80
Manual of Political Economy.
stances may occur which will counteract this tendency; we are all aware that this tendency towards higher prices has been and may be again counteracted; that agricultural improvements, for instance, have often been introduced, which have enabled the increased wants of a larger population to be supplied without any rise in the price of food. Why the price of wheat has not risen in England.The population of the United Kingdom increased 8,000,000 between 1841 and 1881, and yet the price of wheat was lower in 1881 than in 1841; but this fact does not falsify the principle above enunciated. The circumstances which have prevented a rise in the price of wheat are patent to all. Before 1848, we were in a great degree restricted to our own soil for our supplies of corn. Now we are freely permitted to purchase wheat from any country which offers it for sale. As many as fifteen million[1] quarters of wheat are often imported in one year; and as the means of communication improve, the area from which we draw our supplies is constantly extended; thus wheat is now sent in considerable quantities to England from California and Australia, and even such a remote region as the Punjab exports wheat to us. The influence therefore of free trade and improved means of transit has been analogous to that which would have been exerted if a tract of fertile land had been added to the cultivable area of this island. Suppose that, in consequence of the great abundance of fertile land in the valley of the Mississippi, wheat grown there could be sold in our markets at a less price than would adequately remunerate the English agriculturist if he grew wheat on many of the less productive soils in England. Under these circumstances the valley of the Mississippi would, as far as the supply of wheat is concerned, serve England the same purpose as if a tract of fertile land could be added to her shores. We are quite ready to admit, that the effects attributed by political economy to one particular cause, seldom occur with strict exactness; such perfect conformity could not take place unless the cause acted alone, and this is very rarely the case; the practical utility of political economy however is not for this reason lessened, for the science
- ↑ [In 1905 22,809,054 quarters of wheat were imported into the United Kingdom.]
