In expressing this distinct opinion on the effects of a free trade
in corn, I certainly meant to refer to a trade really free--that
is, a trade by which a nation would be entitled to its share of the
produce of the commercial world, according to its means of
purchasing, whether that produce were plentiful or scanty. In this
sense I adhere strictly to the opinion I then gave; but, since that
period, an event has occurred which has shewn, in the clearest
manner, that it is entirely out of our power, even in time of peace,
to obtain a free trade in corn, or an approximation towards it,
whatever may be our wishes on the subject.

It has, perhaps, not been sufficiently attended to in general, when
the advantages of a free trade in corn have been discussed, that the
jealousies and fears of nations, respecting their means of
subsistence, will very rarely allow of a free egress of corn, when
it is in any degree scarce. Our own statutes, till the very last
year, prove these fears with regard to ourselves; and regulations of
the same tendency occasionally come in aid of popular clamour in
almost all countries of Europe. But the laws respecting the
exportation of corn, which have been passed in France during the
last year, have brought this subject home to us in the most striking
and impressive manner. Our nearest neighbour, possessed of the
largest and finest corn country in Europe, and who, owing to a more
favourable climate and soil, a more stationary and comparatively
less crowded population, and a lighter weight of taxation, can grow
corn at less than half our prices, has enacted, that the exportation
of corn shall be free till the price rises to about forty nine
shillings a quarter,(5*) and that then it shall be entirely
cease.(6*)

From the vicinity of France, and the cheapness of its corn in all
years of common abundance, it is scarcely possible that our main
imports should not come from that quarter as long as our ports are
open to receive them. In this first year of open trade, our imports
have been such, as to shew, that though the corn of the Baltic
cannot seriously depress our prices in an unfavourable season at
home, the corn of France may make it fall below a growing price,
under the pressure of one of the worst crops that has been known for
a long series of years.

I have at present before me an extract from a Rouen paper,
containing the prices of corn in fourteen different markets for the
first week in Octo