142 History of the English Landed Interest. 



the free vent and exportation of corn, he would lower the 

 price of bread in France ; and that when once he had secured 

 an abundant supply of cheap food, he could then easily set 

 about encouraging native manufactures. But in a short while 

 the French nation was supplying all Europe with silks and 

 embroideries, while famine began to appear at shorter and 

 shorter intervals at home. Taxation increased, the margin of 

 cultivation expanded, and the price of corn rose rapidly. The 

 home markets began to be supplied with Dantzig wheat, the 

 native husbandman gave up farming in disgust, until the 

 State, becoming alarmed, reversed its unfortunate policy and 

 encouraged corn husbandry once more. Young had heard of 

 all this during his travels in France ; he had studied the 

 writings of French authors ; and he not unnaturally concluded 

 that, if all this distress had been occasioned by artificially 

 restricting the exportation of corn, considerable advantages 

 would be derived from an entirely opposite practice.^ 



Believing therefore, as he had asserted, that " Agriculture is 

 beyond all doubt the foundation of every other art, business, 

 or profession," and that " it has been the ideal poUcy of every 

 wise and prudent people to encourage it to the utmost " ; 

 and again that " Agriculture, that greatest of all manufactures, 

 ought to flourish to the full cultivation of the land, before 

 what we commonly call manufactures take place as articles 

 of trade and commerce ; and after cultivation is at its height, 

 those manufactures ought first to be encouraged which work 

 upon materials of our own growth ; and last of all those which 

 employ foreign materials ; " he embarked upon a controversy 

 with the mercantilist school of economic thought, in which 

 he was severely worsted. For Young, as a theorist, was 

 very deficient, notwithstanding that his immense practical 

 knowledge occasionally gave him a momentary advantage. 



Let us, however, follow him in one of these arguments with 

 the Manufacturing Interest, if only for the sake of seeing the 

 other side of the question.^ 



This, as it presented itself to the opposite party, may be stated 



» Farmer's Letters, p. 28. ^ Id. Ibid. 



