Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/51

 of the foreign corn in bond is certain to be liberated at that time, and is thrown upon the market so as to depress the price, just as the farmer (who, being rarely a man of capital, cannot wait till the reaction of the following summer, but must realise at once) is preparing to thrash out his wheat. The annexed table will show, that, in every year of considerable foreign importation since the enactment of the sliding-scale (except 1831 and 1839), the chief portion has been poured into the market immediately before the harvest, and the lowest point of duty has almost always been reached in August or September.

The experience of the last fourteen years, then, and more especially of the present year, must, we think, have convinced the farmer, that the inevitable operation of the sliding-scale is to expose him to the overwhelming competition of a sudden influx of foreign corn, just at the period when he has most to sell, when he is most anxious to sell, and when consequently such competition will be most severely felt. Is this the effect which he looked for from it? Is it an effect which he is desirous to perpetuate? Does it not convince him, that the sliding-scale, to which he trusted for protection, has been, in truth, his greatest enemy?

But it has a still further, and still more hostile operation on the poor farmer. It exposes him to the depressing competition of a larger quantity of foreign corn than is actually wanted, or would otherwise come in. When it becomes evident that our harvests are likely to be deficient, orders are sent abroad for large quantities of wheat, which continue to come in long after the deficiency is supplied, and when prices are receding to a moderate level. Under ordinary circumstances, this extra quantity would not be called for till it was actually wanted. But as, under the sliding-scale, the duty is rapidly