Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/29

 prices, and that prosperity which have in vain been sought for in acts of parliament.

That the prices of corn in this country should have been appealed to in support of the arguments that our corn laws have caused steadiness of price, is indeed strange, when prices in England have been more variable during the last thirty years than those of any country we are acquainted with; and when the variations that have taken place from the highest to the lowest price, under the law of 1815, amount to no less than 199½ per cent., and under the law of 1828, to 129 per cent. It may be said that the nature of this country would have given, under any circumstances, a more unsteady price than other countries; but upon examination I think we shall find there are abundant reasons for supposing the contrary to be the case. It cannot be said that a narrow market is more steady than an extended one; nor can it be said that a country would have more steady prices were it excluded so entirely from the rest of the world as to have no importation of corn, whatever might be the wants of the inhabitants; nor can it be said that it is the nature of highly civilized and populous countries to be more variable in price than countries in a rude and barbarous state. The whole tendency of improved cultivation, and a higher and better kind of farming, is to make corn more steady in price, and if any country in the world should have been steady from this cause it is England. From the maritime situation of England, and the great command of a variety of climates, and variety of markets, the argument is still stronger in favour of steady prices, for they are advantages in which respect few countries are similarly situated.

Though it is my opinion that prices would advance slowly under a free trade, yet, should prices remain stationary, there are many reasons to show why the trade of farming would improve under such circumstances. With low rents, low tithes, and low expenses, every improvement that is made in the implements of farming—every improvement that the farmer may himself make in the application or economy of labour, or the rearing or feeding of stock would, in the first instance, redound to his own advantage; and not until a lease or tenancy was expired could the landlord take advantage of the improvements, instead of, as at present, anticipating improvements in the rent. In the natural course of things, when improvements become general, and the price of food reduced in consequence of them, the public reap the benefit, and not the individual farmer making them. But then the farmer, as one of the public, and as a consumer himself, participates in the increased