Even the free importation of foreign corn
could very little affect the interest of the
farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much
more bulky commodity than butcher's meat.
A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a
pound of butcher's meat at fourpence. The
small quantity of foreign corn imported even
in times of the greatest scarcity, may satisfy
our farmers that they can have nothing to fear
from the freest importation. The average
quantity imported, one year with another, amounts
only, according to the very well informed
author of the Tracts upon the Corn
Trade, to 23,728 quarters of all sorts of grain,
and does not exceed the five hundredth and
seventy-one part of the annual consumption.
But as the bounty upon corn occasions a greater
exportation in years of plenty, so it must,
of consequence, occasion a greater importation
in years of scarcity, than in the actual state of
tillage would otherwise take place. By means
of it, the plenty of one year does not compensate
the scarcity of another; and as the average
quantity exported is necessarily augmented
by it, so must likewise, in the actual state
of tillage, the average quantity imported. If
there were no bounty, as less corn would be
exported, so it is probable that, one year with
another, less would be imported than at present.
The corn-merchants, the fetchers and
carriers of corn between Great Britain and foreign
countries, would have much less employment,
and might suffer considerably; but
the country gentlemen and farmers could suffer
very little. It is in the corn-merchants,
accordingly, rather than the country gentlemen
and farmers, that I have observed the
greatest anxiety for the renewal and continuation
of the bounty.
Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their
great honour, of all people, the least subject
to the wretched spirit of monopoly. The undertaker
of a great manufactory is sometimes
alarmed if another work of the same kind is
established within twenty miles of him; the
Dutch undertaker of the woollen manufacture
at Abbeville, stipulated that no work of the
same kind should be established within thirty
leagues of that city. Farmers and country
gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed
rather to promote, than to obstruct, the
cultivation and improvement of their neighbours
farms and estates. They have no secrets,
such as those of the greater part of manufacturers,
but are generally rather fond of
communicating to their neighbours, and of
extending as far as possible any new practice
which they may have found to be advantageous.
Pius quæstus, says old Cato, stabilissimusque,
minimeque invidiosus; minimeque
male cogitantes sunt, qui in eo studio occupati
sunt. Country gentlemen and farmers, dispersed
in different parts of the country, cannot
so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers,
who being collected into towns, and
accustomed to that exclusive corporation spirit
which prevails in them, naturally endeavour
to obtain, against all their countrymen, the
same exclusive privilege which they generally
possess against the inhabitants of their respective
towns. They accordingly seem to have
been the original inventors of those restraints
upon the importation of foreign goods, which
secure to them the monopoly of the home
market. It was probably in imitation of them,
and to put themselves upon a level with those
who, they found, were disposed to oppress
them, that the country gentlemen and farmers
of Great Britain so far forgot the generosity
which is natural to their station, as to demand
the exclusive privilege of supplying their
countrymen with corn and butcher's meat.
They did not, perhaps, take time to consider
how much less their interest could be affected
by the freedom of trade, than that of the people
whose example they followed.
To prohibit, by a perpetual law, the importation
of foreign corn and cattle, is in reality
to enact, that the population and industry of
the country shall, at no time, exceed what the
rude produce of its own soil can maintain.
There seem, however, to be two cases, in
which it will generally be advantageous to lay
some burden upon foreign, for the encouragement
of domestic industry.
The first is, when some particular sort of
industry is necessary for the defence of the
country. The defence of Great Britain, for
example, depends very much upon the number
of its sailors and shipping. The act of
navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours
to give the sailors and shipping of Great
Britain the monopoly of the trade of their
own country, in some cases, by absolute prohibitions,
and in others, by heavy burdens upon
the shipping of foreign countries. The
following are the principal dispositions of this
act.
First, All ships, of which the owners, masters,
and three-fourths of the mariners, are not
British subjects, are prohibited, upon pain of
forfeiting ship and cargo, from trading to the
British settlements and plantations, or from
being employed in the coasting trade of Great
Britain.
Secondly, A great variety of the most bulky
articles of importation can be brought into
Great Britain only, either in such ships as are
above described, or in ships of the country
where those goods are produced, and of which
the owners, masters, and three-fourths of the
mariners, are of that particular country; and
when imported even in ships of this latter
kind, they are subject to double aliens duty.
If imported in ships of any other country, the
penalty is forfeiture of ship and goods. When
this act was made, the Dutch were, what they
still are, the great carriers of Europe; and
by this regulation they were entirely excluded
from being the carriers to Great Britain, or