Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/33

27 hardly be necessary to point out how regularly the reduction of the duty here was balanced by a corresponding addition to the price at Danzic; so that while the duty fell from 24s. 8d. to 1s., the price at Danzic rose from 40s. 6d. to 60s. Does not this prove that the difference between 10s. per quarter and the duty actually paid was given to the foreigner upon upwards of a million of quarters in the month of September by the present law, and does it not bear me out in affirming that the gain resulting from the abatement of a fixed duty here, would go to the foreigner upon the corn subsequently purchased abroad.

It has been said by Lord Stanley, "If there had been a fixed duty, there would not have been brought into the British market the same amount of foreign corn." That is to say, it would not have been brought if the foreigner could not have sold it on such terms as would enable our merchants to pay the fixed duty and still reap a profit upon its importation. The prices at Danzic shew that no such impediment to business was felt there previous to the 31st July, and had it been scarcity or increased cost which raised the price to 60s. in the next three weeks, the same causes would have kept it up. But what was the fact? The tactics of the Corn-Exchange are perfectly understood at Danzic, and the expectation that, the bonded corn once liberated, the averages would be driven down as rapidly as they had been driven up, reduced the