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creased dependence on foreign supplies, have 

 proposed, as the means of preventing this evil, 

 a bounty on the export of corn ; thus endea- 

 vouring, for the encouragement of the farmer, 

 to force a vent for his produce which did not 

 exist of itself. That author must be a little 

 surprised to see persons, professing the same 

 opinion with him, endeavouring to attain the 

 same end by stopping up a vent for home pro- 

 duce in the suspension of distilleries. I am 

 far from approving of the first of those mea- 

 sures, because I think it, as commonly applied, 

 ineffectual toward either encouraging home pro- 

 duce, or diminishing importation ; and, if rais- 

 ed, so absurdly high as to produce a temporary 

 effect that way, would be pernicious. The same 

 objections stated in last section to the attempt 

 of forcing cultivation, in the view of increasing 

 produce, apply to the attempt to force culti- 

 vation or export, in the view of diminishing 

 importation. I think the evil of importation 

 is not such as to require any remedy, and, if 

 it did, that the remedy proposed would not cure 

 the evil. But, certainly, on the principles of 

 those who hold the necessity of forcible means 

 to diminish importation, the plan of a bounty 

 on production or export, a direct encourage- 

 ment to home produce, seems more feasible 

 than the stoppage of the distillery, a direct 



