In page 267 Mr. Malthus adverts to what has recently been commented upon by a great French statistician, Mr. Maurice Block, viz.: the danger of a country becoming too dependent on others for its supplies of food. “A rich and commercial nation is by the natural course of things led more to pasture than to tillage, and is tempted to become daily more dependent upon others for its supplies of corn. If all the nations of Europe could be considered as one great country, and if any one state could be as sure of its supplies from others, as the pasture district of a particular state are from the corn districts in their neighbourhood, there would be no harm in this dependence, and no person would think of proposing corn laws. But can we safety consider Europe in this light? The fortunate condition of this country, and the excellence of its laws and government, exempt it, above any other nation, from foreign invasion and domestic tumult, and it is a pardonable love for one’s country, which under such circumstances produces an unwillingness to expose it, in so important a point as the supply of its principal food, to share in the dangers and chances which may happen on the Continent. How would the miseries of France have been aggravated during the revolution if she had been dependent on foreign countries for the support of two or three millions of her people.” It is instructive to read what was thought might be the magnitude of our future imports of wheat in 1806. In page 268 Mr. Malthus writes: “We can hardly doubt that in the course of some years we shall draw from America, and the nations bordering on the Baltic, as much as two millions of quarters of wheat, besides other corn, the support of above two millions of people. If under these circumstances, any commercial discussion, or other dispute, were to arise with these nations, with what a weight of power they would have to negociate! Not the whole British Navy could offer a more convincing argument than the single threat of shutting all their ports. I am not unaware that in general, we may securely depend upon people not acting directly contrary to their interest. But this consideration, all powerful as it is, will sometimes yield voluntarily to national indignation, and it is sometimes forced to yield to the resentment of a sovereign. It is of sufficient weight in practice when applied to manufactures; because a delay in their sale is not of such immediate consequence. But in the case of corn, a delay of three or four months may produce the most complicated misery; and from the great bulk of corn, it will generally be in the power of the sovereign to execute almost completely his resentful purpose.” This is the argument of Mr. Block, with respect to our dependence on the United States for so much of our food supplies. He remarks that it might easily happen that some party in the United States might take to prohibiting the export of corn, and in such a case there can be no doubt that the