ably revived by the late permission to distil spirits from grain in the colony; and there cannot be a doubt, that agricultural industry will thence receive a new impulse; but the benefits derivable from this permission, are of a limited nature.
It will, no doubt, increase the demand for grain, and, consequently, its production; and it will have the very important effect of shielding the colonists from, or at least of mitigating the effects of, a failure of crops. It will also render available, within the colony, a part of that capital which was sent out of it for the purchase of foreign spirits; and these, so far as they go, are benefits of the first importance. But the consumption of this spirit is limited to the colony, and, as to a foreign market, is precisely in the same situation with the grain itself.
Its greatest effects will be to increase, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, the quantity of land in cultivation to the extent necessary for supplying this additional produce of spirits. It will enable the colonist to render available his own soil, for a certain portion of his wants which formerly diminished the limited returns which the limited market for his produce afforded. But here its influence will stop, and its advantages will bear no comparison with that employment for labour and capital, the demand for which is unlimited, because the demand for its
