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the author of England and America does, that 

 if corn imported were so cheap that no corn 

 would be grown in England, that the condition of 

 the people would be so much improved that the 

 consumption of vegetables, animal food, cheese, 

 butter, milk, &c., would be immediately as great 

 as could be supplied from all the land now in cul- 

 tivation in Great Britain and Ireland, even sup- 

 posing all the land adapted to the growth of such 

 produce, is stating far too much. If such an im- 

 mediate effect were to take place, the skies must 

 pour down human beings with larger physical 

 capacities of consumption. The credulity in the 

 regenerating effects of a free corn trade, with some 

 of its advocates, is such, that no assertions are too 

 extravagant for them to make. The reduction in 

 the whole rental of the kingdom would not be so 

 great in consequence of the importation of cheap 

 corn produced entirely by British capital and 

 labour, directed by British skill, and employed on 

 land in British possession, because all the industri- 

 ous classes of the population, agricultural as well 

 as others, may be then actively engaged, and the 

 state of things may be so far prosperous, that the 

 demand for building and accommodation land may 

 increase, and also the demand for some particular 

 articles of produce which cannot be as cheaply 

 supplied from other parts of the world, and there- 

 fore the value of land adapted by natural and arti- 

 ficial circumstances for such purposes might not 

 be reduced, but still the general rental of the 



