Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/15

 ETC. ETC.

"Committee on Agriculture" of 1821, expressed (in their report) a belief " that the annual produce of corn, the growth of the United Kingdom, was upon an average crop about equal to the annual consumption."

The Committee of 1833 "came to an opposite conclusion, and found that a diminished supply of home-grown corn with an increasing demand had rendered this nation annually dependent for a portion of its supply on importation from abroad."

Considering the rapid expansion of the population, it is quite unnecessary to assume with the Committee of 1833, "a diminished supply of home-grown corn," in order to agree with their conclusion on the contrary, I am persuaded that, owing to the inclosure of common and waste lands, and the extension of a more scientific cultivation, the produce of the United Kingdom was in 1833, and still more in later years, considerably larger than in 1821. Indeed it must be so, unless the