• 
28 Ayr/cultural Progress and 
The construction of railways, docks, and other large public works, 
has created a numerous class of navvies, plate-layers, and well- 
paid officials, whilst the great extension of our staple industries 
has provided more constant and more profitable employment for 
our artizans and labourers than heretofore ; so that both on account 
of our labourers having the means of supplying their families more 
liberally with food, and of wheat becoming more and more the 
staple diet of the million, we are convinced that a much larger 
addition is required to our present supply of wheat than would 
be necessary merely to feed the additional mouths according to 
the old standard rate per head. It follows then, as a matter of 
course, that the increase in the home-production of wheat between 
1839 and 1859 was considerably in excess of the two million 
quarters, which we have endeavoured to prove to have been the 
minimum. It is satisfactory to feel that our large importations 
are not displacing home-grown corn, but that the skill of our 
farmers has been no less effective than the enterprise of our mer- 
chants in obtaining the large additional supply of food required 
by an increasing population. 
The immense resources of our capitalists and our shipping 
have never been more strikingly exemplified than in the facts 
which this Table places prominently before us. The deficiency 
caused by a succession of three unusually bad harvests has been 
supplied from other countries to the extent of 4,410,546 quarters 
of wheat annually over and above what may be called the cus- 
tomary amount, viz. the average of the previous ten years, without 
any disturbance of the money market and almost without any one 
being aware of what was going on, — except the importers, who 
each year provided the requisite ten or twelve millions sterling, 
and the farmers, who received that much less for their crops. 
Doubtless the loss has fallen heavily upon them, and had it 
not been for the help afforded by the remunerative prices of 
stock, wool, and dairy produce, many must have succumbed. 
To the decrees of Providence, however, all must bow, and had 
it not been for Free-trade, what would have been the result? 
Restricted supplies — high prices — a suffering and discontented 
population — and last, but not least, the consciousness that their 
sufferings might have been prevented. 
Free Trade in Cattle. — Table (D.) shows the total importa- 
tions of cattle, sheep, and swine, from July 9, 1842, the date of 
the removal of the prohibition, to December 31, 1862. It will 
be seen that so long as an import-duty of even 1/. per head was 
levied on cattle, and 3s. per head on sheep, the numbers im- 
ported were trifling ; but that a considerable increase took place 
immediately after 1846, when the trade was made entirely free. 
