Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/34

28 price there from 60s. on the 17th August to 51s. on the 7th September. Information of the extensive deficiency of our harvest and a reliance upon a return of the shilling duty, again raised the price to 60s. on the 19th October. Here is a clear demonstration that the price abroad was dependent upon the duty here, and that the question (with a fixed duty) would not have been, whether the duty must be remitted to ensure a supply, but whether the amount of the duty should go into our own exchequer, or swell the profits of the Poles and Russians.

The evidence, then, of the present year proves, not the "impossibility, but the possibility and expediency of maintaining a fixed duty when prices rise;" and if we look back for a season which appears to countenance the former opinion, we find none until we reach the year 1817.

The failure of the harvest of 1816, not only in this country but upon the continent; the general scarcity which ensued; the unusual precautions taken by the continental governments in prohibiting exportation, and, as in France, offering bounties upon importation (by which wheat was actually drawn from this country at the enormous price of 115s. per quarter); all these circumstances would doubtless have rendered extraordinary measures necessary, and have required the suspension of the fixed duty had there been one. Still the suspension would have been called for, rather to counteract