individuals. A very able and respectable writer, Mr. Thomas Davis, of Wiltshire, asserted, that the stock in hand was equal to six months' consumption. "If there was left of the old stock at harvest only enough for three months, (and I say there was double that quantity,) where is the cause for alarm ?"1

Other writers stated it at three months. But even this estimate, moderate as it is, when compared with the preceding one, will appear obviously, on a little consideration, to go beyond the truth.

In considering the quantity of the stock in hand at harvest as a resource against the scarcity to be apprehended from a scanty crop, one circumstance deserves attention, which has been frequently overlooked; that a certain stock in hand is absolutely necessary at that season of the year to supply the market till the new crop is ready for use. Mr. Young states this "as probably not less than one month's consumption of the whole kingdom." The only part, therefore, of the stock in hand, which can be supposed to come in aid of the deficient crop, is the excess of the old stock (if there was any such) above what is necessary and common; and consequently, if there existed at the harvest a stock equal to three months' consumption to form an object of commercial speculation, the whole stock then in hand must be understood to have been equal to four months' consumption. The probability of such a supposition is strongly opposed by the extent of capital which such commercial speculations would necessarily require.

About forty years ago, the number of wheat and rye consumers in England was estimated, by Mr. [Charles] Smith, (the very intelligent and accurate author of the Corn Tracts,) at

The consumers of barley and oats, at

Total,

4,638,000

1,362,000

6,000,000*

The whole population of England being then computed at

1 Quoted by Young, [Question of Scarcity, &c.,] p. 56.

* [Three Tracts on the Corn Trade, Supplement, Chap. IV. p. 185, ed. 1766.]

6,000,000. Since that time, the consumption of wheat in proportion to that of oats must have increased greatly; and the increase of population would appear to have been considerable. Mr. Young supposes it at present to amount to 10,000,000. His estimate is probably above the truth; but it is sufficiently accurate for the present argument. Of this number, Mr. Young supposes 8,000,000 at least to feed on wheat; and the other 2,000,000 to live on barley and oats. These numbers (he tells us) he fixes on, in order to avoid all charge of exaggeration; intimating, at the same time, that in his private opinion, the number of wheat eaters is in reality much greater, and that those who, in common times, live on barley and oats, are probably nearer to one than to two millions.

The annual consumption of wheat was estimated by the same gentleman (Mr. [C.] Smith,) from a careful collection and comparison of different authorities, at eight bushels per head, and that of oats at twenty-three; and the inquiries of subsequent writers seem abundantly to confirm the justness of his conclusion. Mr. Young supposes, therefore, that at present eight millions of people consume as many quarters of wheat.

In August 1799, the price of wheat (upon the average of England) was above nine shillings the bushel, or £3, 12s. the quarter. Two millions [of quarters] at that price come to £7,200,000-a capital which it is scarcely conceivable should be scattered over the country, ready to be applied to a speculation so hazardous in the issue. Indeed, we may venture to assert, that, in by much the greater part of the kingdom, no such speculations could be made by millers and mealmen, either in the way of keeping or of buying. The truth is, that the number of those who are tempted to speculate when prices are very high, is at all times so inconsiderable that it may be laid down as a general fact, that speculative hoarding is proportioned to cheapness. Such speculations, too, it must be remembered, when attempted so late as the month of August,

* [Ibid. Supplement, chap. v. pp. 198, 199, edition, 1766.]

have but a small sphere to act in; the quantity of corn in the whole kingdom then being small, and every part of it necessarily possessing a share of that small portion. As for farmers, a still more direct appeal to the evidence of the senses:-" Every person," says Young, "who is in the habit of travelling over England, knows perfectly well, that for one district where old wheat stacks abound in harvest, there are ten where you will look in vain for more than a few solitary ones in the hands of here and there a great farmer." The assertions to the contrary in the evidence brought before Parliament, come from individuals, who, living in parts of the kingdom where farms are generally large, (such as Wiltshire and Dorsetshire,) have absurdly extended the result of their local observations to the island at large. Such is the assertion of Mr. Davis of Wiltshire, that there was left, of the old stock, at harvest 1799, enough for six months' consumption,-although during that year the price had been ten shillings a quarter beyond the average, notwithstanding the importation of nearly half a million of quarters.1

Another circumstance which has frequently contributed to mislead individuals in their statements on this subject, is the business of thrashing wheat, which, in the neighbourhood of great towns where there is a regular demand for straw at all times, is often delayed till the spring and summer. The fact, however, undoubtedly is, that in by far the greater part of the kingdom (excepting in the case of the few farmers who are rich enough to speculate in price) wheat is thrashed during the course of the winter, when cattle thrive better on straw than they would do in spring. In winter 1799-1800, this must have been still more generally the case than in ordinary seasons, on account of the enormous price which straw yielded everywhere; which price (as Mr. Young has observed) must have operated, in addition to the high price of the grain, as a direct premium upon thrashing.

Of what happens in ordinary years a judgment may be formed from a fact which Mr. Young states with confidence; 1 Young, [Question of Scarcity, &c.] p. 56.

that in two years at least out of three, the summer price is higher than the winter,-a fact which is indeed no more than might have been expected a priori, from the prevalence of small farms in England, and from the necessity which small farmers are under, of carrying their corn early to market.

The following Table of the average prices for the year following the harvest of 1798, is extracted from Young,* and illustrates strongly the foregoing observations :

This Table (admitting it to be correct) affords a demonstration that the number of great farmers in England, and of individuals able to speculate in grain, far from being so great as to put it in their power, on an average of the kingdom, to raise the price immediately after a scanty crop beyond its just proportion, is by no means sufficient to counterbalance the effects produced by the abundant supply of the markets, arising from the necessities of the little farmers. The consequence is, that the people do not put themselves on short allowance so soon as they ought, (their consumption being always more or less regulated by the price,) and the evil increases as the year advances. It would, in truth, be incomparably greater than it now is, were it not for those who are * [Ibid.]

stigmatized with the odious name of Monopolizers, whose capitals enable them, to a certain extent, to equalize both price and consumption through the whole year, by withdrawing grain from the market when prices are low, and restoring it when prices are high. If the capital employed in such speculations was still greater, and divided among a greater number of capitalists, the remedy would be proportionally more complete.1

The Table just now exhibited deserves attention on another account, as it affords an additional argument to prove that the stock on hand at harvest 1799, has been, in general, greatly overrated. On a comparison between the average price of this year, and the average price of the twelve years preceding, it appears that the former was just ten shillings a quarter higher than the latter. After such a price, how is it conceivable that the stock on hand should have so far exceeded that which is found, in ordinary years, to exist at the same season ?

The great and rapid fall which has taken place lately in the prices of grain, (July 1800,) furnishes no argument against the foregoing conclusions. The unprecedented height to which prices had risen, drove the people to the use of substitutes for their ordinary food, and to measures of economy formerly unknown. The demand was, of course, proportionally slackened, and a reduction in the consumption sunk prices far below that level at which they must have kept if the habits of the people had continued the same as in ordinary years. If these habits had changed completely at an early period of the winter, prices could not have remained so long at the enormous height which they reached.

To these considerations must be added the immense and unexampled quantities of grain imported into the island, and

1 That occasional inconveniences and hardships may be felt in consequence of improper combinations among cornmerchants, (such as those which have been lately so loudly complained of in the London market,) cannot be denied; but the possibility of these combinaVOL. IX.

tions arises from the general prejudices against the Corn-trade, which keep it in the hands of a comparatively small number of speculators, who may be presumed, from the very circumstance of their engaging in it, not to regard character as their principal object.

I