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."1 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.

terpose its authority, is to maintain and protect this liberty against those assaults to which it is so peculiarly liable from the prejudices and passions of the unenlightened multitude.

In truth, there is no branch of trade whatever which at once. deserves so much, and requires so much the protection of law; and there is hardly any of the interpositions of law which demand a greater degree of steadiness and vigour on the part of the magistrate. The general and the permanent interests of the community ought in this, as in all other cases, to be consulted in opposition to the suggestions of a more partial beneficence; and the temporary indignation and odium of the people disregarded, in order to establish a solid claim to their lasting gratitude.

In years of scarcity, those who attend only to the pressure of the present moment, are apt to impute their distress to the avarice of the corn merchant, who becomes, of course, the object of their resentment and hatred, and who is thereby exposed to the danger of having his magazines plundered and destroyed. It is in years of scarcity, however, when prices are high, that the corn merchant expects to make, and is entitled to make, his principal profit. He is generally in contract with some farmer to furnish him for a certain number of years with a certain quantity of corn at a certain price; a price which will be naturally settled according to the ordinary or average rate of the markets. In years of scarcity, therefore, the corn merchant buys a great portion of his corn for the ordinary price, and sells it for a much higher. That this extraordinary profit, however, is no more than sufficient to put his trade upon a fair level with other trades, and to compensate the many losses which he sustains upon other occasions, both from the perishable nature of the commodity itself, and from the frequent and unforeseen fluctations of its price, seems evident enough from this single circumstance, that great fortunes are as seldom made in this as in any other trade. On the contrary, in this as in the other branches of trade, which form the employment of the speculative merchant, bankruptcies are much more numerous than in those where the supply of the commodity can be

more accurately and uniformly adjusted to the demand. In consequence of this circumstance, added to the effects of popular prejudice, merchants of character and fortune are averse to enter into the Corn Trade, and abandon it to an inferior set of dealers, destitute of a sufficient capital to deserve the credit of the farmers, as well as of that liberality of mind, and those enlarged views of their own interests, which are commonly to be found in men accustomed to the operations of an extensive

commerce.

The prejudices which the lower ranks of men are apt to entertain in all countries, against a trade so peculiarly beneficial to themselves, instead of being discountenanced by the wisdom of law, were unfortunately encouraged and strengthened by those narrow maxims of Political Economy which influenced for a course of ages the policy of modern Europe. Of these maxims a leading one was, that the people would buy their corn cheaper of the farmer than of the corn merchant, who, it was supposed, would require over and above the price he paid to the farmer, an exorbitant profit to himself. It was thought expedient, accordingly, to hinder as much as possible, a middleman of any kind from coming in between the grower and the consumer.

Another circumstance too, it is probable, had some 'influence in dictating this policy. For many years after the Conquest, the greatest part of the inland trade of England was carried on in markets and fairs; all bargains of sale being prohibited excepting in public markets and in boroughs, in order to prevent theft. A very considerable part of the revenues of the Crown arose from the duties payable to the king upon the goods thus brought to sale, and similar duties were enacted by the barons on the goods sold at the fairs within their jurisdictions.1

When the farmers and merchants were bringing their corn and other necessaries, to be sold at the markets and fairs, people met them by the way, and purchased their provisions, in order to retail them at a higher price. By this means the 1 Hume, Vol. II. p. 126.-Dirom, p. 29.