It is also clear that he considered that the duty was repealed solely in the interests of the profit of the manufacturers of linen cloth who sought to strengthen their monopoly.

§ 5. Protection to Agriculture not based on

Monopoly

The negative argument, however, does not depend entirely on the weakness of statesmen, or the selfseeking of their advisers, the traders of all kinds. In the case which from his point of view is by far the most important, namely, that of agriculture, he does not think the landed interests were actuated by the spirit of monopoly. It is noteworthy, in view of the popular sentiment which was aroused by the agitation which led to the repeal of the corn laws, that Adam Smith did not originate nor even share this distrust of the landlord. He generally brackets the country gentlemen, the farmers, and the labourers together, in the consideration of the agricultural interests as compared with those of the towns. It is true that he entirely disapproves of the various artificial devices by which large estates were created and perpetuated -the system of land laws, he maintained, ought to be reformed altogether; but he did not hold the view that the owners of land possessed and exploited a monopoly. "Country gentlemen and farmers, dispersed in different parts of the country, cannot so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers who being collected into towns, and accustomed to that exclusive corporation spirit which prevails in them,

naturally endeavour to obtain against all their countrymen the same exclusive privilege which they generally possess against the inhabitants of their respective towns. They accordingly seem to have been the original inventors of those restraints upon the importation of foreign goods which secure to them the monopoly of the home market. It was probably in imitation of them, and to put themselves on a level with those who they found were disposed to oppress them, that the country gentlemen and farmers of Great Britain so far forgot the generosity which is common to their station as to demand the exclusive privilege of supplying their countrymen with corn and butcher's meat. They did not, perhaps, take time to consider how much less their interest could be affected by the freedom of trade than that of the people whose example they followed."1

§ 6. and unnecessary on Account of Natural Conditions.

With regard to agriculture Adam Smith relies mainly on the idea that the industry is sufficiently protected and encouraged by natural conditions. Not only, as already shown, do people prefer to employ their capital in that way, even at a lower profit, but the cost of transport, as compared with that of the finer manufactures in particular, affords a natural protection against foreign competition. After stating that if manufactures were freely admitted some home manufactures might suffer greatly or even be ruined

1 Book IV. chap. ii.

L

he proceeds: "But the freest importation of the rude produce of the soil could have no such effect upon the agriculture of the country." It is not necessary to go into the details of the argument in which he takes separately the importation of live cattle-both fat and lean of salted provisions, and of grain. It is sufficient to say that the argument remained essentially valid until a hundred years after it was advanced (1776-1876), including the period of thirty years from the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846-1876). And as regards this repeal it must be remembered that the strongest advocates of the repeal relied largely on this argument of natural protection. They supposed that for the most part every country must depend in the main on its own agricultural resources, and at any rate that these resources must be utilised to the full before foreign competition could be effective. The importation of foreign food supplies was regarded as supplementary to the home supplies and not as displacing such supplies. Adam Smith was able to write: "Even the freest importation of foreign corn could very little affect the interest of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much more bulky commodity than butcher's meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a pound of butcher's meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign corn imported even in times of the greatest scarcity may satisfy our farmers that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation." 2

1

1 Cf. The History of the English Corn Laws, by the present writer, p. 160. 2 Book IV. chap. ii.

But though this argument remained essentially true in fact for a hundred years, during the last generation the reduction of the cost of freights on the one side, and on the other the exploitation regardless of the waste' of natural fertility of the soils of new countries have brought about a fundamental change in the conditions. It is quite obvious that, at any rate, this part of the negative argument on which Adam Smith laid such stress is no longer applicable.

§ 7. Import of Food necessary with Growth of Population.

As already observed, Adam Smith not only appealed to actual experience, both past and present, but he was bold enough to take long views into the future. And although he thought the British farmer could never be injured by natural free importation, he seems to have anticipated a time when the growth of population in this country would depend on the possibility of obtaining food supplies from abroad. "To prohibit by a perpetual law the importation of foreign corn and cattle is in reality to enact that the population and industry of the country shall at no time exceed what the rude produce of its own soil can maintain.'

In effect the surplus population of this country

1 "In spite of the marvellous growth of American agriculture and its apparent prosperity it is doubtful if it has ever been self-supporting in any strict sense before the present period. The average farmer had never counted the partial exhaustion of the soil as part of the cost of a crop. Taking the country over it is probable that if the farmers had been compelled to buy fertilizers to maintain the fertility of their soil without depletion, the whole industry would have become bankrupt.”—T. N. Carver, Historical Sketch of American Agriculture.

must in the end be fed by the surplus food products of other countries.

§ 8. Failure of Protection to prevent Rural

Depopulation.

The history of the English Corn Laws is full of examples of the negative argument for freedom. The laws affecting imports were ostensibly designed not for revenue but for protection.

And yet so far as rural labour was concerned they failed to keep up the numbers of labourers engaged in agriculture. "In spite of the high protective duties, the proportion in Great Britain of families engaged in agriculture declined from 35.2 per cent in 1811 to 25.9 per cent in 1841 of the total number of families. Between 1821 and 1831 there was an absolute decrease in the number of families in agriculture in spite of an increase of about 19 per cent in the aggregate number of families in Great Britain. . . If we compare 1831 with 1841, with an absolute increase in population of over two millions, there was an absolute decrease in the number of adult males employed in agriculture." "

§ 9. Other Means of encouraging Agriculture.

In the last chapter of his fourth book, Adam Smith deals with the Agricultural System of Political Economy which had been expounded by the French economists with whom he had on the whole great 1 Cf. Hist., op. cit. pp. 111, 118.

2 Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. 61, 62.