Consumption of Com in Great Britain, Sec. 307 



they would render essential service equally to the farmer, ihe tithe owner, and the 

 community. 



Mr. Malthus, on this subject, observes, " a tax in proportion to gross produce, 

 which in the case of capital laid out in improvement, is scarcely ever accompanied 

 with a proportional increase of clear gain, must necessarily impede, in a great de- 

 gree, the progress of cultivation. I am astonished that so obvious and easy a com- 

 mutation for tithes as a land-tax on improved rents has not been adopted; such a 

 tax would be paid by the same persons as before, only in a better form, and tlie 

 change would not be felt, except in the advantage that would accrue to all the 

 parties concerned, the landlord, the tenant, and the clergyman. Tithes undoubt- 

 edly operate as a high bounty on pasture, and a great discouragement to tillage, 

 which, in the present peculiar circumstances of the country, is a very great disad- 

 vantage." Thus far Mr. Malthus. 



N 



Bounty on Exportation, Corn Laws, Distilleries. 



Different opinions have prevailed upon the good or bad policy of a bounty on 

 the exportation of corn when below a certain price ; it has always been an unpo- 

 pular measure among the lower classes, who conceive, that by sending abroad this 

 article, they are deprived of the use of it, and the price raised at home, not consider- 

 ng that had not its growth been encouraged by the expectation of such exportation, 

 the quantity so exported might never have existed. Dr. Smith, in his Wealth of 

 Nations, disapproves of the bounty, yet admits that it had been attended with a 

 good eflect, and that a corn trade thus forced had been beneficial to the nation ; this 

 is a strong presumptive proof, that the measure was in itself wise and salutary. 

 Mr. Malthus says, " it was certainly a bold assertion in Dr. Smith to say, that the 

 fall in tiie price of corn must have happened in spite of the bounty, and could not 

 possibly have happened in consequence of it." Dr. Smith's mistake seems to have 

 been, in supposing the quantity grown not influenced or increased by the bounty, 

 which, if the case, such bounty were certainly unnecessary. If corn grew spon- 

 taneously, or was sure to^be grown in a given quantity, there would be no occasion 

 to encourage its export by a bounty; but as the growth of corn is a business of la- 

 bour, care, effort, energy, expence and capital, without certainty of profit, or ever 

 of being repaid expenccs, it must certainly be good policy to encourage its growthj 

 and without which, perhaps, a considerable surplus will seldom exist. 



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