ffording the materials for a
just and enlightened decision; and, whatever that decision may be,
to prevent disappointment, in the event of the effects of the
measure not being such as were previously contemplated. Nothing
would tend so powerfully to bring the general principles of
political economy into disrepute, and to prevent their spreading, as
their being supported upon any occasion by reasoning, which constant
and unequivocal experience should afterwards prove to be fallacious.

We must begin, therefore, by an inquiry into the truth of Dr Smith's
argument, as we cannot with propriety proceed to the main question,
till this preliminary point is settled.

The substance of his argument is, that corn is of so peculiar a
nature, that its real price cannot be raised by an increase of its
money price; and that, as it is clearly an increase of real price
alone which can encourage its production, the rise of money price,
occasioned by a bounty, can have no such effect.

It is by no means intended to deny the powerful influence of the
price of corn upon the price of labour, on an average of a
considerable number of years; but that this influence is not such as
to prevent the movement of capital to, or from the land, which is
the precise point in question, will be made sufficiently evident by
a short inquiry into the manner in which labour is paid and brought
into the market, and by a consideration of the consequences to which
the assumption of Dr Smith's proposition would inevitably lead.

In the first place, if we inquire into the expenditure of the
labouring classes of society, we shall find, that it by no means
consists wholly in food, and still less, of course, in mere bread or
grain. In looking over that mine of information, for everything
relating to prices and labour, Sir Frederick Morton Eden's work on
the poor, I find, that in a labourer's family of about an average
size, the articles of house rent, fuel, soap, candles, tea, sugar,
and clothing, are generally equal to the articles of bread or meal.
On a very rough estimate, the whole may be divided into five parts,
of which two consist of meal or bread, two of the articles above
mentioned, and one of meat, milk, butter, cheese, and potatoes.
These divisions are, of course, subject to considerable variations,
arising from the number of the family, and the amount of the
earnings. But if they merely approximate towards the truth, a rise
in the price of corn must