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order were easily distinguished; he frankly acknowledged his 

 mistake. Nor do I attribute to our merchants in general 

 any intention of palming upon the public a spurious article. 

 The foreigners are the impostors ; the English the dupes. But 

 will British agriculturists any longer expend their millions with 

 foreigners? Already the effects of the tariff and of the corn - 

 law are felt in the reduction of the price of meat and of barley. 

 Now every farmer who fattens his cattle with foreign cake, in- 

 directly becomes himself an importer, and contributes directly 

 to reduce the price of those articles ; for all the meat raised 

 from the use of cake might have been produced from his own 

 com, the supply at market lessened, and a consequent higher 

 price obtained for that sold. Hence we may reasonably account 

 for the low price of barley, the high price of oil-cake, and the 

 unprofitable returns for grazing. The reason assigned for the 

 low price of barley was an immense supply beyond the demand. 

 A precisely opposite reason was assigned for the high price of 

 oil-cake, for the demand exceeded the supply. At one time the 

 farmer had, I believe, to accept from lOZ. to 12/. per last for his 

 barley, and to pay from lOZ. to 12/. per ton for cake. There- 

 fore the cost of a ton of cake was the price of twenty coombs of 

 barley ; and we are entitled to assume that, for every ton of 

 cake consumed, twenty coombs of barley were forced upon the 

 market, which would have afforded upon the principle I have 

 laid down six tons and a half of compound. To form some idea 

 of the gross amount of barley that might have been consumed 

 instead of cake, we have merely to suppose that fifty thousand 

 tons were imported ; now, as twenty coombs of barley were only 

 equal to one ton of cake, fifty thousand tons of cake were equal 

 to twenty times fifty thousand, or one million coombs of barley ; 

 therefore, as twenty coombs of barley will make six tons and a half 

 of compound, a million would have afforded three hundred and 

 twenty-five thousand tons, all of which I calculate would have been 

 a clear saving, and returned to the pocket in the sale of meat ; 

 because if one-sixth of the barley sent to market last year had 

 been withheld and made into compound, the probability is 

 that, consequent on a short supply, the price would have ad- 

 vanced 3*. per coomb, and the remaining five parts realised 

 something more than the whole six — that is to say, as sixty 



