrothed, she was to be his wife, and he might not put her away all his days; consequently, being the wife of the man who debauched her, she could not be the wife of the man to whom she

The liberty of a wife putting away an husband in any case, does not appear to have been allowed by any law in the Pentateuch. It probably was nevertheless practised under the authority of the Misna or the Talmud.