168 ADAM SMITH. 



to be sufficiently important to counterbalance the argu- 

 ments against so great a deviation from all sound prin- 

 ciple as the payment of a portion out of the national 

 capital, for the purpose of drawing more of this capital 

 into one line of employment than would otherwise seek that 

 line. They have also considered that a reduction in the 

 price of agricultural produce is the ultimate effect of this 

 system. Dr. Anderson, the author of the true Theory 

 of Rent, (as far back as 1777,) and Mr. Malthus hold 

 these opinions. Others, again, who entirely agree in 

 Dr. Smith's opinion, dispute the reasons by which he 

 supports it. Thus Professor Maculloch has shown that 

 there is a fallacy in the assumption of the real value of 

 corn being unalterable as Dr. Smith supposes, (Cora 

 Laws, ' Encyclopaedia Brit/ VII. 347.) And Mr. Homer, 

 in a most able paper in the 'Edinburgh Review' (V. 

 199), shows that Dr. Smith arrives at the conclusion of 

 the enhancement of price in the home market by a 

 wrong route, the enhancement being by him regarded as 

 the direct and inevitable effect of the bounty, and kept 

 separate, from its effect in extending the foreign demand, 

 whereas Mr. Homer shows, I think very clearly, that 

 the extension is the direct and main cause of the enhance- 

 ment, and that the bounty only operates incidentally in 

 this way. It is also to be observed that no reference 

 is made to the operation of the bounty upon the foreign 

 demand in the two first editions of the 'Wealth of 

 Nations/ It may be further mentioned that, some time 

 before the 'Wealth of Nations' was published, an act 

 had passed materially relaxing the bounty law of King 

 William. Of this alteration Dr. Smith remarks, that like 

 the laws of Solon, if not the best it was as good as the 



