IT PRO ING UPON A HOME SUPPLY OF CORN IN COUNTRIES WHY THIS IS NOT THE CASE IN NEWLY SETTLED COUNTRIES. --- PROPRIETY OF FREE TRADE IN GENERAL.DANGER OF INTRODUCING A NEW BRANCH OF INDUSTRY PREMATURELY. 66 EXTRACT FROM MIRABEAU'S MONARCHIE PRUSSIENNE" ON THE ADVANTAGES OF FREE COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE. MRS. B. WHEN we last parted, you expressed a wish that we should raise all our corn at home, in order to be completely independent of the casualties attending a foreign supply. T CAROLINE. Yes; for were we at war with those countries which usually furnished us with corn, they would withhold the supply. Or, should they experience a dearth, they would no longer have it in their power to send us corn. MRS. B. We occasionally import corn from different parts of America, from the shores of the Baltic, and those of the Mediterranean seas. Now it is very improbable either that we should be in a state of warfare with those various countries at the same period of time, or that they should all be afflicted with a dearth of produce in the same season. There is much greater chance of a scarcity prevailing in any single country than in every part of the world at once; and should we depend wholly on that country for our supply, where would be our resource in case of a deficiency? CAROLINE. Under such circumstances it would certainly be right to import corn; I object only to doing so habitually, and not depending, in ordinary times, on the produce of our own country. MRS. B. If we apply to corn countries only in seasons of distress we shall find it very difficult to obtain relief. Those countries raise corn expressly for the nations which they usually supply with that article; but they will have but little to spare for a new customer, who, from a dearth at home, is compelled to seek for food abroad; and we could obtain it only by out-bidding other competitors. The supply, therefore, would be both scanty, and at a price which the lower ranks of people could ill afford to pay; so that there would be great distress if not danger of a famine. CAROLINE. To prevent such a calamity we have only to raise so large a quantity of corn at home as will afford a plentiful supply in years of average produce; then in seasons of abundance we have the resource of exportation, and in bad seasons we might still have a sufficiency. MRS. B. It is impossible to raise at all times a sufficiency, without having often a superfluity. This is particularly the case with corn, as it is the most variable of almost all kinds of agricultural produce. If, therefore, we wish to raise such a quantity as will always secure us against want, we must in common seasons have some to spare, and in abundant years a great superfluity. Now the more corn-land we cultivate, the higher will the price of corn be in average seasons. You start, Caroline; but, paradoxical as this may appear, if you reflect upon the causes which occasion the regular high price of corn, independently of the variations of supply and demand, you will understand it. The more corn is grown in a country, the greater will be the quantity of inferior land brought into cultivation, in order to produce it; and the price of corn, you know, must pay the cost of its production on the worst soil on which it is raised *, otherwise it would cease to be produced. If, therefore, in order to insure a home supply, we force an ungrateful soil, at a great expence of capital, to yield a scanty crop, we raise the price of all the corn of the country to that standard, and we thus enable the landed proprietors to increase their rents. CAROLINE. That is very true; and then by enhancing the price of the first necessaries of life we must raise the rate of wages, in order to enable the labouring classes to live. MRS. B. Nor is this all; when the home supply proves superabundant, what is to become of it? The unnatural high price at which it usually sells in our • See Conversation on Rent. market, owing to the forced encouragement given to agriculture, renders it unsaleable in foreign markets until the price is fallen so low as to be ruinous to farmers. CAROLINE. I cannot easily bring myself to look upon a superfluity of the necessaries of life as a calamity; if it is injurious to the farmer, what an advantage it is to the lower classes of people! The advantage is of a very temporary nature. The farmer who cultivates poor land in hopes of a remunerating price, must be ruined if he continues to cultivate at the low price occasioned by superfluity: he will therefore throw up the inferior lands, and the consequence will be, that less corn will be produced in succeeding years than is requisite for the supply; and the superfluity will be succeeded by dearth or famine. Thus the price of corn will be continually fluctuating between the low price of a glutted market and the high price of scarcity. A redundance of the necessaries of life is in some respects attended with more pernicious consequences than the excess of any other species of commodity. If the market were overstocked with tea and coffee, those articles would fall in price, and would not only be more freely consumed by the |