Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/14

8 manufacturers build for an increased demand for their manufactures? And if it fails to exclude when prices are high, then I say that our agriculturist is deprived of protection at the time when it is most wanted. (Cheering.) If in time of scarcity we demand a fixed duty, what becomes of cheap bread? If you do not, what becomes of the agriculturist? For he who lays the axe to the root of protection, who by forced enactments would decree that diminished produce should not be compensated by a high price, would depreciate native industry, and prove fatal to the agricultural interest. In fact I cannot put the case more tersely or more truly than I did on a former occasion when I said 'that a fixed duty in a time of scarcity would starve the artizan, and in time of abundance would ruin the labourer and farmer."—Sir James Graham's Speech at Dorchester, 13th September, 1841.