IV.

BOOK home market to increase the confumption, and to lower the price of that commodity. The corn bounty, it is to be obferved, as well as every other bounty upon exportation, impofes two different taxes upon the people; first, the tax which they are obliged to contribute, in order to pay the bounty; and fecondly, the tax which arifes from the advanced price of the commodity in the home market, and which, as the whole body of the people are purchasers of corn, muft, in this particular commodity, be paid by the whole body of the people. In this particular commodity, therefore, this fecond tax is by much the heaviest of the two. Let us fuppofe that, taking one year with another, the bounty of five fhillings upon the exportation of the quarter of wheat, raifes the price of that commodity in the home market only fixpence the bufhel, or four fhillings the quarter, higher than it otherways would have been in the actual ftate of the crop. Even upon this very moderate fuppofition, the great body of the people, over and above contributing the tax which pays the bounty of five fhillings upon every quarter of wheat exported, must pay another of four fhillings upon every quarter which they themfelves confume. But, according to the very wellinformed author of the tracts upon the corntrade, the average proportion of the corn exported to that confumed at home, is not more than that of one to thirty-one. For every five fhillings, therefore, which they contribute to the payment of the first tax, they must contribute fix

pounds

V.

pounds four fhillings to the payment of the CHA P. fecond. So very heavy a tax upon the firft neceffary of life, muft either reduce the fubfiftence of the labouring poor, or it muft occafion fome augmentation in their pecuniary wages, proportionable to that in the pecuniary price of their fubfiftence. So far as it operates in the one way, it must reduce the ability of the labouring poor to educate and bring up their children, and muft, so far, tend to restrain the population of the country. So far as it operates in the other, it muft reduce the ability of the employers of the poor, to employ fo great a number as they otherwife might do, and muft, so far, tend to reftrain the induftry of the country. The extraordinary exportation of corn, therefore, occafioned by the bounty, not only, in every particular year, diminishes the home, juft as much as it extends the foreign market and confumption, but, by reftraining the population and induftry of the country, its final tendency is to ftunt and restrain the gradual extenfion of the home market; and thereby, in the long run, rather to diminish, than to augment, the whole market and confumption of corn.

THIS enhancement of the money price of corn, however, it has been thought, by rendering that commodity more profitable to the farmer, muft neceffarily encourage its production.

I ANSWER, that this might be the cafe if the effect of the bounty was to raise the real price of corn, or to enable the farmer, with an equal quantity of it, to maintain a greater number

of

BOOK of labourers in the fame manner, whether liberal, IV. moderate, or fcanty, that other labourers are

commonly maintained in his neighbourhood. But neither the bounty, it is evident, nor any other human inftitution, can have any fuck effect. It is not the real, but the nominal price of corn, which can in any confiderable degree be affected by the bounty. And though the tax which that inftitution impofes upon the whole body of the people, may be very burdenfome to those who pay it, it is of very little advantage to those who receive it.

THE real effect of the bounty is not fo much to raise the real value of corn, as to degrade the real value of filver; or to make an equal quantity of it exchange for a fmaller quantity, not only of corn, but of all other home-made commodities for the money price of corn regulates that of all other home-made commodities.

Ir regulates the money price of labour, which muft always be fuch as to enable the labourer to purchase a quantity of corn fufficient to maintain him and his family either in the liberal, moderate, or fcanty manner in which the advancing, ftationary or declining circumstances of the fociety oblige his employers to maintain him.

Ir regulates the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, which, in every period of improvement, must bear a certain proportion to that of corn, though this proportion is different in different periods. It regulates, for example, the money price of grafs

and

V.

and hay, of butcher's meat, of horses, and the CHA P. maintenance of horses, of land carriage confequently, or of the greater part of the inland commerce of the country.

By regulating the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, it regulates that of the materials of almost all manufactures. By regulating the money price of labour, it regulates that of manufacturing art and industry. And by regulating both, it regulates that of the complete manufacture. The money price of labour, and of every thing that is the produce either of land or labour, must neceffarily either rife or fall in proportion to the money price of

corn.

THOUGH in Confequence of the bounty, therefore, the farmer should be enabled to fell his corn for four fhillings the bufhel inftead of three and fixpence, and to pay his landlord a money rent proportionable to this rife in the money price of his produce; yet if, in confequence of this rife in the price of corn, four fhillings will purchase no more home-made goods of any other kind than three and fixpence would have done before, neither the circumstances of the farmer, nor those of the landlord, will be much mended by this change. The farmer will not be able to cultivate much better: the landlord will not be able to live much better. In the purchase of foreign commodities this enhancement in the price of corn may give them fome little advantage. In that of home-made commodities it can give them none at all. And almoft the whole expence of

the

BOOK the farmer, and the far greater part even of that of the landlord, is in home-made commodities.

IV.

THAT degradation in the value of filver which is the effect of the fertility of the mines, and which operates equally, or very near equally, through the greater part of the commercial world, is a matter of very little confequence to any particular country. The consequent rise of all money prices, though it does not make thofe who receive them really richer, does not make them really poorer. A fervice of plate becomes really cheaper, and every thing else remains precisely of the fame real value as before.

BUT that degradation in the value of filver which, being the effect either of the peculiar fituation, or of the political inftitutions of a particular country, takes place only in that country, is a matter of very great consequence, which, far from tending to make any body really richer, tends to make every body really poorer. The rife in the money price of all commodities, which is in this cafe peculiar to that country, tends to difcourage more or lefs every fort of industry which is carried on within it, and to enable foreign nations, by furnishing almost all forts of goods for a fmaller quantity of filver than its own workmen can afford to do, to underfell them, not only in the foreign, but even in the home market.

It is the peculiar fituation of Spain and Portugal as proprietors of the mines, to be the diftributors of gold and filver to all the other countries of Europe. Thofe metals ought naturally,