Цитаты из книги «The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn»

open our ports, under these circumstances, is not to obtain a free trade in corn; and, while I should say, without hesitation, that a free trade in corn was calculated to produce steadier prices than the system of restrictions with which it has been compared, I should, with as little hesitation say, that such a trade in corn, as has been described, would be subject to much more distressing and cruel variations, than the most determined system of prohibitions.Such a species of commerce in grain shakes the foundations, and alters entirely the data on which the general principles of free trade are established. For what do these principles say? They say, and say most justly, that if every nation were to devote itself particularly to those kinds of industry and produce, to which its soil, climate, situation, capital, and skill, were best suited; and were then freely to exchange these products with each other, it would be the most certain and efficacious mode, not only of advancing the wealth and prosperity of the whole body of the commercial republic

same tendency occasionally come in aid of popular clamour in almost all countries of Europe. But the laws respecting the exportation of corn, which have been passed in France during the last year, have brought this subject home to us in the most striking and impressive manner. Our nearest neighbour, possessed of the largest and finest corn country in Europe, and who, owing to a more favourable climate and soil, a more stationary and comparatively less crowded population, and a lighter weight of taxation, can grow corn at less than half our prices, has enacted, that the exportation of corn shall be free till the price rises to about forty nine shillings a quarter,5 and that then it shall be entirely cease.6From the vicinity of France, and the cheapness of its corn in all years of common abundance, it is scarcely possible that our main imports should not come from that quarter as long as our ports are open to receive them. In this first year of open trade, our imports have been such, as to shew, that though

advantage, we should always be liable to the variations of price, occasioned by the glut of a superabundant harvest; in short, that it must be allowed that a free trade in corn would, in all ordinary cases, not only secure a cheaper, but a more steady, supply of grain.In expressing this distinct opinion on the effects of a free trade in corn, I certainly meant to refer to a trade really free—that is, a trade by which a nation would be entitled to its share of the produce of the commercial world, according to its means of purchasing, whether that produce were plentiful or scanty. In this sense I adhere strictly to the opinion I then gave; but, since that period, an event has occurred which has shewn, in the clearest manner, that it is entirely out of

Individual losses must have the same distressing consequences in both cases, and they are often more complete, and the fall is greater, in the shocks of commerce. But I doubt, whether in the most extensive mercantile distress that ever took in this country, there was ever one fourth of the property, or one tenth of the number of individuals concerned, when compared with the effects of the present rapid fall of raw produce, combined with the very scanty crop of last year.2Individual losses of course become national, according as they affect a greater mass of the national capital, and a greater number of

expected continuance of low prices, have shewn themselves in a very severe shock to the cultivation of the country and a great loss of agricultural capital.Whatever may be said of the peculiar interests and natural partialities of those who were called upon to give evidence upon this occasion, it is impossible not to be convinced, by the whole body of it taken together, that, during the last twenty years, and particularly during the last seven, there has been a great increase of capital laid out upon the land, and a great consequent extension of cultivation and improvement; that the system of spirited improvement and high farming, as it is technically called, has been principally encouraged by the progressive rise of prices owing in a considerable degree, to the difficulties thrown in the way of importation of foreign corn by the war; that the rapid accumulation of capital on the land, whic

professed object of the Observations on the Corn Laws, which I published in the spring of 1814, was to state with the strictest impartiality the advantages and disadvantages which, in the actual circumstances of our present situation, were likely to attend the measures under consideration, respecting the trade in corn.A fair review of both sides of the question, without any attempt to conceal the peculiar evils, whether temporary or permanent, which might belong to each, appeared to me of use, not only to assist in forming an enlightened decision on the subject, but particularly to prepare the public for the specific consequences which were to be expected from that decision, on whatever side it might be made. Such a preparation, from some quarter or other, seemed to be necessary, to prevent those just discontents which would naturally have arisen, if the measure adopted had