199
Agriculture is the only secure foundation of independent great-ness ; and nations, whose greatness has depended upon mere com-mercial wealth, have accordingly ever had a mere ephemeralexistence, f
The great effort of the policy of modern Europe , through thegreater part of the last century, has been to encourage, by everymeans, manufacturing and commercial industry, and to enticeit, by various advantages of artificial institution, to start before,instead of keeping pace with, the industry of agriculture. GreatBritain has not been behind her neighbours in this species of po-licy ; and her navigation-acts, together with the monopoly of thegreat market of her American colonies, secured to her nativemerchants and manufacturers, (not to mention the domestic mo-nopoly privileges established in ikeir favour against their ownfellow-citizens, by bounties on exportation of home manufac-tures, and prohibitions, or discouragement by high duties uponimportation of foreign ones), gave to those of that class suchpre-eminent encouragement, that it ought not to be matter ofsurprise, if her mercantile and manufacturing population has in rcreased beyond that amount which her agriculture can feed ; ifshe should have become dependent, to a certain extent, on theagriculture of other nations for subsistence, and an importer,from having been an exporter of grain.
Great Britain has lately had impressive warning of the inse-curity of prosperity founded upon commercial and manufactur-ing wealth, which so much depends on the will of surroundingnations. It is to be hoped she will be less sanguine than former-ly in her expectations from her commercial system of policy, andthat she will be more attentive to that more solid greatness,
f Malthus, Book iii. passim. The opinion of Malthus seems perfectly wellfounded, that the dependence of states upon foreign agriculture , for food, isthe more secure and least liable to be frustrated: 1. In proportion to their weak-ness; because, as holding their independent existence merely from the for-bearance and toleration of tlieir more potent neighbours, they excite no nation-al jealousy ; and there is the less danger of the ports whence they derive theirsupplies being shut against them, out of national irritation. 2. In proportion10 the absoluteness of their dependence; because their demand being constantand regular, the agriculture upon which they depend suits itself to that demand.
In proportion to the smallness of the space of territory occupied by the popu-lation; because this renders the equal distribution of the supply more easyand unexpensive. What a difference, in this respect, betwixt the state of Ham-burgh (when it was a state) and Great Britain ? Her greatness does excite jea-lousy. She depends, chiefly, on her own agriculture, and has no regular de-mand to which foreign agriculture might be suited. Upon occasion of anygreat deficiency, like that of the late calamitous scarcities, her demand is sud-dun, unprepared for, and great in proportion to the extent of her territory, andufber population. In the last scarcity, the demand from Britain not only great-ly affected the prices through Europe, but also in America; and Malthus says' e w as credibly informed, that the price of bread was nearly as high at Newlurk as at London . What must have been our situation had other nations®ut their ports!