to excite the wonder and envy of the world; and the substantial nature of this wealth is proved by the amount of the revenue raised from it by taxation, greatly exceeding the revenue of any other country. This view of the question must, I think, dispose any dispassionate person to doubt, that an absolute scarcity of food for the last thirty-eight years in Britain has been the sole cause of the higher average price of grain during that period. In order to prove that a certain effect is produced by a given cause, it is desirable to shew, that the same effect could not be produced by any other cause; and this naturally leads me to consider how far the higher average price of grain in Britain may arise from the other two causes. I think it is admitted, even by those who advocate the abolition of the Corn Laws, that the price of grain is influenced by taxation in the same way, but only to the same extent, as the price of manufactures. They admit that the wages of the labourers must be increased in proportion to the increase by taxation on the price of commodities consumed by them; and the great leading cause of complaint at the present moment on the part of the abolitionists and manufacturers, is, that in all articles requiring much manual labour, Britain is at present, and must continue to be, undersold in future by the cheaper labour of the Continent. Now, it will not be denied, that manual labour enters to an infinitely greater extent into the production of food than into the production of any other manufacture. If, therefore the manufacturers complain, with justice, that the higher rate of taxation, by raising wages, prevents them from competing with continental manufacturers, the same argument applies to the agriculturist, only with infinitely greater force, in proportion to the trifling assistance which machinery has as yet afforded to manual labour in the production of food. The whole population of Britain would not be able to do for the manufacturers in a year what the steam engine does for them in a day; but coal, the food, or moving power of the steam engine is absolutely cheaper in Britain than in any country in the world. If it is admitted that the higher rate of taxation has any influence whatever in raising or maintaining the price of grain in this country, it must also be admitted, that some degree of protection is just and necessary. With respect to the higher real wages of labour, if there should appear the slightest ground for thinking that a higher rate of real wages has any tendency to raise or maintain the average price of grain in Britain above the average price of the Continent, any attempt to reduce that price by enabling foreign grain to supplant that of British growth in the home market, must be deprecated as an experiment of the most dangerous nature for the labouring classes of the community. I am aware that I am not entitled to assume, that the real wages of Britain are higher than the real wages of the Continent.