to the reality
of this protection, (to enter upon which points would be to adopt that
hateful discussion which we have abjured;) but, above all, he is wrong
in assigning to corn-laws, as their end and purpose, an absolute
design of sustaining prices. To raise prices is an occasional means of
the corn-laws, and no end at all. In one word, what _is_ the end of
the corn-laws? It is, and ever has been, to equalize the prospects of
the farmer from year to year, with the view, and generally with the
effect, of drawing into the agricultural service of the nation, as
nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another.
This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end
must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through
moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The
besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great
peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn--viz. its inevitable
oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the
variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think,
that Parliaments cause, and that Parliaments could heal if they
pleased, the evil of fluctuation in grain. Alas! the evil is as
ancient as the weather, and, like the disease of poverty, will cleave
to society for ever. And the way in which a corn-law--that is, a
restraint upon the free importation of corn--affects the case, is
this:--Relieving the domestic farmer from that part of his anxiety
which points to the competition of foreigners, it confines it to the
one natural and indefeasible uncertainty lying in the contingencies of
the weather. Releasing him from all jealousy of man, it throws him, in
singleness of purpose, upon an effort which cannot be disappointed,
except by a power to which, habitually, he bows and resigns himself.
Secure, therefore, from all superfluous anxieties, the farmer enjoys,
from year to year, a pretty equal encouragement in distributing the
employments of his land. If, through the dispensations of Providence,
the quantity of his return falls short, he knows that some rude
indemnification will arise in the higher price. If, in the opposite
direction, he fears a low price, it comforts him to know that this
cannot arise for any length of time but through some commensurate
excess in quantity. This, like other severities of a natural or
general system, will not, and cannot, go beyond a bearable limit. The