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laneous particulars connected with it, which could not properly be introduced sooner.

I before remarked, how very inconsiderable the trade of the importer, and indeed of all the departments of the commerce of corn is, when compared with that which circulates the home produce in an extensive agricultural country like ours. According to the author of the Corn Tracts, the average proportion of all kinds of grain imported to those consumed, did not, in this country, exceed that of 1 to 570; and the average quantity of all sorts of grain exported, did not exceed the one-and-thirtieth part of the annual produce, even in the highest year ever known, 1750, when the exports amounted to 1,500,220 quarters.* Since the publication, indeed, of that valuable work, the circumstances of this country have undergone very material changes. But still the quantities of grain imported, how astonishing soever in their comparative extent they may be, and however creditable to the commercial enterprise of this country, bear but a small proportion to the quantities required for consumption. Even in the year 1800, when our importations were made at an expense of £15,000,000, these did not, according to a computation of the national consumption published in the Farmers' Magazine, exceed one-sixth part of the whole supply; and according to the statements of Mr. Benjamin Bell,† did not exceed an eighteenth. And yet it is not many years since it was the general belief, that our importations had risen to a third or a fourth of the annual consumption, and in some instances even to a half. It may be worth while to add, that these estimates of our expenditure during the year 1801, turn out to be below its real amount; for it was expressly stated by Mr. Pitt, in arguing that the Bank of England ought to pay in specie, (7th February 1803,) that £20,000,000 sterling had been sent out of the country to purchase corn during the preceding scarcity.

The first writer who undeceived the public with regard to the amount of our importations, was the ingenious author of

* [Pp. 144, 145, edit. 1766.]

[See above, Political Economy, Vol. I. (Works, Vol. VIII) p. 202.]

the Corn Tracts, [1758, &c. ;] and much additional information on the same subject, brought up to the year 1801, may be found in the pamphlets published some time ago by Lord Sheffield and Sir Thomas Turton.t Inconsiderable, however, as our importations are, compared with the demands of our population, they afford the most striking illustration of the commercial resources of this country.

It appears from Sir Thomas Turton's pamphlet, that it was against this description of traders that the outcry was most violent during the time of the London disturbances; a memorable example of the inconsistencies and absurdities into which the multitude may be betrayed by ill-intentioned men when under the pressure of want. For a refutation of the prejudice, I refer to what Sir Thomas Turton has written with excellent good sense on the subject.

With respect to the countries from which these importations were obtained, I cannot now enter into any particulars. I shall just remark, therefore, that among the great granaries from which they are derived, the best are those of the North of Europe: Poland, Prussia, Russia, and Denmark, particularly the two former. A small quantity of corn, chiefly in the state of flour, was brought from Canada and the American States. With regard to the last of these, we are informed by Lord Sheffield, that part of the tobacco grounds in Virginia now produce wheat, but that Pennsylvania, which formerly raised a surplus for exportation, now grows hardly sufficient for its own consumption. We have but once imported grain from Africa; that was in the year 1796, when 30,000 quarters of corn were brought from the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. The quality of this grain was such, however, that great part of it is understood to have been re-exported. None has been imported from any part of the Mediterranean, in consequence of the regulations to prevent the introduction of the plague into this country.-(End of interpolation from Notes.)

[Remarks on the Deficiency of Grain occasioned by the Bad Harvest, 1799, 1800.]

[An Address to the Good Sense and Candour of the People in behalf of the Dealers in Corn, &c., 1800.]

[SUBSECT. III.] Of the Trade carried on by the Merchant Exporter of Corn for Foreign Consumption.

That this trade does not contribute directly to the plentiful supply of the home market is abundantly evident. Its influence, however, is not the less real, that the process by which it operates is indirect and circuitous.

The supply of the home market can never be plentiful, unless the surplus can, in all ordinary cases, be exported; a prohibition to export necessarily limiting the improvement and cultivation of the country, to what the consumption of its own inhabitants requires. The freedom of exportation enables it to extend cultivation for the supply of foreign nations.*

The effectual encouragement which a free exportation gives to agriculture, and of consequence its indirect tendency in process of time to reduce prices, are well illustrated by an anecdote mentioned by the author [Charles Smith] of the Three Corn Tracts, on the authority of a friend who was an eye-witness of the facts.1

"In Turkey, the Grand Vizier, about twenty or thirty years ago," the Corn Tracts, I believe, were first published [at London] in the year 1758,-" suffered a more general exportation of corn to be carried on, and more openly than any of his predecessors had done, insomuch that three hundred French vessels, from twenty to two hundred tons, were, on one day, seen to enter Smyrna Bay to load corn, and wheat was then sold for less than seventeenpence, English, a bushel, with all the expenses in putting the same on board, included.

"From these open proceedings the Janizaries and people took the alarm, pretending that all the corn was going to be exported, and that they, in consequence, must be starved; and in Constantinople grew so mutinous, that they could not be appeased till the Vizier was strangled, and his body thrown out to them.

*[Wealth of Nations, Book IV. chap. v.; Vol. II. p. 313, seq., tenth edition.]

1 P. 33.-[Lond. ed. 1766; p. 29, Edin. ed. 1758.]

"His successor took particular care not to split on the same rock, and would suffer no exportation at all; many of the farmers, who looked on the exportation as their greatest demand, neglected tillage, to save their rents, which in that country are paid either in kind, or in proportion to their crops, to such a degree, that in less than three years the same quantity of corn which, in time of export, sold for not quite seventeenpence, was worth more than six shillings, and the distresses of the people in Smyrna were such, that every bakehouse and magazine of corn was obliged to have a military guard, which took care that no one person should have more than a fixed quantity; and so strictly was this order observed, that an English ship, in the Turkey trade, was detained for sailing some time for want of bread.

"The ill consequences of these proceedings were not removed in many years, and to this day the fate of the Vizier, as an unfortunate good man, is lamented."

(Interpolation from Notes.)-In such small states as those of Italy or Switzerland, an unlimited exportation might perhaps be attended with danger, though even there it may be questioned whether this would be the case, were it not for the extraordinary demand from other countries, occasioned by their absurd regulations with respect to the Corn-trade. In such agricultural regions as Great Britain and France, exportation can never furnish a ground for any serious alarm. To a case of absolute necessity, indeed, if such case should ever occur, all other considerations must of course give way. But it is only in such a case that the statesman can have any apology to plead for violating that sacred principle of justice, which entitles the farmer, like any other merchant, to send his commodity to the most profitable market. In our own country, however, the general tendency of our regulations has plainly been to increase agriculture, by not only permitting exportation, but by rewarding it with a bounty when prices are low, checking, at the same time, the importation of corn by heavy duties; and, on the other hand, to prevent a scarcity, by prohi

biting exportation when prices are high, and allowing importation at an easy duty. Of our regulations on this subject, the last permanent one was that of 1791, by which the whole maritime part of England was divided into twelve districts, for the purpose of regulating the imports and exports of corn, and the various rates of duties; the maritime part of Scotland being in like manner divided into four districts, making in all sixteen. This statute further enacted, that the exportation and importation of corn at the port of London should be regulated by the prices at the Corn Exchange, and that an inspector of corn returns should be appointed.

Notwithstanding the strong and obvious objections to which these very complicated arrangements are liable, few legislative acts have received higher panegyrics from a particular description of writers than the Corn Act of 1791. "All the elaboration of diligence," says Mr. George Chalmers, (who, by the way, is understood to have had a chief share in preparing the statute,) "and all the wisdom of experience, were employed in forming this Corn Act."* And yet the same writer acknowledges in the last edition of his Political Estimate, that "a continued succession of unfavourable seasons had rendered nugatory its judicious enactments."†

Without entering into any statement of details on this particular subject, I shall mention only the very striking contrast which our policy of late presents to what it formerly was; forcing importation into an island from which exportation was so long rewarded with a premium. In consequence of a change in our national circumstances, which I shall not here stop to investigate, those considerations which influenced the Legislature at the period when the bounty was first established no longer exist; and the apprehensions lest our landed gentlemen and farmers should lose by a superabundant produce, have been converted into an alarm lest they should be undersold in our own markets by foreign farmers, cultivating their lands at a smaller expense. Though, however, this change of circumstances renders the laws relating to exportation of less interest + [Ibid.]

* [Political Estimate, Chap. xii. p. 264, edit. 1812.]

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