Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/44

 noticed that the cheer was not universal, and looking round he saw that those who did not join in the general rejoicing were men who had given the principal part of their time and labour to the cultivation of corn. Some of these men had ripe crops now standing on the ground, which they had expected presently to be able to exchange for the clothing, fish, game, and other articles procured by the labour of their companions; and it occurred to the captain, when he saw their downcast faces, that there would no longer be any demand for corn when bread could be obtained so much more easily from a plant, the cultivation of which had cost no man either toil or self-denial; and that consequently the discovery of the plantain-trees, though adding so much to the general wealth and prosperity, would be attended by some real suffering on the part of the men who had grown wheat. Just as the captain was thinking of this, one of the principal corn-growers got up and said:—"I consider, sir, that we are going on too fast when we say that finding these trees is such a wonderfully good thing for us all. I and