either. My main object is to assist in affording the materials for a
just and enlightened decision; and, whatever that decision may be,
to prevent disappointment, in the event of the effects of the
measure not being such as were previously contemplated. Nothing
would tend so powerfully to bring the general principles of
political economy into disrepute, and to prevent their spreading, as
their being supported upon any occasion by reasoning, which constant
and unequivocal experience should afterwards prove to be fallacious.

We must begin, therefore, by an inquiry into the truth of Dr Smith's
argument, as we cannot with propriety proceed to the main question,
till this preliminary point is settled.

The substance of his argument is, that corn is of so peculiar a
nature, that its real price cannot be raised by an increase of its
money price; and that, as it is clearly an increase of real price
alone which can encourage its production, the rise of money price,
occasioned by a bounty, can have no such effect.

It is by no means intended to deny the powerful influence of the
price of corn upon the price of labour, on an average of a
considerable number of years; but that this influence is not such as
to prevent the movement of capital to, or from the land, which is
the precise point in question, will be made sufficiently evident by
a short inquiry into the manner in which labour is paid and brought
into the market, and by a consideration of the consequences to which
the assumption of Dr Smith's proposition would inevitably lead.

In the first place, if we inquire into the expenditure of the
labouring classes of society, we shall find, that it by no means