Capital and industry are certainly not employed to the greatest advantage when they are directed to objects which under natural conditions could be bought cheaper than they could be made. It is true, he adds, anticipating the infant industry argument of Alexander Hamilton, List, and Mill, that “by means of such regulations a particular manufacture may sometimes be acquired sooner than it could have been otherwise, and after a certain time may be made at home as cheap or cheaper than in the foreign country.” But _cui bono_? Even in this case “it will by no means follow that the sum total either of its industry or of its revenue can ever be augmented by any such regulation.” One immediate effect of such regulations must be to diminish the revenue of the society, “and what diminishes its revenue is certainly not very likely to augment its capital faster than it would have augmented of its own accord had both capital and industry been left to find out their natural employments.” But though reason led him by every road to a complete system of liberty as the true end of commercial policy, he despaired of its adoption. “To expect indeed that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it.” Even if public prejudice were overcome, the resistance of private interests would be unconquerable. The landlords indeed had not yet acquired a strong interest in protection. At that time the home supply of wheat and oats in ordinary years was sufficient, or nearly so, for the requirements of the population, and prices were much about the same in England as in other European countries. The moving spirits of protection were master manufacturers, who, “like an overgrown standing army,” had begun to intimidate the legislature. “The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.” Under these circumstances it is very surprising that Adam Smith should have chosen to submit the corn laws to so long and destructive an analysis. He seems to have foreseen that the great battle for which he was sounding the advance would ultimately rage round a question then almost academic, and that cheap food would be the keystone of the free trade argument.