consumed in it, the supply of the home market
can never be very plentiful. But unless
the surplus can, in all ordinary cases, be exported,
the growers will be careful never to
grow more, and the importers never to import
more, than what the bare consumption
of the home market requires. That market
will very seldom be overstocked; but it will
generally be understocked; the people, whose
business it is to supply it, being generally
afraid lest their goods should be left upon
their hands. The prohibition of exportation
limits the improvement and cultivation of the
country to what the supply of its own inhabitants
require. The freedom of exportation
enables it to extend cultivation for the supply
of foreign nations.
By the 12th of Charles II. c. 4, the exportation
of corn was permitted whenever the price
of wheat did not exceed 40s. the quarter, and
that of other grain in proportion. By the
15th of the same prince, this liberty was extended
till the price of wheat exceeded 48s.
the quarter, and by the 22d, to all higher
prices. A poundage, indeed, was to be paid
to the king upon such exportation; but all
grain was rated so low in the book of rates,
that this poundage amounted only, upon
wheat to 1s. upon oats to 4d. and upon all other
grain to 6d. the quarter. By the 1st of William
and Mary, the act which established this
bounty, this small duty was virtually taken off
whenever the price of wheat did not exceed
48s. the quarter; and by the 11th and 12th
of William III. c. 20, it was expressly taken
off at all higher prices.
The trade of the merchant-exporter was, in
this manner, not only encouraged by a bounty,
but rendered much more free than that of
the inland dealer. By the last of these statutes,
corn could be engrossed at any price for
exportation; but it could not be engrossed for
inland sale, except when the price did not
exceed 48s. the quarter. The interest of the
inland dealer, however, it has already been
shown, can never be opposite to that of the
great body of the people. That of the merchant-exporter
may, and in fact sometimes is.
If, while his own country labours under a
dearth, a neighbouring country should be afflicted
with a famine, it might be his interest
to carry corn to the latter country, in such
quantities as might very much aggravate the
calamities of the dearth. The plentiful supply
of the home market was not the direct object
of those statutes; but, under the pretence of
encouraging agriculture, to raise the money
price of corn as high as possible, and thereby
to occasion, as much as possible, a constant
dearth in the home market. By the discouragement
of importation, the supply of that
market, even in times of great scarcity, was
confined to the home growth; and by the encouragement
of exportation, when the price
was so high as 48s. the quarter, that market
was not, even in times of considerable scarcity,
allowed to enjoy the whole of that growth.
The temporary laws, prohibiting, for a limited
time, the exportation of corn, and taking off,
for a limited time, the duties upon its importation,
expedients to which Great Britain has
been obliged so frequently to have recourse,
sufficiently demonstrate the impropriety of
her general system. Had that system been
good, she would not so frequently have been
reduced to the necessity of departing from it.
Were all nations to follow the liberal system
of free exportation and free importation,
the different states into which a great continent
was divided, would so far resemble the
different provinces of a great empire. As
among the different provinces of a great empire,
the freedom of the inland trade appears,
both from reason and experience, not only the
best palliative of a dearth, but the most effectual
preventive of a famine; so would the
freedom of the exportation and importation
trade be among the different states into which
a great continent was divided. The larger
the continent, the easier the communication
through all the different parts of it, both by
land and by water, the less would any one particular
part of it ever he exposed to either of
these calamities, the scarcity of any one country
being more likely to be relieved by the
plenty of some other. But very few countries
have entirely adopted this liberal system. The
freedom of the corn trade is almost everywhere
more or less restrained, and in many
countries is confined by such absurd regulations,
as frequently aggravate the unavoidable
misfortune of a dearth into the dreadful calamity
of a famine. The demand of such
countries for corn may frequently become so
great and so urgent, that a small state in their
neighbourhood, which happened at the same
time to be labouring under some degree of
dearth, could not venture to supply them without
exposing itself to the like dreadful calamity.
The very bad policy of one country
may thus render it, in some measure, dangerous
and imprudent to establish what would
otherwise be the best policy in another. The
unlimited freedom of exportation, however,
would be much less dangerous in great states,
in which the growth being much greater, the
supply could seldom be much affected by any
quantity of corn that was likely to be exported.
In a Swiss canton, or in some of the little states
in Italy, it may, perhaps, sometimes be necessary
to restrain the exportation of corn. In
such great countries as France or England, it
scarce ever can. To hinder, besides, the farmer
from sending his goods at all times to
the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the
ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public
utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of
legislative authority which ought to be exercised
only, which can be pardoned only, in
cases of the most urgent necessity. The price