The Land and the Comuiunity. 141 



surplus produce obtained by their extra labour until the 

 multiplication of mouths required it for home consumption. 



When he had got the last acre of waste reclaimed, he would 

 be willing to devote any further multiplication of hands and 

 mouths to such industries as were confined to the manufacture 

 of native raw materials. But until that happy consummation 

 took place, his policy was to induce the farmer to extend his 

 area of wheat tillage by encouraging him to export corn ; and 

 he believed that, by thus getting him to sow more wheat than 

 was actually required for home consumption, he was precluding 

 all possibility of periodical famines, at the same time that he 

 was increasing the national income. He therefore not only 

 applauded the present practice of his rulers in granting 

 bounties on exported wheat, but urged them to bestow them 

 for the reclamation of the waste lands. In support of such 

 a theory he produced statistics showing that in sixty-eight 

 years the country had received upwards of £36,000,000 for her 

 exported corn, and at the same time had fed her inhabitants 

 cheaper by 9.s\ ?>d} per quarter than before the State encou- 

 raged exportation. From Young's particular standpoint such a 

 phenomenon could only be explained by the supposition that 

 the land reclaimed during this period had increased the 

 national supply of wheat so enormously that the amount sent 

 abroad (which he computed at only one bushel in twelve 

 produced)^ had never been able to affect prices in the 

 home markets. Until, therefore, not an unremunerative acre 

 remained in any corner of the United Kingdom to be fer- 

 tilised. Young elected to continue a champion of the bounty 

 system. 



But Young did not confine the advantages of the bounty 

 system to the agriculturist, for he sought to prove that it was 

 also advantageous to the community at large, including the 

 manufacturer. Colbert had imagined that by obstructing 



' Compare Thrte Tracts on the Corn Trade, p. 133, Charles Smith, 

 1766 ; Political Essays, sub voc. " Agriculture," p. 112, A. Young, 1772 ; 

 and Farmer^s Letters, No. 2, p. 60, 2nd ed., A. Young, 1768. 



- According to the statistics of Charles Smith quoted above, the propor- 

 tion was 1 to 19. Three Tracts on the Corn Laics, p. 144. 



