both to an absolute, and to a relative disadvantage
in every branch of trade of which she
has not the monopoly.
It subjects her to an absolute disadvantage;
because, in such branches of trade, her merchants
cannot get this greater profit without
selling dearer than they otherwise would do,
both the goods of foreign countries which
they import into their own, and the goods of
their own country which they export to foreign
countries. Their own country must
both buy dearer and sell dearer; must both
buy less, and sell less; must both enjoy less
and produce less, than she otherwise would do.
It subjects her to a relative disadvantage;
because, in such branches of trade, it sets
other countries, which are not subject to the
same absolute disadvantage, either more above
her or less below her, than they otherwise
would be. It enables them both to enjoy
more and to produce more, in proportion to
what she enjoys and produces. It renders
their superiority greater, or their inferiority
less, than it otherwise would be. By raising
the price of her produce above what it otherwise
would be, it enables the merchants of
other countries to undersell her in foreign
markets, and thereby to justle her out of almost
all those branches of trade, of which she
has not the monopoly.
Our merchants frequently complain of the
high wages of British labour, as the cause of
their manufactures being undersold in foreign
markets; but they are silent about the high
profits of stock. They complain of the extravagant
gain of other people; but they say
nothing of their own. The high profits of
British stock, however, may contribute towards
raising the price of British manufactures,
in many cases, as much, and in some
perhaps more, than the high wages of British
labour.
It is in this manner that the capital of
Great Britain, one may justly say, has partly
been drawn and partly been driven from the
greater part of the different branches of trade
of which she has not the monopoly; from the
trade of Europe, in particular, and from that
of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean
sea.
It has partly been drawn from those
branches of trade, by the attraction of superior
profit in the colony trade, in consequence
of the continual increase of that trade, and of
the continual insufficiency of the capital which
had carried it on one year to carry it on the
next.
It has partly been driven from them, by
the advantage which the high rate of profit
established in Great Britain gives to other
countries, in all the different branches of
trade of which Great Britain has not the monopoly.
As the monopoly of the colony trade has
drawn from those other branches a part of the
British capital, which would otherwise have
been employed in them, so it has forced into
them many foreign capitals which would never
have gone to them, had they not been expelled
from the colony trade. In those other
branches of trade, it has diminished the competition
of British capitals, and thereby raised
the rate of British profit higher than it
otherwise would have been. On the contrary,
it has increased the competition of foreign
capitals, and thereby sunk the rate of
foreign profit lower than it otherwise would
have been. Both in the one way and in the
other, it must evidently have subjected Great
Britain to a relative disadvantage in all those
other branches of trade.
The colony trade, however, it may perhaps
be said, is more advantageous to Great Britain
than any other; and the monopoly, by
forcing into that trade a greater proportion
of the capital of Great Britain than what
would otherwise have gone to it, has turned
that capital into an employment, more advantageous
to the country than any other which
it could have found.
The most advantageous employment of any
capital to the country to which it belongs, is
that which maintains there the greatest quantity
of productive labour, and increases the
most the annual produce of the land and labour
of that country. But the quantity of
productive labour which any capital employed
in the foreign trade of consumption can maintain,
is exactly in proportion, it has been
shown in the second book, to the frequency
of its returns. A capital of a thousand
pounds, for example, employed in a foreign
trade of consumption, of which the returns
are made regularly once in the year, can keep
in constant employment, in the country to
which it belongs, a quantity of productive labour,
equal to what a thousand pounds can
maintain there for a year. If the returns are
made twice or thrice in the year, it can keep
in constant employment a quantity of productive
labour, equal to what two or three thousand
pounds can maintain there for a year.
A foreign trade of consumption carried on
with a neighbouring, is, upon that account,
in general, more advantageous than one carried
on with a distant country; and, for the
same reason, a direct foreign trade of consumption,
as it has likewise been shown in
the second book, is in general more advantageous
than a round-about one.
But the monopoly of the colony trade, so
far as it has operated upon the employment of
the capital of Great Britain, has, in all cases,
forced some part of it from a foreign trade of
consumption carried on with a neighbouring,
to one carried on with a more distant country,
and in many cases from a direct foreign trade
of consumption to a round-about one.
First, The monopoly of the colony trade
has, in all cases, forced some part of the capital