Blackburn to be his opinion, that Jamaica at 

 least might supply itself*. 



THE whole argument treated in the two fore- 

 going Sections may then be summed up in the 

 following manner. 



In a course of years of average supply, whe- 

 ther entirely drawn from home produce, or 

 partly imported, the effect of distillation, like 

 that of every other natural and indefinite vent, 

 is to lead to a progressive increase of home 

 produce, followed, in the one case, by the ge- 

 neral extension of population and comfort, in 

 the other, by the progressive diminution of im- 

 port in the first place, and ultimately by the 

 same extension of population and comfort. If 

 the subsisting by importation, then, be consi- 

 dered as an evil, the distillery is still more in- 

 dispensible in a country where that prevails, 

 than in one which produces its own supplies ; 

 because the home cultivation has the more need 

 of encouragement, to enable it to contend with 

 the importation, and at length displace it. 



But the benefit of the distillery, and other 

 modes of superfluous consumption, though great 

 in ordinary years, cannot be fully appreciated 



till the recurrence of scarcity ; whether proceed- 







* App. to Rep. p. 23. 



