THE LANDED INTEREST AND CORN LAWS 725 
commerce in such a way as to stimulate employment, were 4.0 Tree 
accepting a measure that exposed the British agriculturist 
to foreign competition. The Tory, who had advocated foreign 
commerce in the interest of the consumer, looked askance at 
it, when it threatened to undersell his tenants in the home 
market. Like other compromises, the measure failed to satisfy 
any one, and it did not even answer the expectations of its 
author. Englishmen found that they could not count upon 
a steady stream from other countries, as the interruptions to 
commerce, and demands abroad, might render it impossible 
for merchants to supply the deficiencies caused by a poor 
harvest at home. In bad years the consumer suffered, while 
the foreign corn which was imported might be warehoused 
and increase the stock of corn, so that the English producer 
would find prices range very low in some ordinary years, 
The effort to maintain a steady price, partly from the home but Parlia- 
supply and partly from foreign sources, proved a failure!; ei tothe 
and in the last decade of the eighteenth century the most Zyincirle of 
prominent agriculturists of the time demanded a return to native tion 
the policy of stimulating home production. Sir John Sinclair 
argued that the passing of a general Inclosing Bill was 
« the first and most essential means of promoting the general 
improvement of the country; and the importance of that 
measure has not as yet perhaps been so distinctly stated as ib 
deserves. In general, those who make any observations on 
the improvement of Land, reckon alone on the advantages 
which the landlord reaps from an increased income ; whereas, 
in a national point of view, it is not the addition to the rent, 
but to the produce of the country, that is to be taken into 
consideration. It is for want of attending to this important 
distinction, that people are so insensible of the wonderful 
prosperity that must be the certain result of domestic imn- 
provement. They look at the rental merely, which, like the 
1 Arthur Youug's protest against the changes introduced by the Act of 1773 
on the ground that the price at which export was permitted should not be too low, 
was justified by evenis. He held that, with the increasing demand and increasing 
difficulties of production, the farmer in 1770 ought to be able to calculate on 
a higher price than he could look for in 1689, and that the legislature should 
endeavour to keep the price of corn as steadily as possible at this higher level. 
Parliament bad attempted instead to make corn cheaper, with disastrous results, 
to the consumer in bad years. and to the producer in good ones (4dnnals of 
Agriculture. XLI. p. 308).