at which exportation of corn is prohibited, if
it is ever to be prohibited, ought always to be
a very high price.
The laws concerning corn may everywhere
be compared to the laws concerning religion.
The people feel themselves so much interested
in what relates either to their subsistence in
this life, or to their happiness in a life to come,
that government must yield to their prejudices,
and, in order to preserve the public
tranquillity, establish that system which they
approve of. It is upon this account, perhaps,
that we so seldom find a reasonable system established
with regard to either of those two capital
objects.
IV. The trade of the merchant-carrier, or
of the importer of foreign corn, in order to
export it again, contributes to the plentiful
supply of the home market. It is not, indeed,
the direct purpose of his trade to sell his corn
there; but he will generally be willing to do
so, and even for a good deal less money than
he might expect in a foreign market; because
he saves in this manner the expense of loading
and unloading, of freight and insurance.
The inhabitants of the country which, by
means of the carrying trade, becomes the magazine
and storehouse for the supply of other
countries, can very seldom be in want themselves.
Though the carrying trade must thus
contribute to reduce the average money price
of corn in the home market, it would not
thereby lower its real value; it would only
raise somewhat the real value of silver.
The carrying trade was in effect prohibited
in Great Britain, upon all ordinary occasions,
by the high duties upon the importation of foreign
corn, of the greater part of which there
was no drawback; and upon extraordinary
occasions, when a scarcity made it necessary
to suspend those duties by temporary statutes,
exportation was always prohibited. By this
system of laws, therefore, the carrying trade
was in effect prohibited.
That system of laws, therefore, which is
connected with the establishment of the bounty,
seems to deserve no part of the praise
which has been bestowed upon it. The improvement
and prosperity of Great Britain,
which has been so often ascribed to those
laws, may very easily be accounted for by
other causes. That security which the laws
in Great Britain give to every man, that he
shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is
alone sufficient to make any country flourish,
notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd
regulations of commerce; and this security
was perfected by the Revolution, much
about the same time that the bounty was established.
The natural effort of every individual
to better his own condition, when suffered
to exert itself with freedom and security,
is so powerful a principle, that it is alone,
and without any assistance, not only capable
of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity,
but of surmounting a hundred impertinent
obstructions, with which the folly of
human laws too often encumbers its operations:
though the effect of those obstructions
is always, more or less, either to encroach
upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.
In Great Britain industry is perfectly secure;
and though it is far from being perfectly free,
it is as free or freer than in any other part of
Europe.
Though the period of the greatest prosperity
and improvement of Great Britain has
been posterior to that system of laws which is
connected with the bounty, we must not upon
that account, impute it to those laws. It
has been posterior likewise to the national
debt; but the national debt has most assuredly
not been the cause of it.
Though the system of laws which is connected
with the bounty, has exactly the same
tendency with the practice of Spain and Portugal,
to lower somewhat the value of the
precious metals in the country where it takes
place; yet Great Britain is certainly one of
the richest countries in Europe, while Spain
and Portugal are perhaps amongst the most
beggarly. This difference of situation, however,
may easily be accounted for from two
different causes. First, the tax in Spain, the
prohibition in Portugal of exporting gold and
silver, and the vigilant police which watches
over the execution of those laws, must, in two
very poor countries, which between them import
annually upwards of six millions sterling,
operate not only more directly, but
much more forcibly, in reducing the value of
those metals there, than the corn laws can do
in Great Britain. And, secondly, this bad
policy is not in these countries counterbalanced
by the general liberty and security of
the people. Industry is there neither free nor
secure; and the civil and ecclesiastical governments
of both Spain and Portugal are
such as would alone be sufficient to perpetuate
their present state of poverty, even
though their regulations of commerce were
as wise as the greatest part of them are absurd
and foolish.
The 13th of the present king, c. 43, seems
to have established a new system with regard
to the corn laws, in many respects better than
the ancient one, but in one or two respects
perhaps not quite so good.
By this statute, the high duties upon importation
for home consumption are taken off,
so soon as the price of middling wheat rises
to 48s. the quarter; that of middling rye,
pease, or beans, to 32s.; that of barley to
24s.; and that of oats to 16s.; and instead of
them, a small duty is imposed of only 6d.
upon the quarter of wheat, and upon that of
other grain in proportion. With regard to
all those different sorts of grain, but particularly