91 



small matter, when compared with depending on 

 other countries for our existence. The effect of a 

 disruption in the one case, is not to be compared, in 

 point of vast and fearful importance, with the effect 

 of a disruption in the other." * " A population dis- 

 severed from their maintenance, are thrown adrift on 

 the wide world ; and with their dispersion there is a 

 corresponding decline of national strength and national 

 greatness. There is all the greatest difference in the 

 world between that commerce, the annihilation of 

 which would involve the loss, or rather, the change 

 of luxuries, and that commerce, the annihilation of 

 which would involve the loss of the first necessaries 

 of existence.". ...*("" If we depend for a large supply 

 of our food from other lands, we should at times be 

 exposed to a fearful calamity a calamity that might 

 be alleviated, but would not be averted, by the stored 

 and accumulated grain of former years, of which the 

 advocates on the side of liberty conceive that it might 



ever be in readiness for such an emergency." 



t( The evil of this dependence we hold to be far more 

 serious than most of the advocates for a free trade in 

 corn seem to allow. The dependence of a country, 

 to any great extent, for the subsistence of its popula- 

 tion on other and distant lands, we hold to be a fear- 

 ful element of insecurity and weakness." We should 

 depend upon other countries much more for their food 

 than they would do upon us for our manufactures ; 

 the dependence would not be reciprocal ; " they 

 cpu ld_d o w i tho u t our handiwork, but^we^ Qcuild-aot^ 



without their food7 T ~^an TTTJewise policy then to j 



* Dr. Chalmers, page 586. f Ditto, page 587. 



