78 



the farmer would change his system of culture, 

 and endeavour to push a steady market some 

 other way *. 



Neither does the palliative of lodging a dis- 

 cretionary power with the King in Council, to 

 permit the distillation of grain, at all remedy this 

 fundamental objection. It only introduces the 

 principle of interference and fluctuation into 

 that market still more completely than hefore. 



Indeed, a moment's rejection must convince 

 us that this argument, of the measure heing hut 

 temporary, is one which must apply always 

 when the same thing is in agitation. No civi- 

 lized nation, I suppose, ever enacted that the 

 distilling of corn should always he illegal.^ Even 

 France, who has been so justly censured for 

 her weak policy, in regard to the corn trade, 

 did not prohibit export at alt times. Her error 

 only lay in resorting to that measure too light- 

 ly and frequently, and in listening to the vain 

 alarms of future want, upon every trifling rise 

 of prices. It was from this fluctuating system, ra- 

 ther than from permanent discouragement, that 

 her agriculture suffered. But with all her folly, 

 I doubt if she ever resorted to the prohibition 

 of export, when not in force, as we are now 

 called upon to suspend the distillery, at a time 



* " It is," says Mr Wakefield, " the bane of a farmer to be 

 f { drneu out of his natural course." App. to Rep. p. 113, 



