people in what manner they ought to employ
their capitals, would not only load himself
with a most unnecessary attention, but assume
an authority which could safely be trusted,
not only to no single person, but to no
council or senate whatever, and which would
nowhere be as dangerous as in the hands of a
man who had folly and presumption enough
to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
To give the monopoly of the home market
to the produce of domestic industry, in any
particular art or manufacture, is in some measure
to direct private people in what manner
they ought to employ their capitals, and must
in almost all cases be either a useless or a
hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic
can be brought there as cheap as that of
foreign industry, the regulation is evidently
useless. If it cannot, it must generally be
hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent
master of a family, never to attempt to make
at home what it will cost him more to make
than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to
make his own shoes, but buys them of the
shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt
to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor.
The farmer attempts to make neither the one
nor the other, but employs those different artificers.
All of them find it for their interest
to employ their whole industry in a way in
which they have some advantage over their
neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its
produce, or, what is the same thing, with the
price of a part of it, whatever else they have
occasion for.
What is prudence in the conduct of every
private family, can scarce be folly in that of a
great kingdom. If a foreign country can
supply us with a commodity cheaper than we
ourselves can make it, better buy it of them
with some part of the produce of our own industry,
employed in a way in which we have
some advantage. The general industry of
the country being always in proportion to the
capital which employs it, will not thereby be
diminished, no more than that of the above-mentioned
artificers; but only left to find out
the way in which it can be employed with the
greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed
to the greatest advantage, when it is
thus directed towards an object which it can
buy cheaper than it can make. The value of
its annual produce is certainly more or less diminished,
when it is thus turned away from
producing commodities evidently of more value
than the commodity which it is directed to
produce. According to the supposition, that
commodity could be purchased from foreign
countries cheaper than it can be made at home;
it could therefore have been purchased with a
part only of the commodities, or, what is the
same thing, with a part only of the price of
the commodities, which the industry employed
by an equal capital would have produced
at home, had it been left to follow its natural
course. The industry of the country, therefore,
is thus turned away from a more to a less
advantageous employment; and the exchangeable
value of its annual produce, instead of
being increased, according to the intention of
the lawgiver, must necessarily be diminished
by every such regulation.
By means of such regulations, indeed, a
particular manufacture may sometimes be acquired
sooner than it could have been otherwise,
and after a certain time may be made at
home as cheap, or cheaper, than in the foreign
country. But though the industry of the society
may be thus carried with advantage into
a particular channel sooner than it could have
been otherwise, it will by no means follow that
the sum-total, either of its industry, or of its
revenue, can ever be augmented by any such
regulation. The industry of the society can
augment only in proportion as its capital augments,
and its capital can augment only in
proportion to what can be gradually saved
out of its revenue. But the immediate effect
of every such regulation is to diminish its revenue;
and what diminishes its revenue is
certainly not very likely to augment its capital
faster than it would have augmented of its
own accord, had both capital and industry been
left to find out their natural employments.
Though, for want of such regulations, the
society should never acquire the proposed manufacture,
it would not upon that account necessarily
be the poorer in any one period of its
duration. In every period of its duration its
whole capital and industry might still have
been employed, though upon different objects,
in the manner that was most advantageous at
the time. In every period its revenue might
have been the greatest which its capital could
afford, and both capital and revenue might
have been augmented with the greatest possible
rapidity.
The natural advantages which one country
has over another, in producing particular commodities,
are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged
by all the world to be in vain to
struggle with them. By means of glasses,
hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can
be raised in Scotland, and very good wine, too,
be made of them, at about thirty times the
expense for which at least equally good can be
brought from foreign countries. Would it be
a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of
all foreign wines, merely to encourage the
making of claret and Burgundy in Scotland?
But if there would be a manifest absurdity in
turning towards any employment thirty times
more of the capital and industry of the country
than would be necessary to purchase from
foreign countries an equal quantity of the
commodities wanted, there must be an absurdity,
though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly
of the same kind, in turning towards any
such employment a thirtieth, or even a three
hundredth part more of either. Whether the