reasons fully stated before, the best index of such a demand is the price of the object in question. It is perhaps hardly necessary to say, that the demand must be 'effectual,' i. e. the requisition of the object must imply that the intending purchaser is not only willing but able to render that which the possessor of the object demanded considers an equivalent for such an object. But the importance of the fact which has been stated above is so great that it is desirable to illustrate it abundantly.

The demand for food is incessant, primary, urgent. By food is meant, not the luxuries or conveniences with which the great mass of the people can dispense, but that without which they cannot exist. This, in our country, is bread. At any sacrifice bread must be procured. No article then exhibits more clearly the demand of society than bread does. Hence, the demand remaining constant, and the supply falling short, the competition of purchasers will raise the price in a far greater proportion than will be manifested in the case of any other deficient article. For a reason which we shall give below, such a rise will also adversely affect the price at which all other articles can be concurrently sold.

If the adequate or ordinary supply of bread to any community is contained in 10,000,000 quarters of wheat, which under such circumstances is sold at £2 10s. the quarter (the quantity and price are merely hypothetical), the falling off of such a supply will, according to its degree, affect the price of that which is available for sale in a geometrical proportion. If, for example, it fall to 7,500,000 quarters, it must not be supposed that this quantity will sell for £25,000,000 only, i. e. the price at which 10,000,000 quarters used to sell. It will fetch

much more. This fact, which is fundamental in the theory of demand and in the history of prices, was noticed long ago by Gregory King. Nor in case the scarcity is so high that sufficient food cannot be procured by all persons, will anything check the rise in price, except the starvation of some. The price will constantly increase, if no aid can be given to the deficiency, until the number of those competing for food has been fully reduced. Happily we have had no experience of this excessive dearth for centuries; nor, in the extension of a free import trade, are we likely to ever experience more than a slight and temporary deficiency. When the dearth is absolute, it may be added, all articles of food, all materials which may avail for the sustentation of life, rise proportionately; though, as a matter of fact, such kinds of food as are not habitually and universally necessary are consumed at an early period in such a scarcity. Domestic animals, though they assist human labour, are maintained by that labour, and in some degree at least subsist from the means on which labour subsists.

Whenever the dearth of the necessaries of life does not amount to absolute famine, the secondary conveniences are sure to get cheaper. A high price of corn always involves (all other circumstances remaining the same) a low price of meat. When people have to stint themselves of necessaries, they abjure luxuries, they economize the use of conveniences. High prices of corn under the pressure of a particular crisis are the indications of a peremptory demand; high prices of other articles are an index of a voluntary demand. Just then as the positive necessaries of life rise in price as they become scarce, so do the comforts and conveniences of life fall in price under

the influence of causes which exalt the price of necessaries. In order to interpret the events which affect the price of articles we must not take Mr. De Quincey's hypothetical cases; that of a musical-box on Lake Superior, offered by a dealer who is on the point of departure, to a supposed purchaser who will not have, for many years, the opportunity of a similar purchase; or that of a town which is offered a superabundance of hearses; but the constant conditions of society, in which, by some occasional dearth in the necessaries of life, we may and shall find that the rise in one article is the inevitable depression of others.

In the long run the price of commodities depends, as we have several times seen, on the cost of production. At any particular time the price depends upon the demand of the purchaser, the discretion of the seller. The fact that commodities are produced at all depends on the preexistence of demand for them- -a demand which is personal when the producer intends them for his own use or consumption, indirect when the producer employs them as a means of exchange. It is perfectly true that the most urgent demand may not induce a corresponding satisfaction. The article may be absolutely limited in quantity, it may not be procurable for a time, it may not be procurable for want of that capital or industry which is essential to all production; capital being, on an economical analysis, labour maintained by the accumulations of previous labour.

Thus, for example, the number of known pictures painted by the great masters of the art is limited. No power could add to the number, though time or accident may diminish it. The value then which will be

assigned to these masterpieces is absolutely relevant to the demand for them. The price which they will fetch is wholly settled by the competition of purchasers. A fashion may exalt this price to an extravagant amount, a fashion may depress the price. Forty or fifty years ago it was the custom for book-collectors to search out Aldine and Elzevir editions of the classics. As a consequence the price at which perfect copies were purchased was often enormous. The fashion it seems has passed away, and books which once cost many pounds would not now fetch as many shillings. But on the other hand, the market value of early English printed books is greatly increased. These indeed are examples of that exceptional demand to which Mr. De Quincey referred when he gave his case of the traveller on Lake Superior and the possessor of a musical-box. The value of the article at the crisis is determined solely by the desire of the purchaser and the rarity of the object which he wishes to appropriate. But such cases are only exceptional, and do not bear in any notable degree on the economy of society.

Far different however is the case with those objects the demand for which is urgent and continued, but the supply of which cannot, for a time at least, be increased. Such was till lately the case with food in this country. Almost all nations depend to a great extent on their own harvest for subsistence from year to year. If they have, either by lack of foreign trade, or by a corn-law imposing prohibitive duties or precarious duties on foreign produce, insulated themselves from the harvests of other countries, and therefore cannot get foreign supplies, they must economize their resources, and put up with hardship,

dearth, or even famine. But in order to buy, they must be able to sell. Thus, had the trade in corn during the Irish famine been ever so free, the peasantry of that island could not, any more than the peasantry of Belgium could, have obtained foreign supplies, for they had nothing to offer in exchange. But to sell or buy, they must create a market for the dealer. Thus, during the existence of the sliding-scale system of duties (i. e. a rule that the duties on imported corn rose as home-grown corn fell in price, and fell as it rose), it was all but impossible for foreign corn-growers to anticipate the market, wholly impossible to anticipate the produce of the United Kingdom. Now uncertainty is the most serious obstacle to commerce; and hence the continuance of the sliding-scale system was fatal to regular importations from abroad. It also made the trade of the corn-dealer or corn speculator, instead of being useful only, unnaturally important. The usefulness of the corn-dealer consists in his economizing the supplies of any country during seasons of scarcity by high prices, in economizing the supplies during abundant seasons by reserving the surplus for harder times. But when the market was so precarious and fluctuating, as it was during the continuance of our corn-laws, the greatest risks attended the trade of the corn-dealer; and as a consequence he required, in popular language, large profits for his services. At no period were there such constant and such serious fluctuations in the price of corn as during the existence of those laws, the very object of which was to maintain, as far as possible, a uniform rate of price.

It was not, as my reader may anticipate, any advantage to the producer. If a farmer grew nothing but corn, it is