174 Of Corn-Laws. Bk. iii. 



great weight to the owners of land, will not influ- 

 ence the farmers beyond the present leases. At 

 the expiration of a lease, any particular advantage 

 which a farmer had received from a favourable 

 proportion between the price of corn and of la- 

 bour would be taken from him, and any disad- 

 vantage from an unfavourable proportion be made 

 up to him. The sole cause which would deter- 

 mine the proportion of capital employed in agri- 

 culture, would be the extent of the effectual 

 demand for corn; and if the bounty had really 

 enlarged this demand, which it certainly would 

 have done, it is impossible to suppose that more 

 capital would not be employed upon the land. 



When Adam Smith says that the nature of 

 things has stamped upon corn a real value, which 

 cannot be altered by merely altering the money 

 price, and that no bounty upon exportation, no 

 monopoly of the home market, can raise that 

 value, nor the freest competition lower it, it is 

 obvious that he changes the question from the 

 profits of the growers of corn, or of the pro- 

 prietors of the land, to the physical value of 

 corn itself. I certainly do not mean to say that 

 the bounty alters the physical value of corn, and 

 makes a bushel of it support equally well a 

 greater number of labourers than it did before ; 

 but I certainly do mean to say that the bounty 

 to the British cultivator does, in the actual state 

 of things, really increase the demand for British 

 corn, and thus encourage him to sow more than 

 he otherwise would do, and enables him in con- 



