would be precisely the same, and the nation collectively
would neither be richer nor poorer.

But there is this advantage always resulting from a relatively low price
of corn,--that the division of the actual production is more likely to
increase the fund for the maintenance of labour, inasmuch as more will
be allotted, under the name of profit, to the productive class, a less,
under the name of rent, to the unproductive class.

This is true, even if the capital cannot be withdrawn from the land,
and must be employed there, or not be employed at all: but if great part
of the capital could be withdrawn, as it evidently could, it will be
only withdrawn, when it will yield more to the owner by being withdrawn
than by being suffered to remain where it was; it will only be withdrawn
then, when it can elsewhere be employed more productively both for the
owner and the public. He consents to sink that part of his capital which
cannot be separated from the land, because with that part which he can
take away, he can obtain a greater value, and a greater quantity of raw
produce, than by not sinking this part of the capital. His case is
precisely similar to that of a man who has erected machinery in his
manufactory at a great expense, machinery which is afterwards so much
improved upon by more modern inventions, that the commodities
manufactured by him very much sink in value. It would be entirely a
matter of calculation with him whether he should abandon the old
machinery, and erect the more perfect, _losing all the value of the
old_, or continue to avail himself of its comparatively feeble powers.
Who, under such circumstances, would exhort him to forego the use of
the better machinery, because it would deteriorate or annihilate the
value of the old? Yet this is the argument of those who would wish us to
prohibit the importation of corn, because it will deteriorate or
annihilate that part of the capital of the farmer which is for ever sunk
in land. They do not see that the end of all commerce is to increase
production, and that by increasing production, though you may occasion
partial loss, you increase the general happiness. To be consistent, they
should endeavour to arrest all improvements in agriculture and
manufactures, and all inventions of machinery; for though these
contribute to general abundance, and therefore to the general happiness,
they never fail, at the moment of their introduction, to deteriorate or
annihilate a