important--the provision industries--to the gravest and the suddenest.
They are dependent on the casualties of the seasons. A single bad
harvest diffused over the world, a succession of two or three bad
harvests, even in England only, will raise the price of corn
exceedingly, and will keep it high. And a great and protracted rise
in the price of corn will at once destroy all the real part of the
unusual prosperity of previous good times. It will change the full
working of the industrial machine into an imperfect working; it will
make the produce of that machine less than usual instead of more
than usual; instead of there being more than the average of general
dividend to be distributed between the producers, there will
immediately be less than the average.

And in so far as the apparent prosperity is caused by an unusual
plentifulness of loanable capital and a consequent rise in prices,
that prosperity is not only liable to reaction, but certain to be
exposed to reaction. The same causes which generate this prosperity
will, after they have been acting a little longer, generate an
equivalent adversity. The process is this: the plentifulness of
loanable capital causes a rise of prices; that rise of prices makes
it necessary to have more loanable capital to carry on the same
trade. 100,000 L. will not buy as much when prices are high as it
will when prices are low, it will not be so effectual for carrying
on business; more money is necessary in dear times than in cheap
times to produce the same changes in the same commodities. Even
supposing trade to have remained stationary, a greater capital would
be required to carry it on after such a rise of prices as has been
described than was necessary before that rise. But in this case the
trade will not have remained stationary; it will have
increasedcertainly to some extent, probably to a great extent. The