176 Of Corn-Lows. Bk. iii. 



attained except by previously increasing the pro- 

 fits of these dealers, and thus determining a greater 

 quantity of capital to this particular employment. 

 The ship-owners and sailors of Great Britain 

 do not make greater profits now than they did 

 before the Navigation Act ; but the object of the 

 nation was not to increase the profits of ship- 

 owners and sailors, but the quantity of shipping 

 and seamen; and this could not be done but by a 

 law, which, by increasing the demand for them, 

 raised the profits of the capital before employed 

 in this way, and determined a greater quantity to 

 flow into the same channel. The object of a na- 

 tion in the establishment of a bounty is, not to 

 increase the profits of the farmers or the rents of 

 the landlords, but to determine a greater quantity 

 of the national capital to the land, and conse- 

 quently to increase supply; and though, in the 

 case of an advance in the price of corn from an 

 increased demand, the rise of wages, the rise of 

 rents, and the fall of silver tend, in some degree, 

 to obscure our view of the subject; yet we cannot 

 refuse to acknowledge that the real price of corn 

 varies during periods sufficiently long to affect 

 the determination of capital, or we shall be re- 

 duced to the dilemma of owning that no possible 

 degree of demand can encourage the growth of 

 corn. 



It must be allowed then that the peculiar argu- 

 ment relating to the nature of corn brought for- 

 ward by Adam Smith upon this occasion cannot 

 be maintained, and that a bounty upon the expor- 



