202 History of the English Landed Interest. 



they encouraged it they raised them. They also recognised 

 that if they brought prices too low the rate of production de- 

 creased, and that if they got them too high the poor began to 

 suffer. Their principal object seems therefore now to have 

 been to strike a happy mean between these two extremes. 

 When, in 1698, wheat rises to 68.?. 4c?. per quarter, exportation 

 is prohibited and importation allowed.' When, in 1700, prices 

 are reduced, the bounty, which had been suspended for nine 

 months, is reinstated.^ When, in 1709, wheat gets up again to 

 78s. ^d.^ exportation is controlled by means of the license 

 system.^ Then ensues a period of thirty years, when the 

 State does not see fit to interfere. Next ten fine harvests, an 

 epizootic distemper, and the reclamation of wastes combine to 

 promote the cause of tillage. But in 1757 a cry of distress 

 goes up from the poor to Parliament which promptly stops 

 exportation and allows importation.* During the fifty years 

 terminating in 1763 there had only been five really bad 

 harvests. The average price of wheat was 34.$. Wd. the 

 quarter, and the annual yield in England and Wales was 

 about 3,800,000 quarters, out of which as much as 300,000 were 

 often available for exportation. Then ensued ten successive 

 bad harvests, during which the average price rose to 51s., 

 and the bounty of 5s. was often suspended. The internal corn 

 trade was enfranchised in 1772,' by the partial repeal of the law 

 of 1689 and the imposition of a nominal duty of 6c?. per quarter 

 on foreign wheat whenever the price in the home market ex- 

 ceeded 48s. When it dropped to 44s., exportation was pro- 

 hibited ; and though in the ten years from 1760 to 1769 the 



1 10 Will. III. c. 3. 



2 11 and 12 Will. III. c. 1. 



3 8 An. c. 2 and 11. 



* 30 Geo. II. c. 1. 



* Many regretted the repeal of the penalties against forestalling, en- 

 grossing, and regrating, on account of the damage done thereb3" to local 

 trade wherever there was a good market. The Preston authorities, by 

 maintaining a strict code of restrictions, managed to prolong the old 

 economj', and neither regrating nor forestalling was possible, a circum- 

 stance which rendered this market at the beginning of the present century 

 the best in Euuland. — Tra;'»er"s Tour, vol. ii. p. 136. 



