VALUE OP FOREIGN COMMERCE. 343 



It is at a season of scarcity that we feel the value of our 

 foreign commerce, and eagerly inquire whence we may most 

 speedily and safely obtain our supplies. At the same time 

 it must be remembered, that our grand supply is as a general 

 rule produced at home ; for in no case can a numerous peo- 

 ple, like that of the United Kingdom, be wholly or principally 

 dependent on the soil of other lands for support. This 

 might, perhaps, take place without much danger or incon- 

 venience in the case of a small state or colony, but not with 

 such a dense population as ours. For it is an ascertained 

 fact, that "to supj^y these islands with the single article of 

 wheat would call for the employment of twice the amount of 

 shipping which now annually enters our ports, if indeed it 

 would be possible to procure the grain from other countries in 

 sufficient quantity; and to bring to our shores every article of 

 agricultural produce in the abundance we now enjoy, would 

 probably give constant occupation to the mercantile navy of 

 the whole world." {Porter.) 



But while our grand dependence will always be on our own 

 resources, and on the advancing skill of our agricultural men, 

 who, by improved systems of tillage and drainage, have of late 

 years wonderfully increased the productiveness of the soil, yet 

 there are times when a concurrence of circumstances will 

 drive us to seek very extensive aid from other countries. The 

 deficient harvest of 1846, and the pressure occasioned by the 

 failure of the potato crop, produced in our own country and 

 among many of the continental nations severe calamities, and 

 great anxiety respecting the future. Through the mercy of 

 God, a favourable harvest followed ; but by the circumstance 

 of this scarcity we are naturally led to review the chief sources 

 we have been accustomed to look to for our foreign supplies 

 of corn, and to see how many of these remain available to us. 

 To begin then with Europe as the quarter from whence we 

 have obtained, until lately, nearly the whole of our foreign 

 supplies of corn. 



At the head of all the corn-shipping ports, not only of 

 Europe, but of the world, is Dantzic, situated on the left bank 

 of the Vistula, about three miles from the sea (the Baltic). 

 This is the prand emporium for the countries bordering the 

 Vistula, both in its passage through Poland, and through part 

 of Prussia. The soil in the neighbourhood of this river produces 

 luxuriant crops, and is in every respect highly fruitful; but 

 so extensive is the region from which com is brought, that in 

 seasons when there is a brisk demand, Daatzic is partly sup- 



