Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/144

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( 134 )

¬cruel disregard of the wants and sufferings of the poor, but their ignorance was soon proved by the event. — When the foreign corn was selling cheap in our markets, whilst that of their own country remained in the barns undisposed of, bread was undoubtedly cheaper, but they had then no money to buy it with however cheap, because their masters could no longer employ them, and they were every where discharged. — When grain fetched an encouraging price to the growers, they were all employed, and wages of course rose in proportion to the value of their labour to their employers; but when, from the sale of foreign corn in all the markets, it sunk below any profit from home cultivation, bread, as I have just told you, became cheaper, but the clamourers had no bread at all. — A cheap loaf was but a sorry sight to those who had only to look at it. — The kingdom therefore presented every where a face of the utmost distress ; nor is the law which even now regulates importations by any means sufficiently protective, because that which was intended to be the lowest price ¬in ¬