Note 237 — Chapter II · : ADAM SMITH (continued 2)

Speaking of duties on corn, he writes: “To prohibit by a perpetual law the importation of foreign corn and cattle, is in reality to enact, that the population and industry of the country shall at no time exceed what the true produce of its own soil can maintain.” (Ibid., Book IV, chap. 2; vol. i, p. 427.) He always views the question from the standpoint of increased population and labour, and not from that of the consumer.