CHAPTER X. 



THE MAKING OF THE LAND. 



The policy of the State in having tried to check sheep farming 

 and promote corn husbandry is open to question ; for, admitting 

 that its laudable end was to increase the prosperity of the com- 

 munity, we must not forget that its primary object was to 

 raise prices in the home market, and that the means employed 

 was its offer of a bounty on exported corn. The legislature 

 made no secret of this, for the Statute Book itself records 

 " that the exportation of corn and grain into foreign parts 

 when the price thereof is at a low rate in this kingdom hath 

 been a great advantage, not only to the owner of land, but to 

 the trade of the kingdom in general." ^ 



It may have been that our wool trade had continued 

 to flourish in spite of legislation, and that our corn trade 

 had increased 07i accou7it of it ; but that the legislature 

 was entitled to all the credit of these successful results 

 was the confirmed opinion of many distinguished foreigners 

 of that day. In fact, the universal prosperity permeating 

 English agricultural circles had created an envious admiration 

 amongst the French, or at any rate amongst that section of 

 them who, as followers of Quesnai and the physiocratic school, 

 were interested in comparing their own disastrous agricultural 

 economy with ours. It was supposed that by making her 

 agriculture an object of commerce, England had increased her 

 national importance abroad ; and in 1757 a foreign author held 



' I have taken the lieadini; of this chapter from an expression of Lord 

 Cathcart's in l)is essay on Part I. of tliis work, which appeared in the 

 Journal of the E.A.S.E. for December, 1892. 



2 1 W. & M. c. 12. 



306 



