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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OK

which the plantations can send nowhere but to the mothercountry ; neither has the commerce of Ireland been in thiscase oppressed hitherto, in order to support the manufacturesof Great Britain .

Whatever regulations tend to sink the price either of woolor of rawhides below what it naturally would be, must, in animproved and cultivated country, have some tendency to raisethe price of butcher’s meat. The price both of the great andsmall cattle, which are fed on improved and cultivated land,must be sufficient to pay the rent which the landlord, andthe profit which the farmer has reason to expect from improvedand cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feedthem. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid bythe wool and the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The lessthere is paid for the one, the more must be paid for the other.In what manner this price is to be divided upon the differentparts of the beast, is indifferent to the landlords and farmers,provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and cultivatedcountry, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers can-not be much affected by such regulations, though their in-terest as consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions.It would be quite otherwise, however, in an unimproved anduncultivated country, where the greater part of the lands couldbe applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, andwhere the wool and the hide made the principal part of thevalue of those cattle. Their interest as landlords and farmerswould in this case be very deeply affected by such regulations,and their interest as consumers very little. The fall in theprice of the wool and the hide, would not in this case raisethe price of the carcase; because the greater part of the landsof the country being applicable to no other purpose but thefeeding of cattle, the same number would still continue to befed. The same quantity of butcher's meat would still cometo market. The demand for it would be no greater than be-fore. Its price, therefore, would be the same as before. Thewhole price of cattle would fall, and along with it both therent and the profit of all those lands of which cattle was theprincipal produce, that is, of the greater part of the lands ofthe country. The perpetual prohibition of the exportation ofwool, which is commonly, but very falsely ascribed toEdward III. , would, in the then circumstances of the country,have been the most destructive regulation which could wellhave been thought of. It would not only have reduced the