rn, the higher must be the protecting duty or
the price of importation, in order to secure an independent supply;
and the greater consequently will be the relative disadvantage which
we shall suffer in our commerce with other countries. This drawback
may, it is certain, ultimately be so great as to counterbalance the
effects of our extraordinary skill, capital and machinery.

The whole, therefore, is evidently a question of contending
advantages and disadvantages; and, as interests of the highest
importance are concerned, the most mature deliberation is required
in its decision.

In whichever way it is settled, some sacrifices must be submitted
to. Those who contend for the unrestrained admission of foreign
corn, must not imagine that the cheapness it will occasion will be
an unmixed good; and that it will give an additional stimulus to the
commerce and population of the country, while it leaves the present
state of agriculture and its future increase undisturbed. They must
be prepared to see a sudden stop put to the progress of our
cultivation, and even some diminution of its actual state; and they
must be ready to encounter the as yet untried risk, of making a
considerable proportion of our population dependent upon foreign
supplies of grain, and of exposing them to those vicissitudes and
changes in the channels of commerce to which manufacturing states
are of necessity subject.

On the other hand, those who contend for a continuance and increase
of restrictions upon importation, must not imagine that the present
state of agriculture and its present rate of eminence can be
maintained without injuring other branches of the national industry.
It is certain that they will not only be injured, but that they will
be injured rather more than agriculture is benefited; and that a
determination at all events to keep up the prices of our corn might
involve us in a system of regulations, which, in the new state of
Europe which is expected, might not only retard in some degree, as
hitherto, the progress of our foreign commerce, but ultimately begin
to diminish it; in which case our agriculture itself would soon
suffer, in spite of all our efforts to prevent it.

If, on weighing fairly the good to be obtained and the sacrifices to
be made for it, the legislature should determine to adhere to its
present policy of restrictions, it should be observed, in reference
to the mode of doing it, that the time chosen is by no means
fa