[ 80 ] 
&¢ effect of this policy (he remarks) has been fuch, 
*¢ that the price of wheat has been very little higher, 
<¢ on an average of the laft twenty years, than itwas 
¢ on an average of the twenty laft years of the aft 
** century.” 
There was, indeed, a confiderable period in the 
laft century when not only wheat, but‘ all thedif- 
“¢ ferent forts of grain,”’ and eatable vegetables, fuch 
as potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbages, &c. were 
dearer.than they have been for great part of the pre- 
fent century. Even butcher’s:meat was dearer in 
the former part of the Jaft century, than it was as 
late asthe year 1764. The corn-laws could not 
operate upon all thefe different articles, nor upon 
the different countries, to which the dearnefs ex- 
tended. For it is faid to have extended. to Scotland, 
before thevunion of ,the two kingdoms; that it was 
the fame in France; and Dr. SmirH adds, **:pro- 
“ bably in moft other parts of Europe.”* This 
general dearnefs, during part of the time, is fuppofed 
principally to have been owing to the badnefs of the 
feafons. Other caufes.arealfo affigned. ‘The civil 
wars, which difturbed the peaceable occupation of 
the hufbandman,.and, in this country, a degradation 
of the filver coin, by which the true value of corn 
could not be meafured and adjufted with the value 
of labour; ‘‘ a guinea then commonly exchanging 
* Wealth of Nations, pages 93, 95, and-189. P 
“c 
or 
