' proportion than our agriculture. 
fome effe&t of this kind. 
Eden fomewhere ftates, that the confump- 
18or.] 
Tables the average price in the deareft year 
of the late f{carcity, 1796, is ftated at 31. 
178. 24d.,and as the average price for {e- 
ven or eight years before had been nearly 
21. 10s. the variation was not fo great, 
and probably, therefore, not fo much felt 
asin 1767. From the dear years of Queen 
Aone to 1764 we were in the conitant 
habit of exporting a confiderable quantity 
of grain, that is, we grew more corn than 
was {ufficient for the number of people 
that we employed. The want of employ- 
ment includes the want of food to him 
whofe only poffeffion is his labour, and 
therefore has the fame effeé&t in checking 
population. And in fat no country can 
confider itfelf as tolerably fecure from un- 
favourable feafons which is not in this 
ftate, that is, the population of which is 
not checked before it arrives at the limits 
of its produce. The unfavourable feafons 
that occurred during this period of habi- 
tual expectation, and doubtlefs tnere were 
fome, were immediately fupplied, in great 
meafure, by keeping the corn at home; 
and though this period is not without va- 
riations of price, it is evident that they 
could not be fo great as in a country which 
was not in the habit of exportation. Our 
population, which appears to have been 
increafing rather rapidly from the end of 
the French and Spanifh war, probably re- 
ceived a check from the American war, 
and our exports of grain were refumed, 
though to a fmaller extent, till the year 
1783, which prevented us from feeling 
in the degree that we otherwife fhould 
have done the unfavourablenefs of that 
feafon, though I believe that a much 
greater degree of diftrefs was felt during 
that year in Scotland than we feel now in 
England. From the end of the American 
war our exports of grain have been gra- 
dually decreafing, and our imports in- 
creafing. This is to be attributed to the 
natural progrefs of population, operated 
upon by a commerce increafing in a greater 
How far 
the increafing riches of the country, by in- 
creafing the demands for the produéts of 
patture, may have prevented the improve- 
ments in our agriculture from producing 
a proportionate increafe of human food, I 
will not pretend to determine ; but cer- 
tainly this cause cannot have been without 
Sir Frederick 
tion of butchers’-meat in London is double 
what it was thirty years ago. From what- 
ever caules, however, it may have pro- 
ceeded, the ‘aS% is incontrovertible, that 
the prefent war found us with a population 
prefling hard againt the limits of the food 
Montruty Mas, No. 70, 
Letter from the Author of the Ejay on Population. 
137 
which we could procure, and importing an- 
nually two-or three hundred thoufand 
quarters of wheat, befides flour, and other 
forts of grain; and exactly in that ftate in 
which an unfavourable feafon would pro- 
duce the greateft inconvenience. Itis not 
neceflary, therefore, to fuppofe that our 
population has increafed during the prefent 
war, in order to account ‘or our prefent 
diftrefies ; though I agree with your: Cor- 
refpondent in thinking, that there are 
fome circumftances in this war different 
from others. Befides thofe that he menw 
tions, which have all their weight, there 
is another which he has not noticed; I al- 
jude to the unexampled, and I fhonld fay 
unnatural, increafe of our foreign com~= 
merce, ‘from the particular circumftances 
of this unhappy conteft. As it was abfo- 
lutely impoffible that our agriculture could 
keep pace with fo fudden a ftart, the effect 
of it hasbeen, to hold out a fallacious 
promife to the labourer. It has increafed 
the price of labour, and by that may have 
encouraged population; but as the pro- 
duce of the country could not an{wer the 
increafed demand for it, every advance in 
the price of labour has been almoft imme- 
diately followed by an advance in the price 
of all kinds of provifions. 
_ This effe& of a difproportionate increafe 
of commerce appears to me to have been 
ftrikingly exemplified of late years. 
The particular obje&t of the Inveftiga- 
tion was to fhew, if I could, that accord- 
ing to the regular principles of the mar- 
kets, the price of grain will depend mutch 
lefs on the degree of the deficiency, than 
on the continuance of the fame confump- 
tion. According to thefe principles it 
will always rife till the neceflary diminu- 
tion of confumption is effeéted; and the 
more obitinately attached we are to our 
old kinds of food, and the more power 
we have of indulging ourfelves in this re- 
fpect, the higher will the price be before 
this diminution is effected. A deficiency 
of one half, if we had the will and tie 
means of immediately recurring to fubfti- 
tutes in fufficient quantity, wou!d produce 
little or no rife in the price of wheat. A 
deficiency of one-tweiltth, if we continued 
for eight or nine months to confume ex- 
actly the fame quantity, would produce a 
very extraordinary advance in price. I 
have reafon to believe, that the firft ope- 
ration of a fcarcity in the fouth of England 
is to increafe the quantity of wheat con- 
fumed, by obliging the labourer tocutoff all 
his luxuries of bacon, cheefe, butter, &c. and 
employ the whole of his earnings in bread. 
This increafed confumption muf necefla- 
rily have a great effeck on the markets. 
~ : 
Tiff 
