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apparent starvation, there is very great want and desti- 

 tution, (owing to the extremely high prices of food,) which 

 have caused an enormous increase in the mortality. 



The advantages of an even supply of food, and as a 

 natural consequence, of evenness in its price, are self- 

 evident. The labouring population form by far the largest 

 proportion of the consumers ; and their wages and re- 

 sources, from a variety of causes (some of which may 

 be afterwards mentioned), instead of incj easing with the 

 cost of the necessaries of life, on the contrary, decrease. 

 This, as a matter of course, makes the extra cost the 

 greater burthen, if it does not altogether incapacitate them 

 from purchasing. If you diminish a man's earnings half, 

 and at the same time double the price of food, it is, as far 

 as he is concerned, equivalent to the price being quadrupled. 



AH, in a country like this, are more or less dependent 

 on one another; and when things are in a healthy state, 

 the employment caused by mutual wants creates a system 

 which almost deserves the name of self-supporting. Any 

 thing which disturbs this Providential arrangement of 

 society, is like the stopping of the circulation of the blood 

 in the human frame, and produces a feverish state of 

 affairs. It destroys confidence between men in trade, 

 and diminishes (if it does not entirely annihilate) many 

 sources of employment, upon which the mass of the popu- 

 lation are solely dependent. A sudden and unforeseen 

 scarcity in the food produced in the United Kingdom, has 

 at all times had this effect; and it arises from a variety of 

 causes. From its being an absolute requisite to all, (for, 

 whether they have the means to buy or not, the cravings 

 of hunger must be satisfied in some way or other,) the 

 consequence of any derangement which takes the supply 

 out of its ordinary course is universal. 



One of these causes is, that when the masses of the 

 population have to pay more for their food, they are obliged 



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