156 On the Corn Laws. 



for 19s. per quarter, would be no adequate protection, because the 

 merchant not only buys the corn cheap, but may receive, 1. Advan- 

 tages from the state of the exchange ; and, 2. Mercantile profits on the 

 goods sent abroad, in return for the grain imported. He may there- 

 fore lose by the grain he imports to the ruin of the British farmer, (for 

 the effects of a small addition to a quantity already sufficient are well 

 known), but he may gain by the whole speculation, when he exports 

 goods, as well as imports grain. No attainable protecting duty there- 

 fore, can be effectual. Besides, if foreign grain were to be at all ad- 

 missible, the rate of admission is of little consequence ; for the pro- 

 prietors in poor countries, as Poland and Russia, who receive their 

 rents in kind, must sell it at any price it will fetch. 



But the most material objection to a fixed duty is this, that when 

 most wanted, it would not be enforced. If the price became very 

 high, no government would venture to exact a tax upon corn. The 

 payment of the duty would be suspended, though the entire ruin of 

 the farmer would result from it *. 



V. On the Necessity of energetic Exertions for the Protection of 

 Agriculture. 



There never was a country, placed in a more critical situation, than 

 the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, are at the present 

 moment. 



Those principles, by an adherence to which, the British empire 

 rose to a height of prosperity and power altogether unprecedented in 

 history, are in a great measure lost sight of; and new maxims are pro- 

 mulgated, which, if adopted, must inevitably terminate in its destruc- 

 tion. 



The national prosperity was founded, on the cultivation and im- 

 provement of an extensive territory, containing in all about seventy- 

 three millions of acres, producing all the necessaries, most of the more 

 essential requisites, and many of the luxuries of life, while it fur- 

 nished at the same time occupation and subsistence, to some millions 

 of a most valuable description of persons, who directed their attention 

 to the improvement of the soil, and spent their lives in carrying on 

 its cultivation. 



In 1831-2, a calculation was made by a laborious and intelligent 

 author, (William Marshall, Esq.), who has devoted himself to statistical 

 investigations, and who possesses peculiar advantages for making such 

 inquiries, from which it appears, that the inhabitants of Great Britain 



* It has been well observed, that a fixed duty upon the importation of fo- 

 reign corn, would be a mere delusion upon the British corn grower. The present 

 system is founded upon the principle, of affording to the farmer, a compensation 

 during years of abundance, for the loss which, in seasons of scarcity, he is 

 doomed to sustain, by the laws of nature and humanity. The project of super- 

 seding this system, by imposing a fixed duty, is a mere device, to deprive the 

 British corn grower of this equitable compensation, without giving him any 

 adequate equivalent. It would fail him in his utmost need, and place him in 

 a most invidious position, in relation to the rest of his fellow subjects. In- 

 deed the Government has been compelled, in times of scarcity, to grant a bounty 

 on importation. How then can A DUTY be enacted ? 



