from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned
sometimes, perhaps, and in some particular
places, by the waste of war, but in by
far the greatest number of cases by the fault
of the seasons; and that a famine has never
arisen from any other cause but the violence
of government attempting, by improper means,
to remedy the inconveniencies of a dearth.
In an extensive corn country, between all
the different parts of which there is a free
commerce and communication, the scarcity
occasioned by the most unfavourable seasons
can never be so great as to produce a famine;
and the scantiest crop, if managed with frugality
and economy, will maintain, through
the year, the same number of people that are
commonly fed in a more affluent manner by
one of moderate plenty. The seasons most
unfavourable to the crop are those of excessive
drought or excessive rain. But as corn
grows equally upon high and low lands, upon
grounds that are disposed to be too wet, and
upon those that are disposed to be too dry,
either the drought or the rain, which is hurtful
to one part of the country, is favourable
to another; and though, both in the wet and
in the dry season, the crop is a good deal less
than in one more properly tempered; yet, in
both, what is lost in one part of the country
is in some measure compensated by what is
gained in the other. In rice countries, where
the crop not only requires a very moist soil,
but where, in a certain period of its growing,
it must be laid under water, the effects of a
drought are much more dismal. Even in such
countries, however, the drought is, perhaps,
scarce ever so universal as necessarily to occasion
a famine, if the government would allow
a free trade. The drought in Bengal, a few
years ago, might probably have occasioned a
very great dearth. Some improper regulations,
some injudicious restraints, imposed by the
servants of the East India Company upon the
rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that
dearth into a famine.
When the government, in order to remedy
the inconveniencies of a dearth, orders all the
dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes a
reasonable price, it either hinders them from
bringing it to market, which may sometimes
produce a famine even in the beginning of the
season; or, if they bring it thither, it enables
the people, and thereby encourages them to
consume it so fast as must necessarily produce
a famine before the end of the season. The
unlimited, unrestrained freedom of the corn
trade, as it is the only effectual preventive of
the miseries of a famine, so it is the best palliative
of the inconveniencies of a dearth; for
the inconveniencies of a real scarcity cannot
be remedied; they can only be palliated. No
trade deserves more the full protection of the
law, and no trade requires it so much; because
no trade is so much exposed to popular
odium.
In years of scarcity, the inferior ranks of
people impute their distress to the avarice of
the corn merchant, who becomes the object of
their hatred and indignation. Instead of making
profit upon such occasions, therefore, he
is often in danger of being utterly ruined,
and of having his magazines plundered and
destroyed by their violence. It is in years of
scarcity, however, when prices are high, that
the corn merchant expects to make his principal
profit. He is generally in contract with some
farmers to furnish him, for a certain number
of years, with a certain quantity of corn, at a
certain price. This contract price is settled
according to what is supposed to be the moderate
and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or
average price, which, before the late years of
scarcity, was commonly about 28s. for the
quarter of wheat, and for that of other grain
in proportion. In years of scarcity, therefore,
the corn merchant buys a great part of his corn
for the ordinary price, and sells it for a much
higher. That this extraordinary profit, however,
is no more them sufficient to put his
trade upon a fair level with other trades, and
to compensate the many losses which be sustains
upon other occasions, both from the perishable
nature of the commodity itself, and
from the frequent and unforeseen fluctuations
of its price, seems evident enough, from this
single circumstance, that great fortunes are as
seldom made in this as in any other trade.
The popular odium, however, which attends
it in years of scarcity, the only years in which
it can be very profitable, renders people of character
and fortune averse to enter into it. It
is abandoned to an inferior set of dealers;
and millers, bakers, meal-men, and meal-factors,
together with a number of wretched hucksters,
arr almost the only middle people that,
in the home market, come between the grower
and the consumer.
The ancient policy of Europe, instead of
discountenancing this popular odium against
a trade so beneficial to the public, seems, on
the contrary, to have authorised and encouraged
it.
By the 5th and 6th of Edward VI. cap. 14,
it was enacted, that whoever should buy any
corn or grain, with intent to sell it again,
should be reputed an unlawful engrosser, and
should, for the first fault, suffer two months
imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the
corn; for the second, suffer six months imprisonment,
and forfeit double the value; and,
for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer imprisonment
during the king's pleasure, and
forfeit all his goods and chattels. The ancient
policy of most other parts of Europe was no
better than that of England.
Our ancestors seem to have imagined, that
the people would buy their corn cheaper of
the farmer than of the corn merchant, who,
they were afraid, would require, over and
above, the price which he paid to the farmer,