Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD VISCOUNT MELBOURNE, ON THE CAUSE OF THE HIGHER AVERAGE PRICE OF GRAIN IN BRITAIN THAN ON THE CONTINENT. By SIR GEORGE GRANT SUTTIE, BARONET, OF PRESTON GRANGE. EDINBURGH: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 1839. EDINBURGH: Printed by Andrew Shortrede, Thistle Lane. LETTER. The average price of grain in Britain has, for a long series of years, been higher than in the neighbouring countries of Europe. It is of the utmost importance to ascertain the cause or causes of this higher price. The following appear to be the principal:--1st, Scarcity, the effect of monopoly; 2d, The higher rate of taxation in this than in the neighbouring nations; 3d, The higher rate of the real wages of labour in this than in the other countries of Europe. If it can be proved, that the first is the only cause of the higher average price of grain in Britain, there can be no doubt that it is the interest of every class in the community to have it removed: If the second cause, the higher rate of taxation in Britain, has the slightest influence on the price of grain, the question assumes a very different aspect: And if the third cause, the higher real wages of labour in Britain, has any connection whatever with the higher average price of grain in Britain, the question of the Corn Laws would then evidently connect itself with the best interests of the country. Those who advocate the abolition of the Corn Laws, assume it to be proved, that the higher average price of grain in Britain arises from scarcity, the effect of monopoly: as, therefore, the cause of the higher price of grain in Britain would be removed by the abolition of the Corn Laws, they assert that the price here would be brought nearly to a level with the price on the Continent, and that the evils which they consider Britain labours under from a scarcity of food would be removed. Now, I believe it will be admitted, that at no period of the history of Britain has the average price of grain so far exceeded the price on the Continent as during the present century; and I think it will also be admitted, that at no period of the history of Britain, or of any other nation, has so rapid an increase taken place in the amount of the population, in the wealth, and, above all, in the amount of taxation actually levied from the people. The state of the case is this: It is asserted, that, for the last thirty-eight years, the inhabitants of Britain have been labouring under the evil effects of a scarcity of food, as proved by the higher average price of grain in Britain, when compared with the price on the Continent. During the same period, the population has increased in a greater degree than during any former period; and the wealth of the country has increased to such an extent as