Nothing could counterbalance this, but a much greater demand for labour; and such an increased demand, in consequence of the opening of our ports, is at best problematical. The check to cultivation has been so sudden and decisive, as already to throw a great number of agricultural labourers out of employment;(12*) and in Ireland this effect has taken place to such a degree, as to threaten the most distressing, and even alarming, consequences. The farmers, in some districts, have entirely lost the little capital they possessed; and, unable to continue in their farms, have deserted them, and left their labourers without the means of employment. In a country, the peculiar defects of which were already a deficiency of capital, and a redundancy of population, such a check to the means of employing labour must be attended with no common distress. In Ireland, it is quite certain, that there are no mercantile capitals ready to take up those persons who are thus thrown out of work, and even in Great Britain the transfer will be slow and difficult. Our commerce and manufactures, therefore, must increase very considerably before they can restore the demand for labour already lost; for the and a moderate increase beyond this will scarcely make up disadvantage of a low money price of wages. These wages will finally be determined by the usual money price of corn, and the state of the demand for labour. There is a difference between what may be called the usual price of corn and the average price, which has not been sufficiently attended to. Let us suppose the common price of corn, for four years out of five, to be about L2 a quarter, and during the fifth year to be L6. The average price of the five years will then be L2 16s.; but the usual price will still be about L2, and it is by this price, and not by the price of a year of scarcity, or even the average including it, that wages are generally regulated. If the ports were open, the usual price of corn would certainly fall, and probably the average price; but from at has before been said of the existing laws of France, and of the practice among the Baltic nations of raising the tax on their exported corn in proportion to the demand for it, there is every reason to believe, that the fluctuations of price would be much greater. Such would, at least, be my conclusion from theory; and, I think, it has been confirmed by the experience of the last hundred years. During this time, the period of our greatest importations, and of our greatest dependence upon foreign corn, was from 1792 to 1805 inclusive; and certainly in no fourteen years of the whole hundred were the fluctuations of price so great. In 1792 the price was 42s. a quarter; in 1796, 77s.; in 1801, 118s. a quarter; and, in 1803, 56s. Between the year 1792 and 1801 the rise was almost a triple, and in the short period from 1798 to 1803, it rose from 50s. to 118s. and fell again to 56s.(13*)