Page:Speech of Sir Hussey Vivian, Bart. M.P. on the Corn Laws, Thursday March 14, 1839.djvu/23

19 consumption. They calculate as if, in common years, the quantity of corn grown in England is exactly what is required for the sustenance of the people, and that every quarter of foreign corn introduced would interfere with the sale of a quarter of that home-grown, and therefore that it is only in such years as the present, when the harvests are bad, that foreign corn should be admitted. Now, Sir, in the first place, those who argue thus, entirely forget that in reality there is no limitation to consumption—that the produce of our harvests, year after year, vary very considerably, but year after year that produce is for the most part consumed—that when both our agricultural and our manufacturing interests are in a flourishing state, the consumption is much greater than when distress prevails, and consequently that any measure which contributes to the improvement of our manufacturing interests (as a greater extension of our importation of corn from foreign countries would assuredly do) would undoubtedly lead to an increased consumption. I need produce no better evidence of the increase of consumption than is afforded in the speech of the Honourable Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire, when, last night, he referred to the cases of beer and coffee, in both of which I think he mentioned that the consumption, on the reduction of duty,