260 THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS 



balanced the loss sustained in years of abundance by the inter- 

 ference with natural cheapness, and were a set off to the loss 

 of the six million pounds, 1 which, between 1697 and 1765, 

 were raised by taxation, and in the shape of bounties paid over to 

 producers. 



The fiscal policy on which the Government embarked in 1689 

 practically governed the corn trade down to 1815. Scales of regu- 

 lating prices were often revised ; but the principles remained the 

 same. On one side, the import of foreign corn was in ordinary 

 years practically prohibited by heavy duties. On the other side, 

 home production was artificially stimulated in order that a larger 

 area might be maintained under corn cultivation than was required 

 in average seasons for the maintenance of the population. In the 

 125 years during which this system prevailed, two periods may be 

 distinguished ; the first lasting from 1689 to 1765, the second 

 extending from 1765 to 1815. 



In considering the results of the fiscal policy of the Government 

 during the first of these two periods, it must be remembered that 

 both sets of laws were in operation at the same time. When prices 

 were below a certain level, foreign imports were practically pro- 

 hibited, exports of home-grown corn permitted, and the quantity of 

 production stimulated by bounties. When home prices rose above 

 a certain level, the bounties ceased, exports were prohibited, and 

 imports of foreign grain admitted duty free or at reduced rates. 

 It is, therefore, not easy to decide, whether consumers gained most 

 by the laws which kept corn in the country, or lost most by those 

 which kept it out. In the twentieth century, when there is a large 

 additional or alternative supply of grain, produced under different 

 climatic conditions to our own, there could be no question that the 

 loss inflicted by the prohibition of imports would be incomparably 

 the greatest. But the conditions of the corn-markets of the world 

 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were so widely different, 

 that the policy of the Government may not then have been unreason- 

 able. Additional supplies were only obtainable from Northern 

 Europe. But the north of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, 

 North-west Germany, and, to a less extent, North-east Germany and 

 Poland, were affected by similar climatic conditions to those of 

 England. Thus in unfavourable seasons the whole corn-area then 



1 See Appendix III.,E. for the bounties paid in the years 1697-1765 on exports 

 of grain under the Act of 1 William and Mary, c. 12. 



