exportation of corn, which have been passed in France during the
last year, have brought this subject home to us in the most striking
and impressive manner. Our nearest neighbour, possessed of the
largest and finest corn country in Europe, and who, owing to a more
favourable climate and soil, a more stationary and comparatively
less crowded population, and a lighter weight of taxation, can grow
corn at less than half our prices, has enacted, that the exportation
of corn shall be free till the price rises to about forty nine
shillings a quarter,(5*) and that then it shall be entirely
cease.(6*)

From the vicinity of France, and the cheapness of its corn in all
years of common abundance, it is scarcely possible that our main
imports should not come from that quarter as long as our ports are
open to receive them. In this first year of open trade, our imports
have been such, as to shew, that though the corn of the Baltic
cannot seriously depress our prices in an unfavourable season at
home, the corn of France may make it fall below a growing price,
under the pressure of one of the worst crops that has been known for
a long series of years.

I have at present before me an extract from a Rouen paper,
containing the prices of corn in fourteen different markets for the
first week in October, the average of which appears to be about
thirty eight shillings a quarter;(7*) and this was after
disturbances had taken place both at Havre and Dieppe, on account of
the quantity exported, and the rise of prices which it had
occasioned.

It may be said, perhaps, that the last harvest of France has been a