the
actual quantity of capital applied to the land, might have been as
necessary to save the country from extreme want in future, as it
obviously was in 1812, when, with the price of corn at above six
guineas a quarter, we could only import a little more than 100,000
quarters. If, from the very great extension of cultivation, during
the four or five preceding years, we had not obtained a very great
increase of average produce, the distresses of that year would have
assumed a most serious aspect.

There is certainly no one cause which can affect mercantile
concerns, at all comparable in the extent of its effects, to the
cause now operating upon agricultural capital. Individual losses
must have the same distressing consequences in both cases, and they
are often more complete, and the fall is greater, in the shocks of
commerce. But I doubt, whether in the most extensive mercantile
distress that ever took in this country, there was ever one fourth
of the property, or one tenth of the number of individuals
concerned, when compared with the effects of the present rapid fall
of raw produce, combined with the very scanty crop of last year.(2*)

Individual losses of course become national, according as they
affect a greater mass of the national capital, and a greater number
of individuals; and I think it must be allowed further, that no
loss, in proportion to its amount, affects the interest of the
nation so deeply, and vitally, and is so difficult to recover, as
the loss of agricultural capital and produce.

If it be the intention of the legislature fairly to look at the
evils, as well as the good, which belongs to both sides of the
question, it must be allowed, that the evidence laid before the two
houses of Parliament, and still more particularly the experience of
the last year, shew, that the immediate evils which are capable of
being remedied by a system of restrictions, are of no inconsiderable
magnitude.

2. In the Observations on the corn laws, I gave, as a reason for
some delay in coming to a final regulation respecting the price at
which foreign corn might be imported, the very uncertain state of
the currency. I observed, that three different importation prices
would be necessary, according as our currency should either rise to
the then price of bullion, should continue at the same nominal
value, or should take an intermediate position, founded on a fall in
the value of bullion, owing to the discontinuance of an