impartially. By protecting duties of various kinds, an unnatural
quantity of capital is directed towards manufactures and commerce
and taken from the land; and while, on account of these duties, they
are obliged to purchase both home-made and foreign goods at a kind
of monopoly price, they would be obliged to sell their own at the
price of the most enlarged competition. It may fairly indeed be
said, that to restore the freedom of the corn trade, while
protecting duties on various other commodities are allowed to
remain, is not really to restore things to their natural level, but
to depress the cultivation of the land below other kinds of
industry. And though, even in this case, it might still be a
national advantage to purchase corn where it could be had the
cheapest; yet it must be allowed that the owners of property in land
would not be treated with impartial justice.

If under all the circumstances of the case, it should appear
impolitic to check our agriculture; and so desirable to secure an
independent supply of corn, as to justify the continued interference
of the legislature for this purpose, the next question for our
consideration is;

Fifthly, how far and by what sacrifices, restrictions upon the
importation of foreign corn are calculated to attain the end in
view.

With regard to the mere practicability of effecting an independent
supply, it must certainly be allowed that foreign corn may be so
prohibited as completely to secure this object. A country with a
large territory, which determines never to import corn, except when
the price indicates a scarcity, will unquestionably in average years