advantages which one country has over another
be natural or acquired, is in this respect
of no consequence. As long as the one country
has those advantages, and the other wants
them, it will always be more advantageous for
the latter rather to buy of the former than to
make. It is an acquired advantage only,
which one artificer has over his neighbour, who
exercises another trade; and yet they both
find it more advantageous to buy of one another,
than to make what does not belong to
their particular trades.
Merchants and manufacturers are the people
who derive the greatest advantage from this
monopoly of the home market. The prohibition
of the importation of foreign cattle and
of salt provisions, together with the high duties
upon foreign corn, which in times of moderate
plenty amount to a prohibition, are not near
so advantageous to the graziers and farmers of
Great Britain, as other regulations of the same
kind are to its merchants and manufacturers.
Manufactures, those of the finer kind especially,
are more easily transported from one
country to another than corn or cattle. It is
in the fetching and carrying manufactures,
accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly employed.
In manufactures, a very small advantage
will enable foreigners to undersell our
own workmen, even in the home market. It
will require a very great one to enable them
to do so in the rude produce of the soil. If
the free importation of foreign manufactures
were permitted, several of the home manufactures
would probably suffer, and some of them
perhaps go to ruin altogether, and a considerable
part of the stock and industry at present
employed in them, would be forced to find
out some other employment. But the freest
importation of the rude produce of the soil
could have no such effect upon the agriculture
of the country.
If the importation of foreign cattle, for example,
were made ever so free, so few could be
imported, that the grazing trade of Great Britain
could be little affected by it. Live cattle
are, perhaps, the only commodity of which
the transportation is more expensive by sea
than by land. By land they carry themselves
to market. By sea, not only the cattle, but
their food and their water too, must be carried
at no small expense and inconveniency. The
short sea between Ireland and Great Britain,
indeed, renders the importation of Irish cattle
more easy. But though the free importation
of them, which was lately permitted only for
a limited time, were rendered perpetual, it
could have no considerable effect upon the interest
of the graziers of Great Britain. Those
parts of Great Britain which border upon the
Irish sea are all grazing countries. Irish cattle
could never be imported for their use, but
must be drove through those very extensive
countries, at no small expense and inconveniency,
before they could arrive at their proper
market. Fat cattle could not be drove so far.
Lean cattle, therefore, could only be imported;
and such importation could interfere not
with the interest of the feeding or fattening
countries, to which, by reducing the price of
lean cattle it would rather be advantageous,
but with that of the breeding countries only.
The small number of Irish cattle imported
since their importation was permitted, together
with the good price at which lean cattle
still continue to sell, seem to demonstrate,
that even the breeding countries of Great Britain
are never likely to be much affected by
the free importation of Irish cattle. The common
people of Ireland, indeed, are said to
have sometimes opposed with violence the exportation
of their cattle. But if the exporters
had found any great advantage in continuing
the trade, they could easily, when the law was
on their side, have conquered this mobbish opposition.
Feeding and fattening countries, besides,
must always be highly improved, whereas
breeding countries are generally uncultivated.
The high price of lean cattle, by augmenting
the value of uncultivated land, is like a bounty
against improvement. To any country
which was highly improved throughout, it
would be more advantageous to import its
lean cattle than to breed them. The province
of Holland, accordingly, is said to follow this
maxim at present. The mountains of Scotland,
Wales, and Northumberland, indeed,
are countries not capable of much improvement,
and seem destined by nature to be the
breeding countries of Great Britain. The
freest importation of foreign cattle could have
no other effect than to hinder those breeding
countries from taking advantage of the increasing
population and improvement of the rest of
the kingdom, from raising their price to an
exorbitant height, and from laying a real tax
upon all the more improved and cultivated
parts of the country.
The freest importation of salt provisions, in
the same manner, could have as little effect upon
the interest of the graziers of Great Britain
as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are
not only a very bulky commodity, but when
compared with fresh meat they are a commodity
both of worse quality, and, as they cost
more labour and expense, of higher price.
They could never, therefore, come into competition
with the fresh meat, though they
might with the salt provisions of the country.
They might be used for victualling ships for
distant voyages, and such like uses, but could
never make any considerable part of the food
of the people. The small quantity of salt provisions
imported from Ireland since their importation
was rendered free, is an experimental
proof that our graziers have nothing to apprehend
from it. It does not appear that the
price of butcher's meat has ever been sensibly
affected by it.