164 



Corn and Corn Products Trades 



continental towns, and shipping their corn thither.^ Here it was kept 

 for a year or so, until the prices in London and the outports rose above 

 the schedule whereat the ports were opened and importation allowed. 

 The above-paid exportation bounty was more than sufficient to pa}- 

 also this transportation charge. Thus a profit was realized from the 

 bounties in addition to the profits of the speculation or difference 

 between cost and selling price." This sort of trade was possibly ex- 

 tensive. Of the £274,141 average yearly export of corn from 1699 

 to 1710, £151,934 was shipped to Holland.^ About 1728 it was 

 said that "the Quantity of Corn, which in plentiful Years they (the 

 Dutch) import from England, is scarce to be computed . . . ; 

 in one Year there was shipt off mostly for Holland, in the Port of 

 Hull and the River Humber, above 200000 quarters of all Sorts of 

 Grain, and not much less the same year out of the County of Nor- 

 folk."* However, the importations of corn from 1697 to 1765 were 

 relatively negligible, averaging for the 69 years about 20,000 quarters 

 a year,^ only a part of which may be considered as having been stored 

 in Holland by English merchants according to the scheme of trade. 

 But in considering the volume of this trade it is to be remembered 

 that it was occasional with regard to re-importation into England, 

 and that re-exportation from Holland was more often to other than 

 English ports. 



The bounties thus increased the profits and the trade of the 

 merchant, but nevertheless very Hkely tended to defeat one of the 

 functions of ser\dce which the merchant ought to perform for society. 

 Undoubtedly the city of London was less ex'enly and steadily supplied 

 and at higher prices by this very roundabout route of supply. Prices 

 would have to rise a fixed amount before the port could be opened. 



^ 'Way for Enriching." 4; Coke. Discourse of Trade, 62; Dobbs, Essay on Trade, 

 II, 68-69. 



- Middleton, Middlesex, 560-61; "Thoughts on Pub. Reg. Gran.," 35 note. 



3 Davenant, Works, V, 424. 



•» Atlas Mar. et. Com., 115. 



'-' Nicholson, Com Laws, 31-32. The following table is made from data taken 

 from Prothero, Eng. Farm., 452: 



