Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/27

21 " bread? if you do not, what becomes of the agriculturist?"

Sir James Graham cannot surely approve of the present law, for it " in time of scarcity" lets loose at once millions of quarters, at a mere nominal duty, to compete with the scanty crop of the agriculturist; but his reasoning, if carried out, would amount to this that the greater the deficiency of our own crop, the more rigorous should be the exclusion of foreign corn, for (as he adds) "he 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." It is not in the power of man to prevent a rise of price from accompanying scarcity, but we must not insist on scarcity being allowed, unchecked, to lead the price whither it will, lest the people starve. A fixed duty would admit foreign corn f in time of scarcity, but if the average of the prices of the five dear years in England is compared with that