t the natural price of those commodities would be raised, the natural
price of corn would be lowered; before the bounty was paid on
production, the farmers obtained as great a price for their corn as was
necessary to repay them their rent and their expenses, and afford them
the general rate of profits; after the bounty, they would receive more
than that rate, unless the price of corn fell by a sum at least equal to
the bounty. The effect then of the tax and bounty, would be to raise the
price of commodities in a degree equal to the tax levied on them, and to
lower the price of corn by a sum equal to the bounty paid. It will be
observed too, that no permanent alteration could be made in the
distribution of capital between agriculture and manufactures, because as
there would be no alteration, either in the amount of capital or
population, there would be precisely the same demand for bread and
manufactures. The profits of the farmer would be no higher than the
general level, after the fall in the price of corn; nor would the
profits of the manufacturer be lower after the rise of manufactured
goods; the bounty then would not occasion any more capital to be
employed on the land in the production of corn, nor any less in the
manufacture of goods. But how would the interest of the landlord be
affected? On the same principles that a tax on raw produce would lower
the corn rent of land, leaving the money rent unaltered, a bounty on
production, which is directly the contrary of a tax, would raise corn
rent, leaving the money rent unaltered.[42] With the same money rent the
landlord would have a greater price to pay for his manufactured goods,
and a less price for his corn; he would probably therefore be neither
richer nor poorer.

Now whether such a measure would have any operation on the wages of
labour, would depend on the question, whether the labourer, in
purchasing commodities, would pay as much towards the tax, as he would
receive from the bounty, in the low price of his food. If these two
quantities were equal, wages would continue unaltered; but if the
commodities taxed were not those consumed by the labourer, his wages
would fall, and his employer would be benefited by the difference. But
this is no real advantage to his employer; it would indeed operate to
increase the rate of his profits, as every fall of wages must do; but in
proportion as the labourer contributed less to the fund from which the
bounty was paid, and w