44 



iagea, he would have ihe advantages of a natural course oS 

 things. But not so in the actual state of things, in which 

 a high comparative price (comparative as to neighbouring 

 nations) for the quarter of wheat, in good seasons, does not 

 adequately sustain the farmer. The high price, in the 

 British market, strongly excites and stimulates the Foreign 

 merchant: vast masses of grain are brought into British 

 ports, in the anticipation of its admission into the British 

 market ; the difterence between the price at which wheat 

 can be imported, and the price which the British market 

 yields, is a strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to store 

 the British granaries with Foreign corn, upon the chance of 

 its admission into the market. The Foreign granaries may 

 at the same time be well supplied, under the like expecta- 

 tion. On the instant that the effect of the domestic cala- 

 mity of a bad harvest, shall have been so felt as to have 

 carried the periodical average to the price of 80s.' per 

 quarter, the farmer, so far from finding an alleviation of 

 the misfortune of a short crop in an increase of price, 

 might, by the large and instant supplies of Foreign grain 

 thrown into the great maritime markets of the kingdom, 

 particularly London, find, that although the price of 8O5. 

 had caused the ports to " open," the " opening of the 

 ports" had again reduced the market price of wheat. Had 

 the ports opened this season, ' it is believed that half a mil- 

 lion of quarters of Foreign wheat would have been released 

 from the British granary. Whatever proportion half a 

 millicm of quarters of wheat may bear to a year's consump- 

 tion, the effect upon the market price cannot be measured by 

 regard to that particular only : it may fairly be presumed 

 that a large and concentrated supply would have an effect 



' Autumn 1821. 



