59 



But even supposing, what will not happen, 

 that, by the rise of duty on importation, the 

 whole corn set free from the distillery is forced 

 on the common market, and displaces foreign 

 produce to that extent, so that the home grow- 

 er suffers nothing, and the general amount of 

 subsistence raised in the country remains the 

 same ; what happens in the case of a deficient 

 season? There is no fund fit for human subsis- 

 tence consumed in the distillery. The article used 

 there is sugar, which cannot on any necessity be 

 turned to such a purpose. In so far, therefore, 

 as that fund goes, the public is deprived of the 

 resource altogether. 



The way in which the British farmer will be 

 enabled (if ever) to displace the foreign grow- 

 er in the home market, and, perhaps, to turn 

 the scale of exportation the other way, is not by 

 giving him the vain encouragement of a boun- 

 ty : still less by forcibly closing any of the vents 

 to his produce, even if, to make amends, the fo- 

 reign grower is also repressed at the expence 

 of the public ; but by permitting him the free 

 disposal of his produce, protecting him in the 

 exercise of all his rights, removing obstructions 

 in his way, avoiding all further interference in 

 his concerns, and leaving him to the natural 

 competition of the market. 



I think it is then pretty clearly made out, 

 that the effect of distilleries, in average years of 



