s, therefore, must increase very
considerably before they can restore the demand for labour already
lost; for the and a moderate increase beyond this will scarcely make
up disadvantage of a low money price of wages.

These wages will finally be determined by the usual money price of
corn, and the state of the demand for labour.

There is a difference between what may be called the usual price of
corn and the average price, which has not been sufficiently attended
to. Let us suppose the common price of corn, for four years out of
five, to be about L2 a quarter, and during the fifth year to be L6.
The average price of the five years will then be L2 16s.; but the
usual price will still be about L2, and it is by this price, and not
by the price of a year of scarcity, or even the average including
it, that wages are generally regulated.

If the ports were open, the usual price of corn would certainly
fall, and probably the average price; but from at has before been
said of the existing laws of France, and of the practice among the
Baltic nations of raising the tax on their exported corn in
proportion to the demand for it, there is every reason to believe,
that the fluctuations of price would be much greater. Such would, at
least, be my conclusion from theory; and, I think, it has been
confirmed by the experience of the last hundred years. During this
time, the period of our greatest importations, and of our greatest
dependence upon foreign corn, was from 1792 to 1805 inclusive; and
certainly in no fourteen years of the whole hundred were the
fluctuations of price so great. In 1792 the price was 42s. a
quarter; in 1796, 77s.; in 1801, 118s. a quarter; and, in 1803, 56s.
Between the year 1792 and 1801 the rise was almost a triple, and in
the short period from 1798 to 1803, it rose from 50s. to 118s. and
fell again to 56s.(13*)

I would not insist upon this existence as absolutely conclusive, on
account of the mixture of accident in all such appeals to facts; but
it certainly tends to confirm the probability of those great
fluctuations which, according to all general principles, I should
expect from the temper and customs of nations, with regard to the
egress of corn, when it is scarce; and particularly from the
existing laws of that country, which, in all common years, will
furnish us with a large proportion of our supplies.

To these causes of temporary fluctuations, during peace, should be
added the more durable as we