204
population may not outrun internal means of subsistence ; or, inother words, that internal agriculture may rise to the level of thepopulation ; and that it may no longer be in the power of othernations, merely by shutting their ports, to cause perhaps two mil-lions of our population to perish for want of food, after the mosttremendous struggles about the limited supply which our ownagriculture could afford.
The natural equilibrium of our commerce and our agriculturewould seem incapable of being restored, but in two ways; either,t first, By removing the causes which have disturbed it, in break-ing down all the hedges and fences of monopoly privilege, by•which manufactures and commerce have hitherto been secured inan artificial market, and an artificial enhancement of price j or,secondly, By securing the same artificial market and price to agri-culture, and keeping it up to their level in point of instituted ad-vantage.
It is the effect of the corn laws (commonly so called) to securethese similar advantages to agriculture, by bounties upon export-ation, and restricting duties upon importation. And the infinite-ly Superior importance of the subject, will certainly much morejustify the interference of regulation in disturbing the natural le-vel in this instance, than in the other.
The paradoxical opinion of Dr Smith, as to the impossibility«f such measures giving any encouragement to agriculture, seemsto be abundantly refuted by Malthus , ( Book iii. Chap. 10.) Andsurely, if it is at all in the power of artificial regulation to en-courage agriculture, one great means must be, by thus keepingthe price artificially somewhat above the natural level price.
The tendency of the present corn laws (according to Malthus )is rather to secure an independent supply than an annual excess.A cultivation, however, so extended as to prepare an annual ex-cess for a foreign vent, is the best provision against those recur-ring years of deficiency of crop, which may ever be expected,at no very long intervals ; because, by suspending exportation,and confining to domestic supply the product of that cultivationwhich the foreign vent had excited, this greater breadth of cul-tivation will tend to compensate, in great measure, the generaldeficiency of return over all.
Public granaries have been suggested, as a still more indepen‘dent security against years of scarcity ; but the various weightyobjections against these, seem to have caused the idea to be ab-andoned. And, from the very perishable nature of grain, ow-ing to vermin, and other causes, and the great uncertainty ofspeculations in grain, depending so much for their success on the'turning out of the season, a thing which cannot be foreseen, itis not to be expected that much provision against scarcity can bepiade by storing grain, as a matter of private enterprise: thejpost that can be thus expected, is, the buying in and storing np