all carried on by the same person, are in their own nature four separate and distinct trades. These are, first, the trade of the inland dealer; secondly, that of the merchant importer for home consumption; thirdly, that of the merchant exporter of home produce for foreign consumption; and, fourthly, that of the merchant carrier, or of the importer of corn for future exportation.

[SUBSECT. 1.]-Of the Inland Corn Trade.

Of the different branches of the Corn Trade, that which is carried on at home is incomparably the most important. According to the computation of the author of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade, [Charles Smith,] founded on a statement of imports and exports, during a long course of years prior to 1765, the proportion of the average quantity of all sorts of grain imported into Great Britain, to that of all sorts of grain consumed, does not exceed that of one to five hundred and seventy.

The average quantity of all sorts of grain exported from Great Britain does not, according to the same author, exceed the one and thirtieth part of the annual produce. Even in the highest year ever known, the year 1750, when the amount of the exports was 1,500,220 quarters, it did not exceed the seed onetwelfth part, supposing it one-tenth of the growth.1

These proportions, indeed, can by no means be relied on ast perfectly accurate; and, in general, as Mr. [Adam] Smith remarks, little stress ought to be laid on the results of what is commonly called Political Arithmetic. There can, however, be no doubt that the difference in point of extent between the foreign and the home trade in Corn is immense; and the numbers I have quoted may at least serve to convey an idea of the opinion. of a very judicious and well-informed writer on the subject.

That in the case of the inland trade of Corn, the accommodation of the whole community is most effectually consulted by 1 Pp. 144, 145. [Edition 1766.]

* [Wealth of Nations, Book IV. chap. v.; Vol. II. p. 310, tenth edition.]

permitting an unlimited liberty of transportation, appears from this, that even in years of the greatest scarcity, the interests. of the inland dealer, and of the great body of the people, must be one and the same. The truth of this principle, it must be owned, is not self-evident; on the contrary, it is very strongly opposed by popular prejudices. But this only proves how expedient it is for a wise Government, not only to sanction by law the liberty of this branch of commerce, but to employ the most vigorous measures to render it effectual, by protecting the just rights of individuals against those unenlightened descriptions of men, who, from a partial or mistaken view of their own interests, may be disposed to infringe them.

The interests of the inland dealer (it was just now said) and that of the great body of the people, how opposite, soever, they may at first sight appear, must be at all times, even in years of the greatest scarcity, exactly the same. In proof of this, it is sufficient to observe, that the most effectual way in which the dealer can in a year of scarcity serve the public, is by raising the price of his corn as high as the real scarcity of the season requires, without raising it beyond this limit; and that this is the general principle on which he will act to the best of his knowledge, we have complete security in that prudential regard which we may presume every trader has to his own emolument.

It is abundantly obvious, that in a year of scarcity it is the interest of the people that their daily, weekly, and monthly consumption should be proportioned as exactly as possible to the supply of the season; and for this purpose, what means so simple and infallible as those which the corn dealer naturally employs ? "Where the produce of an year," says Mr. Hume, "falls so far short as to afford full subsistence only for nine months, the only expedient for making it last all the twelve, is to raise the prices,-to put the people by that means on short allowance, and oblige them to save their food till a more plentiful season."

By raising the price, accordingly, the corn-dealer discourages the consumption, and puts everybody, more or less, but par

VOL. IX.

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ticularly the inferior ranks of people, upon plans of economy and good management; while, at the same time, his knowledge of the state of the crop, and of his daily, weekly, and monthly sales, enables him better than any other person to regulate the price according to the circumstances of the country. The conduct which is thus prescribed to him by his own interest, is very happily compared by Mr. Smith to that of the prudent master of a vessel, when, from an apprehension of a want of provisions, he puts his crew on short allowance.* Though, from an excess of caution, this may be sometimes done, both in the one case and the other, without any real necessity, yet the inconveniences which the parties concerned are likely thus to incur, are inconsiderable in comparison of the danger, misery, and ruin to which they might eventually be exposed by a less provident conduct. In the case of the corn-dealer, his own interest acts here as a most powerful check on those exorbitant demands which might be suggested by a more unenlightened avarice;-not only as he will naturally strive to diminish as much as he can that popular odium which is attached to his profession, but as he must be sensible of the hazard of having on his hands a quantity of corn at the end of the season, which he might be obliged to dispose of afterwards at a much greater disadvantage.

Were it possible indeed for one great company of merchants to possess themselves of the whole crop of an extensive country, Mr. Smith acknowledges that it might be their interest to deal with it as the Dutch are said to do with the spiceries of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw away a considerable part of it, in order to keep up the price of the rest. But it is scarce possible, even by the violence of law, to establish such an extensive monopoly with regard to corn; and whenever the law leaves the trade free, it is of all commodities the least liable to be engrossed or monopolized by the force of a few large capitals, which buy up the greater part of it. Not only its value far exceeds what the capitals of a few private men are capable of purchasing; but supposing they were capable of * [Wealth of Nations, Book IV. chap. v.; Vol. II. p. 292, tenth edition.]

purchasing it, the manner in which it is produced renders this purchase altogether impracticable. As in every civilized country it is the commodity of which the annual consumption is the greatest, so a greater quantity of industry is annually employed in producing corn than in producing any other commodity. When it first comes from the ground, too, it is necessarily divided among a greater number of owners than any other commodity; and these owners can never be collected into one place, like a number of independent manufacturers, but are necessarily scattered through all the various corners of the country. These first owners either immediately supply the consumers in their own neighbourhood, or they supply other inland dealers who supply those consumers. The inland dealers in corn, therefore, including both the farmer and the baker, are necessarily more numerous than the dealers in any other commodity, and their dispersed situation renders it altogether impossible for them to enter into a general combination. If, in a year of scarcity, therefore, any of them should find that he had a good deal more corn upon hand than, at the current price he could hope to dispose of before the end of the season, he would never think of keeping up this price to his own loss, and to the sole benefit of his rivals and competitors, but would immediately lower it, in order to get rid of his corn before the new crop began to come in. The same motives, the same interests, which would thus regulate the conduct of any one dealer, would regulate that of every other, and oblige them all to sell their corn at the price, which, according to the best of their judgment, was most suitable to the scarcity or plenty of the season.

With respect to the dearths and the famines which, during the course of the last three centuries, have occasionally afflicted the different countries of Europe, Mr. Smith lays it down as a general proposition, "that a dearth never has arisen from any combination among the inland dealers in corn, nor from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned sometimes, perhaps, and in some particular places, by the waste of war, but in by far the greater number of cases by the actual failure of the crops in consequence of the badness of the season; and that a

famine has never arisen from any other cause than the violence of Government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconveniences of a dearth."*

In an extensive corn country, between all the different parts of which there is a free commerce and communication, the scarcity occasioned by the most unfavourable seasons can hardly ever be so great as to produce a famine; and the scantiest crops, if managed with frugality and economy, will maintain through the year the same number of people that are commonly fed in a more affluent manner by one of moderate plenty. Not only does the weather differ widely, in most instances, in different parts of an extensive territory; but even when it does not, the mischief occasioned by excessive droughts, or excessive rains in lands which are naturally disposed to be too dry or too wet, is always compensated in some degree by the advantage gained in soils of an opposite description. "Lorsque les récoltes manquent en quelque lieu d'un grand Empire, les travaux du reste de ses provinces étant payés d'une heureuse fécondité, suffisent à la consommation de la totalité. Sans sollicitude de la part du gouvernement, sans magazins publics, par le seul effet d'une communication libre et facile on n'y connoit ni disette ni grande cherté." If this remark fails at all, it is in rice countries, where the crop not only requires a very moist soil, but where, in a certain period of its growing, it must be laid under water. It is in such countries, accordingly, that the effects of excessive drought are most severely felt.

When the Government, in order to remedy the inconveniences of a dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes a reasonable price, it either hinders them from bringing it to market, which may sometimes produce a famine even in the beginning of the season; or it encourages the people to consume it so fast as must necessarily produce a famine before the end of the season. The only effectual security against these evils is an unlimited liberty of the corn trade; and the only respect in which Goverment is called upon to in* [Ibid. p. 295.]

1 Théorie de Luxe, Tom. I. p. 5, quoted by Young in his France, p. 482.