For this
reason, therefore, it was highly desirable that the possession should
be, and appear to be, at least inexpensive. After the British
Government had made one advance for a stock of corn sufficient to
place the island a year beforehand, the sum total drawn from Great
Britain need not exceed 25,000 pounds, or at most 30,000 pounds
annually: excluding of course the expenditure connected with our own
military and navy, and the repair of the fortifications, which latter
expense ought to be much less than at Gibraltar, from the multitude
and low wages of the labourers in Malta, and from the softness and
admirable quality of the stone. Indeed much more might safely be
promised on the assumption that a wise and generous system of policy
were adopted and persevered in. The monopoly of the Maltese corn-
trade by the Government formed an exception to a general rule, and by
a strange, yet valid anomaly in the operations of political economy,
was not more necessary than advantageous to the inhabitants.
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