64 



to extend our produce at home. The failure of 

 foreign supplies may not be felt the next year, 

 but it may be felt the year after, or some future 

 year. If it be felt the next year, we have gained 

 little, for we might have resorted to the pre- 

 sent measure when we saw the proof of the fai- 

 lure in the rise of prices ; or rather, we might 

 have permitted the rise of prices to produce 

 the same effect naturally. But if the pressure 

 be delayed till some after year, the resource will 

 be lost, from our farmers having diminished their 

 cultivation, distrusting a market so uncertain as 

 the distillery becomes by such frequent inter- 

 ference. 



Indeed, in a general review of this subject of 

 our foreign supplies, I think we shall find it too' 

 insignificant materially to influence any branch 

 of our policy. When we consider the propor- 

 tion which the average importation of late years, 

 of 700,000 quarters of all sorts of grain, bears to 

 our demands, we need have little apprehension 

 of material suffering, were the whole of this 

 supply withdrawn for the next year. It appears 

 that, by the distilleries alone, 470,000 quarters 

 of barley are used in Britain^ which is only cal- 

 culated as one-sixteenth of the whole barley crop*. 

 Of course the brewery must consume a vast deal 



* This, together with the 311,000 qrs. used in the Irish distil, 

 lery, amounts to 781,000 qrs. which is 81,000 qrs. beyond the 

 average importation of all sorts of grain. 



