exported again, either the whole or a part of
this duty was sometimes given back upon such
exportation.
Bounties were given for the encouragement,
either of some beginning manufactures, or of
such sorts of industry of other kinds as were
supposed to deserve particular favour.
By advantageous treaties of commerce, particular
privileges were procured in some foreign
state for the goods and merchants of the
country, beyond what were granted to those
of other countries.
By the establishment of colonies in distant
countries, not only particular privileges, but
a monopoly was frequently procured for the
goods and merchants of the country which
established them.
The two sorts of restraints upon importation
above mentioned, together with these four
encouragements to exportation, constitute the
six principal means by which the commercial
system proposes to increase the quantity of
gold and silver in any country, by turning the
balance of trade in its favour. I shall consider
each of them in a particular chapter, and,
without taking much farther notice of their
supposed tendency to bring money into the
country, I shall examine chiefly what are
likely to be the effects of each of them upon
the annual produce of its industry. According
as they tend either to increase or diminish
the value of this annual produce, they
must evidently tend either to increase or diminish
the real wealth and revenue of the
country.
CHAP. II.
OF RESTRAINTS UPON IMPORTATION FROM FOREIGN
COUNTRIES OF SUCH GOODS AS CAN
BE PRODUCED AT HOME.
By restraining, either by high duties, or by
absolute prohibitions, the importation of such
goods from foreign countries as can be produced
at home, the monopoly of the home
market is more or less secured to the domestic
industry employed in producing them.
Thus the prohibition of importing either live
cattle or salt provisions from foreign countries,
secures to the graziers of Great Britain
the monopoly of the home market for butcher's
meat. The high duties upon the importation
of corn, which, in times of moderate
plenty, amount to a prohibition, give a like
advantage to the growers of that commodity.
The prohibition of the importation of foreign
woollens is equally favourable to the woollen
manufacturers. The silk manufacture, though
altogether employed upon foreign materials,
has lately obtained the same advantage. The
linen manufacture has not yet obtained it,
but is making great strides towards it. Many
other sorts of manufactures have, in the same
manner obtained in Great Britain, either altogether,
or very nearly, a monopoly against
their countrymen. The variety of goods, of
which the importation into Great Britain is
prohibited, either absolutely, or under certain
circumstances, greatly exceeds what can easily
be suspected by those who are not well
acquainted with the laws of the customs.
That this monopoly of the home market
frequently gives great encouragement to that
particular species of industry which enjoys it,
and frequently turns towards that employment
a greater share of both the labour and stock
of the society than would otherwise have gone
to it, cannot be doubted. But whether it
tends either to increase the general industry
of the society, or to give it the most advantageous
direction, is not, perhaps, altogether
so evident.
The general industry of the society can
never exceed what the capital of the society
can employ. As the number of workmen
that can be kept in employment by any particular
person must bear a certain proportion
to his capital, so the number of those
that can be continually employed by all
the members of a great society must bear a
certain proportion to the whole capital of the
society, and never can exceed that proportion.
No regulation of commerce can increase the
quantity of industry in any society beyond
what its capital can maintain. It can only divert
a part of it into a direction into which
it might not otherwise have gone; and it is
by no means certain that this artificial direction
is likely to be more advantageous to the
society, than that into which it would have
gone of its own accord.
Every individual is continually exerting
himself to find out the most advantageous employment
for whatever capital he can command.
It is his own advantage, indeed, and
not that of the society, which he has in view.
But the study of his own advantage naturally,
or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous to
the society.
First, every individual endeavours to employ
his capital as near home as he can, and
consequently as much as he can in the support
of domestic industry, provided always
that he can thereby obtain the ordinary, or not
a great deal less than the ordinary profits of
stock.
Thus, upon equal, or nearly equal profits,
every wholesale merchant naturally prefers the
home trade to the foreign trade of consumption,
and the foreign trade of consumption to
the carrying trade. In the home trade, his
capital is never so long out of his sight as it
frequently is in the foreign trade of consumption.
He can know better the character and
situation of the persons whom he trusts; and