196 Of Corn- Laws. Bk. iii. 



tions in the supplies and prices of the northern 

 nations. They are, however, occasionally great, 

 as it is well known that some of these countries 

 are at times subject to very severe scarcities. 

 But the instances already produceci are sufficient 

 to shew, that a country which is advantageously 

 circumstanced with regard to the steadiness of its 

 home supplies may rather diminish than increase 

 this steadiness by uniting its interests with a 

 country less favourably circumstanced in this 

 respect ; and this steadiness will unquestionably 

 be still further diminished, if the country which is 

 the most variable in its supplies is allowed to 

 inundate the other with its crops when they are 

 abundant, while it reserves to itself the privilege 

 of retaining them in a period of slight scarcity, 

 when its commercial neighbour happens to be in 

 the greatest want.* 



3dly, if a nation be possessed of a territory, not 

 only of sufficient extent to maintain under its 

 actual cultivation a population adequate to a state 

 of the first rank, but of sufficient unexhausted fer- 

 tility to allow of a very great increase of popula- 

 tion, such a circumstance would of course make 

 the measure of restricting the importation of 

 foreign corn more applicable to it. 



A country which, though fertile and populous, 

 had been cultivated nearly to the utmost, would 

 have no other means of increasing its population 



* These two circumstances essentially change the premises on 

 which the question of a free importation, as applicable to a parti- 

 cular state, must rest. 



