Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 183 
was thought necessary to impose a duty on exportation amounting 
to 2s. a quarter on wheat and Is. 4rf. on other grain, and exporta- 
tion was to cease when the price of wheat rose above 20s. and 
that of barley 12s. per quarter. During the next century several 
other Acts were passed with the same object of checking ex- 
portation. In the time of William and Mary a totally new 
principle was introduced ; and in the exercise of a paternal and 
not very impartial spirit, and for the succour of agriculture, a 
bonus was given on all corn exported. At first the bounty was 
5s. a quarter on wheat, 2s. 6c?. on barley, malt, and oats, and 
3s. 6rf. on rye ; but the bonus was only granted when prices were 
as low as 48s. for wheat, 24s. for barley and malt, 32s. for rye, 
and 15s. for oats. Exports of corn were almost continuous for 
the first sixty-six years of the last century, reaching, in 1750, to 
947,000 quarters of wheat only. For the ten years ending 1751 
the bounties paid amounted to 1,515,000/. ; but the increase of 
the population soon turned the scale. At the time of the Peace 
of Paris, in 1763, the seeds of our manufacturing and commer- 
cial industry may be said to have been sown. Ten years later 
the exportation of wheat was prohibited, when the price rose to 
44s. Its importation soon became common. An Act was passed 
in 1773 allowing foreign wheat to enter at a nominal duty of 'od. 
a quarter when the home price was at or about 48s. Except in 
very productive years and during the disastrous period of the 
American War, wheat was regularly imported ; and with the 
revival of trade at the close of the century England ceased to 
export corn.* 
In 1760, " the average annual produce of wheat," according 
to Mr. Comber, ' On National Subsistence,' was about 3,800,000 
quarters, of which about 300,000 had been sent out of the king- 
dom, leaving 3,500,000 for home consumption. In 1773 the 
produce of wheat was stated in the House of Commons to be 
4,000,000 quarters, of which the whole and above 100,000 
quarters imported were consumed in the kingdom. In 1796 the 
consumption was stated by Lord Hawkesbury to be 500,000 
quarters per month, or 6,000,000 quarters annually, of which 
about 180,000 quarters were imported, showing an increased 
produce, in about twenty years, of 1,820,000 quarters. 
These comparisons show the increase in the production of 
wheat which took place at that period of our agricultural 
* During the latter half of the eighteenth century the English and European 
harvests were niucTi less productive than in the first fifty years. A cjcle of bad 
seasons also occurred during the continental war. The rise of prices in the last 
century was occasioned by unfavourable harvests and by increased population; 
the "war prices" would have been less extreme if the seasons had been 
favourable. 
