206 Of Corn-Laws. Bk. iii. 



relieved by exportation. And in the consideration 

 of that part of the question which relates to the 

 fluctuations of prices this objection ought to have 

 its full and fair w^eight. But the fluctuation of 

 prices arising from this cause has sometimes been 

 very greatly exaggerated. A glut which might 

 essentially distress the farmers of a poor country, 

 might be comparatively little felt by the farmers 

 of a rich one ; and it is difficult to conceive that a 

 nation with an ample capital, and not under the 

 influence of a great shock to commercial confi- 

 dence, as this country was in 1815, would find 

 much difficulty in reserving the surplus of one 

 year to supply the wants of the next or some 

 future year. It may fairly indeed be doubted 

 whether, in such a country as our own, the fall of 

 price arising from this cause would be so great as 

 that which would be occasioned by the sudden 

 pouring in of the supplies from an abundant crop 

 in Europe, particularly from those slates which 

 do not regularly export corn. If our ports were 

 always open, the existing laws of France would 

 still prevent such a supply as would equalize 

 prices; and French corn would only come in to 

 us in considerable quantities in years of great 

 abundance, when we were the least likely to 

 want it, and when it was most likely to occasion 

 a glut.* 



But if the fall of price occasioned in these two 



* Almost all the corn merchants who gave their evidence before 

 the committees of the tvv^o houses in 1814 seemed fully aware of 

 the low prices likely to be occasioned by an abundant crop in Eu- 

 rope, if our ports were open to receive it. 



