WEALTH OF NATIONS. 165 



for a long course of years received a money income 

 higher than a free trade in grain might leave it. Hence 

 the difficulty of reducing that income, when all their 

 settlements, and all their mortgages, and all their other 

 time bargains, as well as the rents paid by their tenants 

 on existing leases, have been calculated and augmented 

 upon the foot of higher prices. The importance of the 

 landed interest to any country is not easily overrated. 

 Dr. Smith himself, on every occasion, puts it much higher 

 than that of any other of the great classes of the commu- 

 nity. In a form of government, and frame of society, such 

 as ours, it is to be carefully considered. The burthens 

 peculiar to the owners and cultivators of the soil are 

 likewise to be taken into the account. Not only do they 

 pay a heavy land tax, but still heavier county and parish 

 rates, amounting in all to between six and seven millions. 

 Supposing that the malt tax falls wholly on the consumer, 

 yet it certainly tends to discourage the cultivation of 

 barley very materially by diminishing its natural con- 

 sumption. Barley too, is the grain to which soils are 

 more universally adapted than to wheat ; and, independent 

 of the direct operation of the tax in discouraging its 

 growth for the sake of revenue, the regulations necessary 

 to prevent illicit distillation press severely on the grower 

 by preventing him from using grain to feed his cattle. 

 All these considerations made the late Mr. Ricardo, a 

 strong and unsparing advocate of free trade, propose a 

 permanent fixed duty on corn imported, as a compensa- 

 tion to the farmer, in respect of his being pressed by 

 burthens from which the foreign grower is free.* Hence, 



* The argument often so thoughtlessly employed by the wild 

 adversaries of the landed interest, that the poor rates fall on houses, 



