54 Report of the Select Committee on the State of Agriculture, [Aug. 1, 
duce of corn, the growth of the United 
Kingdom, is, upon an average crop, 
equal to our present annual consump¬ 
tion, and that with such an average 
crop the present import prices, below 
which foreign corn is by law altogether 
excluded, are fully sufficient, more 
especially since the change in the value 
of our money, to secure to the British 
grower the complete monopoly of the 
home market. Protection cannot be 
carried further than monopoly, and this 
the British grower has enjoyed for the 
produce of the two last harvests. They 
suggest to Parliament, as a matter 
highly deserving of their future consi¬ 
deration, whether a trade in corn, con¬ 
stantly open to all nations of the world, 
and subject only to such a fixed duty 
as might compensate to the grower the 
loss of that encouragement which he 
received during the late war from the 
obstacles thrown in the way of free 
importation, and thereby protect the 
capitals now vested in agriculture from 
an unequal competition in the home 
market—is not, as a permanent system, 
preferable to that state of law by which 
the corn trade is now regulated; but in 
suggesting this change of system for fur- 
therconsideration as a possible improve¬ 
ment of the Corn Laws at some future 
time, the Committee are fully aware of 
the unfitness of the present moment for 
attempting such a change, when a great 
accumulation has taken place in the 
shipping ports on the Continent, and in 
the warehouses of foreign corn in this 
country. But though Parliament 
would not now deem it expedient to 
abandon entirely the principle of the 
existing law, the Committee conceive 
that they might modify its operation, 
by imposing a fixed duty upon corn, 
whenever, upon the opening of the 
ports, it should become admissible for 
home consumption, in which case, how¬ 
ever* if adopted, it would be necessary 
that the present import price should 
be fixed at a lower rate, because it is 
obvious, that the duty would otherwise 
not only check the sudden and over¬ 
whelming amount of import, but also 
enhance the price beyond what it might 
reach under the present law; an effect 
which the Committee are so far from 
desirous of producing, that they think 
it would be probably expedient to guard 
additionally against it, by providing, 
that after the corn should have reached 
a certain high price, the duty should 
cease altogether. 
In some of the petitions, the agricul¬ 
tural depression and distress are mainly 
ascribed to the extent of our public 
burdens, coupled with the diminished 
means of bearing them; but the Com¬ 
mittee discountenance that idea, not 
thinking that farming profits can be 
more affected than those of any other 
branch of industiy. 
The manner and extent in which 
other classes of the community, and 
other sources of income, may be affected 
by taxation, do not come directly within 
the scope of the present inquiry; but 
your Committee think it necessary to 
notice a doctrine which has prevailed 
in some quarters—that the price of 
corn in this country, in order to remu¬ 
nerate the grower, must increase in 
the same ratio as the amount of our 
public revenue, so that, if the latter be 
doubled, the price of corn must be 
doubled also. If this assumption were 
well founded, it would follow, that, ex¬ 
clusively of any change in the value of 
money, the remunerating price in 1821 
would be nearly one-third lower than 
it was in 1814, taxes not much short 
of that proportion to the whole of our 
revenue having been taken off in Great 
Britain since that year. But without 
denying that the price of corn may be 
in some degree affected by adding to 
our general taxation; and that any 
charges particularly paid by the farmer, 
such as tithes and poor rates, must tend 
more directly to raise that price, it is 
obvious, from what has been already 
stated, that the cost of growing corn 
in any country is regulated by the 
amount of capital necessary to produce 
it upon lands paying no rent, and that 
it is the price of the portion of corn 
which is so raised that determines the 
price of all other corn; and that an 
increase of general taxes, affecting alike 
the profits of capital in all the different 
branches of industry, would not ne¬ 
cessarily raise the price of the parti¬ 
cular produce of any one. 
In fact, no rise in the price of corn 
appears to have taken place during 
three of the wars in which this coun¬ 
try was engaged during the last cen¬ 
tury, compared with the prices of the 
years preceding and succeeding those 
wars; and during the last of them, 
the American war, prices were lower 
than during the peace. This circum¬ 
stance is the more to be remarked, as 
there never was, perhaps, a period at 
which the burden of taxation appeared 
to press more heavily upon the resources 
of the country. 
If 
