But without the bounty, it may be said, the state of tillage would not have been the same.What may have been the effects of this institution upon the agriculture of the country, I shall endeavour to explain hereafter, when I come to treat particularly of bounties.I shall only observe at present that this rise in the value of silver, in proportion to that of corn, has not been peculiar to England.It has been observed to have taken place in France, during the same period, and nearly in the same proportion too, by three very faithful, diligent, and laborious collectors of the prices of corn, Mr.Dupre de St.Maur, Mr.Messance, and the author of the Essay on the police of grain.But in France, till 1764, the exportation of grain was by law prohibited; and it is somewhat difficult to suppose that nearly the same diminution of price which took place in one country, notwithstanding this prohibition, should in another be owing to the extraordinary encouragement given to exportation.
It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in the average money price of corn as the effect rather of some gradual rise in the real value of silver in the European market than of any fall in the real average value of corn.Corn, it has already been observed, is at distant periods of time a more accurate measure of value than either silver, or perhaps any other commodity.When, after the discovery of the abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its former money price, this change was universally ascribed, not to any rise in the real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of silver.If during the sixty-four first years of the present century, therefore, the average money price of corn has fallen somewhat below what it had been during the greater part of the last century, we should in the same manner impute this change, not to any fall in the real value of corn, but to some rise in the real value of silver in the European market.
The high price of corn during these ten or twelve years past, indeed, has occasioned a suspicion that the real value of silver still continues to fall in the European market.This high price of corn, however, seems evidently to have been the effect of the extraordinary unfavourableness of the seasons, and ought therefore to be regarded, not as a permanent, but as a transitory and occasional event.The seasons for these ten or twelve years past have been unfavourable through the greater part of Europe;and the disorders of Poland have very much increased the scarcity in all those countries which, in dear years, used to be supplied from that market.So long a course of bad seasons, though not a very common event, is by no means a singular one; and whoever has inquired much into the history of the prices of corn in former times will be at no loss to recollect several other examples of the same kind.Ten years of extraordinary scarcity, besides, are not more wonderful than ten years of extraordinary plenty.The low price of corn from 1741 to 1750, both inclusive, may very well be set in opposition to its high price during these last eight or ten years.From 1741 to 1750, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market, it appears from the accounts of Eton College, was only L1 13s.91/2d., which is nearly 6s.3d.below the average price of the sixty-four first years of the present century.The average price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out, according to this account, to have been, during these ten years, only 51 6s.8d.
Between 1741 and 1750, however, the bounty must have hindered the price of corn from falling so low in the home market as it naturally would have done.During these ten years the quantity of all sorts of grain exported, it appears from the custom-house books, amounted to no less than eight millions twenty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty-six quarters one bushel.The bounty paid for this amounted to L1,514,962 17s.41/2d.In 1749 accordingly, Mr.Pelham, at that time Prime Minister, observed to the House of Commons that for the three years preceding a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for the exportation of corn.He had good reason to make this observation, and in the following year he might have had still better.In that single year the bounty paid amounted to no less than L324,176 10s.6d.It is unnecessary to observe how much this forced exportation must have raised the price of corn above what it otherwise would have been in the home market.
At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader will find the particular account of those ten years separated from the rest.He will find there, too, the particular account of the preceding ten years, of which the average is likewise below, though not so much below, the general average of the sixty-four first years of the century.The year 1740, however, was a year of extraordinary scarcity.These twenty years preceding 1750 may very well be set in opposition to the twenty preceding 1770.As the former were a good deal below the general average of the century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear years; so the latter have been a good deal above it, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two cheap ones, of 1759, for example.If the former have not been as much below the general average as the latter have been above it, we ought probably to impute it to the bounty.The change has evidently been too sudden to be ascribed to any change in the value of silver, which is always slow and gradual.The suddenness of the effect can be accounted for only by a cause which can operate suddenly, the accidental variation of the seasons.