Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/49

Rh that, after harvest, the price would fall, and, consequently, that they should be great losers. But, if they had brought it to market in abundance at the latter end of the summer, the price must have fallen; or, if they had not brought it to market in that manner, there must have been a great deal of old corn in their hands after the harvest; which, if you suppose them to have been so unwise as to suffer, still this must have appeared since. Whatever doubt, therefore, there might have been in the beginning of the summer, with respect to the cause of the high price, there can be none now; time having, on this occasion, as in most others, discovered the truth, that the dearness was owing to real scarcity.

What, then, is the cause of this great evil so often recurring; and in every season, when the corn crops are not abundant, so afflicting to the great majority of the people of almost all civilised states?

The scarcity or abundance of the produce of the earth are the effects of causes both physical and moral.

The physical cause of the production of the necessaries of life is the property of the earth to produce them, or, in other words, the natural fertility of the soil.