and poured into the home-market, when there is a defective harvest, and consequently a high price of wheat in that market.

Such a sliding scale—although it secures enormous profits on foreign wheat to foreigners or speculators in foreign wheat, and works injustice to the farmers of the United Kingdom-is happily -owing to the great bulk and value of grain see p. 51 and p. 54 ante)-abortive of its manifest intent of imposing a maximum price of wheat of home-production in years of scarcity as the great rise, in such years, of the average price of wheat in the home-market shows-notwithstanding such attempt to establish a maximum price, in such years. Such average price actually fell from 57 shillings and 4 pence a-quarter in the year 1842 to 49 shllings and 3 pence a-quarter in the year 1843—being a difference of 8 shillings and a penny a-quarter in a single year—which mere difference in price on 14 millions of quarters of wheat (13,718,279), the annual production and consumption of the United Kingdom (see page 54 ante), would amount to 5 millions (£5,544,471) of money.

The Almighty, for wise though inscrutable purposes, is pleased to scatter the fruits of the earth in some years with an abundant, and in other years with a sparing hand. To attempt by human laws to counteract that dispensation is as

absurd and futile, as it would be to attempt by such laws to regulate heat and cold, sunshine and rain, the length of day and night—or by such laws to vary or repeal any law of nature.

And here it may properly be observed with admiration, how uniform or equal in abundance the fruits of the earth are bestowed upon the whole, or in the long run-although it be the Divine pleasure to vary the productiveness of harvests from year to year-which may be shown in the case of wheat, by the price of that grain (which is the index of its abundance or scarcity) on the on the average of each year, from year to year successively-and the price of the same grain in the long run or on an average of several successive years collectively.

For instance, the price of wheat per imperial

A comparison of those average prices (taken from the London Gazette) cannot fail to enforce and confirm the truth of the theory of the

learned fathers of the science of political economy -viz., that the wages of labour are not governed by the price of food from year to year, but by the price of food in the long run; which latter price is of uniformity so remarkable. Upon which it was observed (see note, page 28

et seq. and page 141 ante) that if the wages of labour did rise and fall with the price of food from year to year, labourers would be exempt from vicissitude of life, in consequence of the abundance or scarcity of harvests in different years.

Inspection of the above table cannot fail also to show that the theory of the leaguers and the men in fustian-jackets, that wages do not rise and fall with the price of food-and the theory of the prime-minister of the day, founded upon his experience of three or six years, that if wages do rise and fall with the price of food it is in an inverse ratio-are theories without foundation. For, looking at the average price of wheat in periods of seven years, it appears that that average price has varied within the last six years only 8 pence a-bushel, and with the exception of the first of those six years (1840) has varied only 4 pence a-bushel, during all that time that the average price of barley within that period of six years did not vary more than 11 penny a-bushel-and the average price of oats not more than 24 pence a-bushel; while,

from the same table, it

appears

that the average

price of wheat, on the average of each single year, was no less than 2 shillings and 3 farthings a-bushel higher in the year 1840 than in the year 1843.

Upon view of the great uniformity of the average price of wheat in successive periods of seven years shown by the foregoing table-it may be asked, upon what experience did the prime-minister of the day discover, that in the last three or the last six years the wages of labour rose or fell in an inverse ratio with some and what price of food? or, upon what figures did he calculate that inverse ratio, and detect the error, alleged by him to have been made by the fathers of the science of political economy, in holding that the wages of labour vary with the price of food in the long run, and do not vary otherwise with respect to the price of food?

CHAPTER V.

On the existent taxation of the United Kingdom.

THE taxes actually existent in the United Kingdom may be classed under two general heads,viz., indirect and direct. The indirect being taxes of which the payment is optional; and the direct being taxes of which the payment is not optional.

It ought to be a general rule or principle in the political economy of every well-regulated state, not to impose direct taxes until the power of raising public revenue by indirect taxes is exhausted; and when resort must be had to direct taxes-that they be imposed and levied with the least practicable infringement of liberty.

Effectively—the imposition of taxes in the United Kingdom (with the exception of the income-tax during the last war, and the incometax imposed by the prime-minister of the present day, and now existing in time of peace), has happily been very much in accordance with that general rule or principle (although not from application of it a priori)-as will appear from