Malthus demurs to much of this argument of Adam Smith. For, says he, “though the manufacturing nation may export a commodity which, in its actual shape, can only subsist and accommodate a very few, yet it must be recollected that in order to prepare this commodity for exportation, a considerable part of the revenue of the country has been employed in subsisting and accommodating a great number of workmen. And with regard to the subsistence and accommodation which the other nation exports, whether it be of a great or a small number, it is certainly no more than sufficient to replace the subsistence that has been consumed in the manufacturing nation, together with the profits of the master manufacturer and merchant, which probably, are not so great as the profits of the farmer and the merchant in the agricultural nation; and, though it may be true that the inhabitants of the manufacturing nation enjoy a greater quantity of subsistence than what their own lands in the actual state of their cultivation could afford, yet an inference in favour of the manufacturing system by no means follows, because the adoption of the one or the other system will make the greatest difference in their actual state of cultivation. If, during the course of a century, two landed nations were to pursue these two different systems, that is, if one of them were regularly to export manufacture and import subsistence, and the other to export subsistence and import manufacture, there would be no comparison at the end of the period between the state of cultivation in the two countries; and no doubt could rationally be entertained that the country which exported its raw produce would be able to subsist and accommodate a much larger population than the other.” It is a matter, says our author, of very little comparative importance, whether we are fully supplied with broadcloth, linens, and muslins, or even with tea, sugar, and coffee, and no rational politician therefore would think of proposing a bounty on such commodities. “But it is certainly a matter of the very highest importance, whether we are fully supplied with food; and if a bounty would produce such a supply, the most liberal economist might be justified in proposing it, considering food as a commodity distinct from all others, and pre-eminently valuable.” [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. In Chapter X. Mr. Malthus treats of bounties on the exportation of corn. He sets out by observing that according to the general principles of political economy, it cannot be doubted, that it is for the interest of the civilised world that each nation should purchase its commodities wherever they can be had the cheapest.