49 



ratively, upon the necessaries, and so little upon 

 the comforts, or the luxuries of life." The labourer 

 in husbandry is interested in having corn as cheap 

 as a free trade would make it, if, when corn is so 

 cheapened, there would be the same demand for 

 \ his labour, and he can obtain employment on as 

 good terms as before. JBoit would there be the >. 

 same demand for agricultural labour when corn is 

 partly supplied from foreign independent countries, 

 and not from our own soil ? And would the hus- 

 bandman be able to obtain the same wages as 

 before? Certainly not. If the demand for corn 

 of home growth falls off, and the price of it falls 

 ] too, which would be the case under a system of 

 free trade, the demand for this labour falls off, and 

 the value of it falls too, because the rate of the 

 wages of the agricultural labourer is influenced by 

 the demand for corn ; because it is both the chief 

 commodity which his labour produces, and the 

 chief article of his subsistence. And not only 

 would the rate of the wages of the employed la- 

 bourer be lower, but thousands of labourers would 

 be entirely thrown out of employment, in conse- 

 quence of the poorer soils being, as almost all the 

 advocates for the abolition of the Corn Laws admit, 

 thrown out of cultivation, and the field for the 

 employment of labour abridged. Therefore, the 

 labourers in husbandry would be severe sufferers 

 by a free trade in corn. 



The effects on the labourers in husbandry would 

 be very different if corn were cheaper, from an in- 



E 



