from whatever cause it took place, which occurred towards the middle of the last century, accompanied as it was by a rise, rather than a fall in the price of labour, must have given a great relative check to the employment of capital upon the land, and a great relative stimulus to population; a state of things precisely calculated to produce the reaction afterwards experienced, and to convert us from an exporting to an importing nation.

It is by no means sufficient for Dr Smith’s argument, that the price of corn should determine the price of labour under precisely the same circumstances of supply and demand.  To make it applicable to his purpose, he must show, in addition, that a natural or artificial rise in the price of corn, or in the value of silver, will make no alteration in the state of property, and in the supply and demand of corn and labour; a position which experience uniformly contradicts.

Nothing then can be more evident both from theory and experience, than that the price of corn does not immediately and generally regulate the prices of labour and all other commodities; and that the real price of corn is capable of varying for periods of sufficient length to give a decided stimulus or discouragement to agriculture.  It is, of course, only to a temporary encouragement or discouragement, that any commodity, where the competition is free, can be subjected.  We may increase the capital employed either upon the land or in the cotton manufacture, but it is impossible permanently to raise the profits of farmers or particular manufacturers above the level of other profits; and, after the influx of a certain quantity of capital, they will necessarily be equalized.  Corn, in this respect, is subjected to the same laws as other commodities, and the difference between them is by no means so great as stated by Dr Smith.

In discussing therefore the present question, we must lay aside the peculiar argument relating to the nature of corn; and allowing that it is possible to encourage cultivation by corn laws, we must direct our chief attention to the question of the policy or impolicy of such a system.

While our great commercial prosperity continues, it is scarcely possible that we should become again an exporting nation with regard to corn.  The bounty has long been a dead letter; and will probably remain so.  We may at present then confine our inquiry to the restrictions upon the importation of foreign corn with a view to an independent supply.

The determination of the question, respecting the policy or impolicy of continuing the corn laws, seems to depend upon the three following points:—­

First, Whether, upon the supposition of the most perfect freedom of importation and exportation, it is probable that Great Britain and Ireland would grow an independent supply of corn.

Secondly, Whether an independent supply, if it do not come naturally, is an object really desirable, and one which justifies the interference of the legislature.