Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/15

 his interest to have that price very moderate. I allude to those years, (of which we have had several lately,) when we are unable, from deficient crops, to sell as much grain as we pay in rent to the landlord; whatever number of quarters we may want is still to be paid for; so the lower in price that it is calculated at, the better for us. Certainly, if we could get a high price with a good crop, we should make more money, but even in this country high prices and abundant crops rarely go together. It is only when we have little to sell that great prices are obtained. It must be obvious, then, that a corn bill that prevents the regular importation of grain into a country like Britain, must be a crying evil, even to farmers. A sliding scale of duties appears to be solely calculated to accumulate stores of grain, until, perhaps, immediately before the harvest, when the grain is almost wholly out of the hands of farmers; then only do prices reach that pitch to enable the importer to pay, or rather avoid paying, the duty, when the whole is thrown upon the market, just as we, the home growers, begin to dispose of our new crop. This has happened repeatedly; and what has taken place this season is a beautiful illustration of the working of such a measure. We had hardly got into security a most abundant crop of the finest quality, when the market was flooded by an accumulated stock of upwards of two millions of quarters of foreign wheat and about five hundred thousand cwts. of flour being suddenly thrown upon it. Had this wheat and flour been brought to market during the summer, as it was landed, (without noticing the advantage it would have been to our famishing population,) there cannot be a doubt but that now we should have been getting much higher prices for the crop we are disposing of. But it was kept in bond when we farmers had little or nothing to sell, and liberated just in time to forestall our market; so that in this instance the law, professedly framed for our advantage, has operated in a manner injurious to our interests. But a sliding scale will always have this effect, over and above attracting the attention of speculators exclusively to foreign corn, however low in price home produce may be. Men will take shares in lotteries. Besides, for every shilling grain rises, there is the additonal advantage of the fall in the duty, so that there is a profit two ways. If the prices rise and the duty falls to 12s. or 10s., it may still fall to 8s. or 6s., and then, if kept still longer out of the market, it may be got out of bond at the nominal duty. Of the 12,000,000 of quarters of foreign wheat which we have imported within the last five years, more than two-thirds of it have been entered for home consumption, either immediately before or during the time of harvest, so that the new crop and the foreign supply come to market together. But it is