There are, however, plausible, though in reality most fallacious grounds, upon which the Protective System may be assailed. In this, as in every other country, the first and most important branch of industry is that which provides food for the population. To that all others are subordinate. It is impossible to estimate the amount of capital which has been laid out upon the soil of Britain, first in reclaiming it from a state of nature, and, since then, in maturing and increasing its fruitfulness. But some idea may be formed of its magnitude from the fact that, in 1846, the annual agricultural produce of the United Kingdom was valued, according to the prices then current, at £250,000,000. Whatever imperial taxation is imposed on other classes of the community is shared equally by the agriculturists; and they are, moreover, exposed to heavy local rates, from which the others are comparatively free. It is a received maxim in political economy--we ought rather to say a rule of common sense--that all taxes and charges paid by the producer, over and above his necessary profit, fail ultimately to be defrayed by the consumer--that is, that such taxes and charges form a component part of the selling price of the article. There is no specialty whatever in the case of corn or provisions to exempt them from the general rule. But all restrictions which tend to enhance the price of the first necessaries of life are obnoxious to that section of the people who, from ignorance or incapacity, cannot understand why bread should be dear in one country and cheap in another. They, too, are subjected to their share of indirect taxation, and the knowledge that they are so taxed in the consumption of articles which constitute their only luxuries, renders them doubly impatient of a system which, on the authority of wicked and designing demagogues, they are led to believe was invented by the landlords solely for their own benefit. Thus heavy taxation, however engendered, must always be fraught with great peril to the permanency of a state. The burden of such taxation falls most heavily upon the land, and yet the agriculturist is expected to provide food for the people as cheaply as though he were altogether exempt from the burden.