we have paid such large sums, that the average price has been so greatly beyond what we ever can raise grain.

Unless we cultivate our waste lands, and devise some means within ourselves to provide subsistence adequate to the population, (as a judicious author has said,) the population must come down to the subsistence.

If abroad they look upon those prices here stated as paying them, and affording a suitable profit, we may easily judge, from the quanti-; ties this country has imported from thence, and the high price we have paid, how much better not only the state of the people, but the countries must be, and how far we have furnished them with means to cope against us, whilst the higher rents of lands in this country, necessarily require a bounty to be granted on that we export, (if we mean to export) even in years of plenty.

When the price of grain shall be, as it ought throughout the kingdom, on an average, forty-eight shillings per quarter, it may be exported; but supposing a bounty of five shillings per quarter is allowed, still we can never enter into competition with the northern nations, excepting on any sudden emergency, or any extraordinary demand ; at a time when their navigation is shut by the season; when they will raise their prices in proportion with ours, even then the quantity we could spare would not be any object to this country; for, so soon as ever the idea of exportation was afloat, the prices would rise again too high; so that from the price we have got corn in this country, compared to what they can produce it in the Baltic and America, we cannot become exporters, except casually; unless some effectual means are adopted very soon to encourage our own growth, and to make this island an entrepôt, to get the carrying trade, and by that means the commerce of the whole corn trade; so that if our own produce should at any time, by great and sudden exertion, be exported beyond whac the country could spare, or our crops prove deficient, we have always the chance of a foreign stock at home to resort to, at moderate prices,. till our own succeeding crops put us beyond want or apprehension.

To sum up the whole, the improvement of waste lands, the abolition of bounties, and making this an entrepôt of grain, are the means by

which we may obtain the object that is so desirable, and by which we can in future, judging by the past, on the average of thirteen years, save above three millions and a half sterling per annum.

To consider the corn business in a mercantile and general way, without either entering into the details of interior regulations, or examining those general principles which forbid the legislature to interfere in the regulation of trade as much as possible, is our business in this work; and to apply what we have to say to the British islands, without considering whether in other places and other circumstances, a different policy may not be necessary.

The result of what we have examined, then, is

1st. That as Britain does not grow corn enough for itself, a bounty on exports is totally absurd, for that, if it could produce export, it would be doing us a real injury, but the fact is, that it can never operate for any length of time, as the very idea of it would raise the corn above the price allowed.

2d. That a bounty on importation is useless and a dead loss to the nation, our prices here being always so much higher than those of other countries that it will command a supply without any bounty. 3d. That the proper regulation of bounties is not, however, sufficient; we must find means of growing enough for our own supply, and this is only to be done by our improving the waste

lands.

4th. That, as in all our corn traffic with other nations, we sell cheap, and buy dear, it is ruinous on every principle.

5th. That as the quantity of corn consumed in the nation exceeds in value the whole of our exports, on an average price, a very small deficiency will do more than consume that balance of trade that has for more than a century been in our favour; that is to say, in precise and plain terms, that if the crops of Britain and Ireland continue insufficient, and we have recourse to a foreign market forth only of the corn wanting, it will turn the balance of trade against us.

6th. That the same operation of improving the waste lands would

diminish the poor's rate and increase the revenues of the country.

7th. That making this country an entrepôt of grain, for which the present circumstances are favourable, would tend to keep the price steady, it would be an advantage both to the landlord and the farmer, as well as very conducive to the prosperity of the country..

And lastly, That the high price of grain, which regulates that of all other provisions, tends to undermine and destroy the manufacturing wealth and prosperity of this kingdom; and, therefore, that a remedy to its alarming augmentation cannot be too soon nor too eagerly sought after.

Schedule (A.) shewing the Prices to which the Scale of Bounty is to attach on the Export of Corn, Ground Corn, Flour or Meal, Malt, &c. and the Prices at which the Exportation is prohibited.

WHEAT, if at or under 48s. per quarter, a bounty on exportation of 5 s. per quarter. Wheat flour, 1s. 6d. per cwt.

Wheat meal, 1s. 3 d. per cwt.

If above 54 s. per quarter, no exportation allowed.

Rye, if at or under.............32s. per quarter, a bounty on exportation of 3 s. per quarter. Rye meal, or flour, 9d. per cwt.

If above 35s, per quarter, no exportation allowed.

Pease and beans..................exportable, without bounty, till at or under 35s. per quarter. Barley, beer or big, or

malt made of barley, 28 s. per quarter, a bounty on exportation of 2s. 6d. per quarter. beer or big, if at or or Barley, beer or big meal, 10d. per cwt. under.....

If above 31s. per quarter, no exportation allowed.

Oats, if at or under............16s. per quarter, a bounty on exportation of 2 s. per quarter.

Oatmeal, 1s. per cwt.

If above 19s. per quarter, no exportation allowed.

Schedule (B.) shewing the Prices according to which High or Low Duties are to take Place on Importation.

High duty

per cwt. 6 6

High duty

per qr. 22 0

ap In every country where the coasts lay favourably for the fisheries, their encouragement has been found to be an object of high importance; it increases the quantity of food, it brings up a hardy race of people, and it is a great source of wealth, by supplying such nations -as have not themselves the means of catching fish.

To Britain, which is an island circumscribed in extent, and therefore limited in point of subsistence and population (which depends on the means of subsistence) the encouragement of fisheries is a peculiar object of importance, and ought to be one of particular solicitude. Its defence too, in time of war, depending on its naval power, increases the importance of that source of wealth; and therefore, in more views than one, the fisheries are fit objects for public bounties.

Dr. Adam Smith, whose views on subjects of political economy have been allowed to be in general good; and who, if in error in any leading principle, it is in wishing governments to interfere as little as possible in trade and commerce, allows that fisheries are an exception, that their encouragement is a national benefit, and therefore their extension ought to be an object for bounties and encouragement, at the expense of the public.

Many great states, and wealthy people, have owed their first rise entirely to fisheries. Marseilles, the city that has continued to prosper longer than any other in Europe, first rose by fisheries, was maintained by them, and, by commerce, as a respectable independent state, and ally of the Romans; even during the dark ages it main-tained itself in a state of independence; and, in the twelfth century, was a powerful and free republic.* It may be said to have been inde

That city was, indeed, for a while, in the hands of the Genoese, having been in those disorderly times given up by the count of Thoulouse; but it soon again became independent and free.