Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/36

30 even, Sir Robert Peel's hypothesis might have been realized; and had an 8s. duty been decreed in May last, the price might have risen to 90s. in September or October. But why would it have risen? Not because in July and August there was not an abundance of foreign corn in our warehouses; not because it could not be profitably sold at the prices then existing; but because, relying on the opinion which Sir Robert Peel has again and again expressed, "That when prices rose, a fixed duty could not be maintained," the holders would have driven up the price by keeping back their corn, (they would have created the scarcity by which they were to profit,) and when an "order in council" had kindly remitted them the duty, they would have exacted the utmost which the people would give rather than starve.

It would require no combination to effect this, the certain benefit of the result would induce unanimity, nor could those interested be blamed for their accordant action; the blame would attach to the system which invited and rewarded it.

Let a fixed duty be enacted by a government too strong to fear a senseless or interested cry, and very distant may be the day when they shall need remove it; and if that day come, if a dearth like that of 1816 again visit the face of Europe, and it be as then followed by restrictive laws abroad—let the duty be awhile suspended; and, with the return of plenty, let the law resume its force.