tion of price increases manufactures and population, it must raise the price of other productions of the land, which cannot be imported from foreign countries, such as butcher meat, poultry, milk, grass, hay, and various other articles.

This position does not rest upon theory only; it is abundantly confirmed by experience.1 It is well known, that every district where manufactures are established, must import the means of subsistence from those where there are no manufactures. And yet it will be admitted that land gives a higher rent, and is better cultivated, and people live better and are richer in manufacturing districts than in the less populous parts of the country; that is, the advantages are on the side of the districts which import, not on those which export; and, in like manner, in Holland, which imports the means of subsistence from every quarter of the world, the land gives a higher rent, and is better cultivated, and the people, how precarious soever the foundation of their National wealth, are individually richer than in any country of Europe.**

The rise in the rent of land in manufacturing countries, and also in the neighbourhood of towns, is not owing to the rise of corn, which is the greatest article of the labourer's food, nor to the rise of wool, leather, wood, &c., which are the articles most needed for his clothing and conveniences. All these can be imported at a small expense; and none of them are much dearer in London, where they are all imported, than in the remote provinces. But the rise of rent, in the circumstances just stated, is owing to the demand for articles which it is impossible to import, and for some that cannot be imported but at a great expense, for milk, garden stuffs, hay, straw, grass, for riding and carriage horses, poultry, lamb, veal, &c. Most of these articles are used by the higher classes, and their high prices do not affect the poor. They add to the money income of the farmer and landlord, without occasioning any inconvenience to

1 Dawson's Thoughts, &c. See also Report of the Town-Council of Glasgow, [on the Corn Bill, 1791, pp. 7, 8,(both very confused on this head.)

[See Joseph Scaliger's Epigram, De Mirandis Batavia, supra, Political Economy, Vol. I. (Works, Vol. VIII.) p. 284.]

the labouring classes. And (on the supposition that a perfect freedom of importation were established) the same effect would be produced, in some degree, over the country at large, by that rise in various articles of rude produce, which would be a necessary consequence of thriving manufactures.

If a free importation of corn had been allowed from the first settling of America, it is difficult to say what effects it might not have produced on the population and wealth of Great Britain. The Americans would thus have been induced to cultivate more and more land, and to produce more and more food and materials for manufactures, to supply the wants of the increasing numbers of people that have no land at home. The restraints on importation, which in times of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, discourage the attempts of under-peopled countries to supply our deficiencies; for no cultivator will raise provisions for a market that may not be open for several years. Hence, even in America where land is so plentiful, they only cultivate so much as is necessary to supply the demand at home, and the common demand from Europe, but not for any extraordinary demand from such a nation as Britain, where the liberty of importation depends on contingencies which cannot be subjected to any calculation.

As I have made frequent references in the course of the foregoing argument to our own country, I ought perhaps to have taken an earlier opportunity of mentioning the state of our existing laws on the subject of importation. But I was unwilling to interrupt the general reasoning with local details; and it appeared to me more advisable to delay any historical statements that I had to offer with respect to particular systems of policy, till I had concluded what I had to say on the general principles by which they ought to be regulated. In the meantime, it may be proper to take notice of a few facts to which I have already had occasion to refer in the way of illustration, and of which a short statement may perhaps throw additional light on some of the preceding conclusions.

“ By the 22d of Charles II. c. 13, the importation of wheat, whenever the price in the home market did not exceed fifty

three shillings and fourpence the quarter, was subjected to a duty of sixteen shillings the quarter, and to a duty of eight shillings whenever the price did not exceed four pounds. The former of these two prices has, for more than a century past, taken place only in times of very great scarcity, and the latter has not taken place at all. Yet till wheat had risen above this latter price, it was by this statute subjected to a very high duty; and till it had risen to the former, to a duty which amounted to a prohibition. The importation of other sorts of grain was restrained by duties proportionally high.

"The distress which in years of scarcity the strict execution of this statute might have brought upon the people, would probably have been very great. But upon such occasions its execution was generally suspended by temporary statutes, which permitted, for a limited time, the importation of foreign corn. The necessity of these temporary statutes sufficiently demonstrated the impropriety of this general one."*

Notwithstanding, however, the inconsistency of this statute with the genuine principles of Political Economy, Mr. Smith acknowledges its necessity as a counterpart to the law which establishes a bounty on exportation. "If when wheat was either below forty-eight shillings the quarter, or not much above it, foreign corn could have been imported either duty free, or upon paying only a small duty, it might have been exported again with the benefit of the bounty, to the great loss of the public revenue, and to the entire perversion of the institution, of which the object was to extend the market for the home growth, not that for the growth of foreign countries." "The restraints on importation, indeed, were prior to the establishment of the bounty, but they were plainly dictated by the same spirit, and by the same principles which afterwards enacted that regulation."†

(Interpolation from Notes.)-It now only remains, before concluding this branch of our subject, to mention two miscel*[Wealth of Nations, Book IV. chap. v.; Vol. II. pp. 312, 313, tenth edition.] + [Ibid. p. 313.]

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.† 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.]