The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn / Intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws"

by T. R. Malthus

At a time when, according to Adam Smith, the growing price in this country was only twenty eight shillings a quarter, and the average price, including years of scarcity, only thirty three shillings, exportation was not prohibited till the price rose to forty eight shillings. It was the intention of the English government, at that time, to encourage agriculture by giving vent to its produce. We may presume that the same motive influenced the government of France in the late act respecting exportation. And it is fair therefore to conclude, that the price of wheat, in common years, is considerably less than the price at which exportation is to cease.

With these prices so near us, and with the consequent power of supplying ourselves with great comparative rapidity, which in the corn trade is a point of the greatest importance, there can be no doubt that, if our ports were open, our principal supplies of grain would come from France; and that, in all years of common plenty in that country, we should import more largely from it than from the Baltic. But from this quarter, which would then become our main and most habitual source of supply, all assistance would be at once cut off, in every season of only moderate scarcity; and we should have to look to other quarters, from which it is an established fact, that large sudden supplies cannot be obtained, not only for our usual imports, and the natural variations which belong to them, but for those which had been suddenly cut off from France, and which our habitually deficient growth had now rendered absolutely necessary.

To open our ports, under these circumstances, is not to obtain a free trade in corn; and, while I should say, without hesitation, that a free trade in corn was calculated to produce steadier prices than the system of restrictions with which it has been compared, I should, with as little hesitation say, that such a trade in corn, as has been described, would be subject to much more distressing and cruel variations, than the most determined system of prohibitions.

Such a species of commerce in grain shakes the foundations, and alters entirely the data on which the general principles of free trade are established. For what do these principles say? They say, and say most justly, that if every nation were to devote itself particularly to those kinds of industry and produce, to which its soil, climate, situation, capital, and skill, were best suited; and were then freely to exchange these products with each other, it would be the most certain and efficacious mode, not only of advancing the wealth and prosperity of the whole body of the commercial republic with the quickest pace, but of giving to each individual nation of the body the full and perfect use of all its resources.

I am very far indeed from meaning to insinuate, that if we cannot have the most perfect freedom of trade, we should have none; or that a great nation must immediately alter its commercial policy, whenever any of the countries with which it deals passes laws inconsistent with the principles of freedom. But I protest most entirely against the doctrine, that we are to pursue our general principles without ever looking to see if they are applicable to the case before us; and that in politics and political economy, we are to go straight forward, as we certainly ought to do in morals, without any reference to the conduct and proceedings of others.

There is no person in the least acquainted with political economy, but must be aware that the advantages resulting from the division of labour, as applicable to nations as well as individuals, depend solely and entirely on the power of exchanging subsequently the products of labour. And no one can hesitate to allow, that it is completely in the power of others to prevent such exchanges, and to destroy entirely the advantages which would otherwise result from the application of individual or national industry, to peculiar and appropriate products.

Let us suppose, for instance, that the inhabitants of the Lowlands of Scotland were to say to the Highlanders, 'We will exchange our corn for your cattle, whenever we have a superfluity; but if our crops in any degree fail, you must not expect to have a single grain': would not the question respecting the policy of the present change, which is taking place in the Highlands, rest entirely upon different grounds? Would it not be perfectly senseless in the Highlanders to think only of those general principles which direct them to employ the soil in the way that is best suited to it? If supplies of corn could not be obtained with some degree of steadiness and certainty from other quarters, would it not be absolutely necessary for them to grow it themselves, however ill adapted to it might be their soil and climate?

The same may be said of all the pasture districts of Great Britain, compared with the surrounding corn countries. If they could only obtain the superfluities of their neighbours, and were entitled to no share of the produce when it was scarce, they could not certainly devote themselves with any degree of safety to their present occupations.

There is, on this account, a grand difference between the freedom of the home trade in corn, and the freedom of the foreign trade. A government of tolerable vigour can make the home trade in corn really free. It can secure to the pasture districts, or the towns that must be fed from a distance, their share of the general produce, whether plentiful or scarce. It can set them quite at rest about the power of exchanging the peculiar products of their own labour for the other products which are necessary to them, and can dispense, therefore, to all its subjects, the inestimable advantages of an unrestricted intercourse.

But it is not in the power of any single nation to secure the freedom of the foreign trade in corn. To accomplish this, the concurrence of many others is necessary; and this concurrence, the fears and jealousies so universally prevalent about the means of subsistence, almost invariably prevent. There is hardly a nation in Europe which does not occasionally exercise the power of stopping entirely, or heavily taxing, its exports of grain, if prohibitions do not form part of its general code of laws.