ortation, which indeed would be the best way; but, at all events, let
us have one weight and one measure for both parties, and not invoke
freedom of trade to protect the corn-dealers when prices are high, and
enact laws to counteract the effects of plenty, which produces low
prices.

On this subject, government must set itself above every consideration,
but that of the welfare of the country: it is too important to be trifled
with, or to be bartered for any inferior consideration.

The prices of our manufactures will soon become too high for other
nations. Our inventions, to abbreviate labour, cannot be perpetual,
and, in some cases, they can go no farther than they have already
gone; besides, the same inventions, copied by nations where labour is
cheaper, give them still a superiority over us.

If increased consumption was the leading cause of the destruction of
Rome, to which money was sent from tributary nations, and employed
to purchase corn, (so that its supply was independent of its industry,)
how much more forcible and rapid must be its effects in this country,
living by manufactures, and having no other means to procure a
supply from strangers, when that is necessary? {217}

The burthens of our national taxes continuing the same, those for

---
{216} When corn was dear, and the public cry was for regulation, it
was announced, in the highest quarters, that trade was free. Ministers
acted as if they had been the colleagues of of =sic= the economist
Turgot; but, when prices fell, the language was changed, and new
regulations were made. Compare the Duke of Portland's letter, in
1799, with the act for the exportation of grain, in 1804.

{217} The money sent out of the country for corn is a direct
diminution of the balance due to us from other nations, and it now
amounts to near three millions a year on an average. The balance in
our favour is not much more than twice that sum at the most, and was
not equal to that till lately: the imports of grain may soon turn the
balance against us.
-=-

[end of page #282]

the poor increasing, our means diminishing; what could possibly
produce a more rapid decline?

The danger is too great and too evident to require any thing farther to
be said; particularly as the last ten years have taught us so much, by
experience.

It is unnecessary to repeat what was said about the mode of reducing
the interest of the national debt without setting too much capital
afloat; witho