management. If, by raising it too high, he
discourages the consumption so much that the
supply of the season is likely to go beyond the
consumption of the season, and to last for some
time after the next crop begins to come in, he
runs the hazard, not only of losing a considerable
part of his corn by natural causes, but
of being obliged to sell what remains of it
for much less than what he might have had
for it several months before. If, by not raising
the price high enough, he discourages
the consumption so little, that the supply of
the season is likely to fall short of the consumption
of the season, he not only loses a
part of the profit which he might otherwise
have made, but he exposes the people to suffer
before the end of the season, instead of
the hardships of a dearth, the dreadful horrors
of a famine. It is the interest of the people
that their daily, weekly, and monthly consumption
should be proportioned as exactly
as possible to the supply of the season. The
interest of the inland corn dealer is the same.
By supplying them, as nearly as he can judge,
in this proportion, he is likely to sell all his
corn for the highest price, and with the greatest
profit; and his knowledge of the state of
the crop, and of his daily, weekly, and monthly
sales, enables him to judge, with more or less
accuracy, how far they really are supplied in
this manner. Without intending the interest
of the people, he is necessarily led, by a regard
to his own interest, to treat them, even
in years of scarcity, pretty much in the same
manner as the prudent master of a vessel is
sometimes obliged to treat his crew. When
he foresees that provisions are likely to run
short, he puts them upon short allowance.
Though from excess of caution he should
sometimes do this without any real necessity,
yet all the inconveniencies which his crew can
thereby suffer are inconsiderable, in comparison
of the danger, misery, and ruin, to which
they might sometimes be exposed by a less
provident conduct. Though, from excess of
avarice, in the same manner, the inland corn
merchant should sometimes raise the price of
his corn somewhat higher than the scarcity of
the season requires, yet all the inconveniencies
which the people can suffer from this conduct,
which effectually secures them from a famine
in the end of the season, are inconsiderable,
in comparison of what they might have been
exposed to by a more liberal way of dealing
in the beginning of it. The corn merchant
himself is likely to suffer the most by this excess
of avarice; not only from the indignation
which it generally excites against him,
but, though he should escape the effects of
this indignation, from the quantity of corn
which it necessarily leaves upon his hands in
the end of the season, and which, if the next
season happens to prove favourable, he must
always sell for a much lower price than he
might otherwise have had.
Were it possible, indeed, for one great company
of merchants to possess themselves of
the whole crop of an extensive country, it
might perhaps be their interest to deal with
it, as the Dutch are said to do with the spiceries
of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw
away a considerable part of it, in order to
keep up the price of the rest. But it is scarce
possible, even by the violence of law, to establish
such an extensive monopoly with regard
to corn; and wherever the law leaves the trade
free, it is of all commodities the least liable to
be engrossed or monopolized by the force of
a few large capitals, which buy up the greater
part of it. Not only its value far exceeds what
the capitals of a few private men are capable
of purchasing; but, supposing they were capable
of purchasing it, the manner in which
it is produced renders this purchase altogether
impracticable. As, in every civilized
country, it is the commodity of which the annual
consumption is the greatest; so a greater
quantity of industry is annually employed in
producing corn than in producing any other
commodity. When it first comes from the
ground, too, it is necessarily divided among a
greater number of owners than any other commodity;
and these owners can never be collected
into one place, like a number of independent
manufacturers, but are necessarily
scattered through all the different corners of
the country. These first owners either immediately
supply the consumers in their own
neighbourhood, or they supply other inland
dealers, who supply those consumers. The
inland dealers in corn, therefore, including
both the farmer and the baker, are necessarily
more numerous than the dealers in any other
commodity; and their dispersed situation renders
it altogether impossible for them to enter
into any general combination. If, in a year
of scarcity, therefore, any of them should find
that he had a good deal more corn upon hand
than, at the current price, he could hope to
dispose of before the end of the season, he
would never think of keeping up this price to
his own loss, and to the sole benefit of his
rivals and competitors, but would immediately
lower it, in order to get rid of his corn
before the new crop began to come in. The
same motives, the same interests, which would
thus regulate the conduct of any one dealer,
would regulate that of every other, and oblige
them all in general to sell their corn at
the price which, according to the best of their
judgment, was most suitable to the scarcity or
plenty of the season.
Whoever examines, with attention, the history
of the dearths and famines which have
afflicted any part of Europe during either the
course of the present or that of the two preceding
centuries, of several of which we have
pretty exact accounts, will find, I believe, that
a dearth never has arisen from any combination
among the inland dealers in corn, nor