Ch. xii. Restrictions wpon Iirvportation. 191 



posing them to have been really attained) had 

 been very dearly purchased by a long period of 

 retrograde movements and misery. 



If then a country be of such a size that it may 

 fairly be expected finally to supply its ow^n popu- 

 lation with food ; if the population which it can 

 thus support from its own resources in land be 

 such as to enable it to maintain its rank and power 

 among other nations ; and further, if there be 

 reason to fear not only the final withdrawing of 

 foreign corn used for a certain time, which might 

 be a distant event, but the immediate effects that 

 attend a great predominance of a manufacturing 

 population, such as increased unhealthiness, in- 

 creased turbulence, increased fluctuations in the 

 price of corn, and increased variableness in the 

 wages of labour; it may not appear impolitic arti- 

 ficially to maintain a more equal balance between 

 the agricultural and commercial classes by restrict- 

 ing the importation of foreign corn, and making- 

 agriculture keep pace with manufactures. 



Thirdly, if a country be possessed of such a soil 

 and climate, that the variations in its annual growth 

 of corn are less than in most other countries, this 

 may be an additional reason for admitting the 

 policy of restricting the importation of foreign 

 corn. Countries are very different in the degree 

 of variableness to which their annual supplies are 

 subject ; and though it is unquestionably true that 

 if all were nearly equal in this respect, and the 

 trade in corn really free, the steadiness of price in 

 a particular state would increase with an increase 



