88 



pence. Nor does Mr Young's plan of raising potatoes on th 

 new grounds, in the least alter the question ; for as the consump- 

 tion is transferred from wheat to potatoes, the demand for wheat 

 will be lessened, the price will fall, and its culture be diminished, 

 as effectually, and to the same extent, as if the new produce had 

 been wheat itself. By no such plan of forced encouragement 

 can the quantity of subsistence be increased ; because, even if the 

 plan succeed, in forcing a new production, it will equally dimi- 

 nish the old, and even in a greater proportion than it adds to the 

 new. 



Mr Young, when under a rery unnecessary and premature 

 alarm on the state of our importation a few months qgo, renewed 

 his exhortations to increasing home produce, in a letter published 

 in Cobbett's Register of March 5th, in which he speaks as if the 

 existence of the people of Britain depended wholly on the stores 

 from the Baltic ; and as if the want of supplies from thence, fora 

 single season, would actually starve this country. The probability 

 of this consequence I have considered elsewhere ; but supposing 

 that, in conformity with his advice, a large produce could have 

 been immediately raised from waste or grass lands, it seems clear 

 that this, for the next season, would occasion a glut of corn in 

 the home market, exactly in the same way as the stoppage of the 

 distillery, which would reduce the farmers to retrench their for- 

 mer cultivation to the amount of the new produce, or the pro- 

 duce usually distilled. In the same way, the temporary supply 

 occasioned by this forced production, would be no belter than 

 the temporary supply occasioned by stopping the distillery ; 

 whoever, therefore, urged the one as an immediate or temporary 

 resource, cannot consistently oppose the other. Both equally 

 lead to a transitory supply, and an ultimate discouragement to 

 agriculture. But though both are equally wrong in principle, 

 they are not equally so in practice ; for one of them fortunately 

 (the forced production) cannot be carried into effect ; the other 

 (the forced repression) unfortunately can. 



Mr Young will not, however, I imagine, have recourse to this 

 argument, or defend his plan on the score of its being impracti- 

 cable, and therefore harmless ; consequently, when the Commit- 

 tee press him on the subject of his proposal, 1 think ho is re- 

 duced to a complete dilemma. Supposing the terrible failure of 

 foreign supplies to take place next year, which both he and the 

 Committee are agreed upon, he is a-kcd what will be the difference 

 between increasing the immediate supplies by a forced produc- 

 tion, and increasing them by the forced retrenchment of distilla- 

 tion ? lie replies, that the culture of tca*fes zcifl not much affect 

 the groicth of barley. But what is this to the purpose in reard 

 to a proTision ageinst scarcity, and for replacing the deficient 



