monopoly of the home and colony markets,
have been artificially raised up to any unnatural
height, finds some small stop or interruption
in its employment, it frequently occasions
a mutiny and disorder alarming to government,
and embarrassing even to the deliberations
of the legislature. How great, therefore,
would be the disorder and confusion, it
was thought, which must necessarily be occasioned
by a sudden and entire stop in the employment
of so great a proportion of our principal
manufacturers?
Some moderate and gradual relaxation of
the laws which give to Great Britain the exclusive
trade to the colonies, till it is rendered
in a great measure free, seems to be the only
expedient which can, in all future times, deliver
her from this danger; which can enable
her, or even force her, to withdraw some part
of her capital from this overgrown employment,
and to turn it, though with less profit,
towards other employments; and which, by
gradually diminishing one branch of her industry,
and gradually increasing all the rest, can,
by degrees, restore all the different branches
of it to that natural, healthful, and proper
proportion, which perfect liberty necessarily
establishes, and which perfect liberty can alone
preserve. To open the colony trade all at
once to all nations, might not only occasion
some transitory inconveniency, but a great
permanent loss, to the greater part of those
whose industry or capital is at present engaged
in it. The sudden loss of the employment,
even of the ships which import the eighty-two
thousand hogsheads of tobacco, which are over
and above the consumption of Great Britain,
might alone be felt very sensibly. Such are
the unfortunate effects of all the regulations
of the mercantile system. They not only introduce
very dangerous disorders into the state
of the body politic, but disorders which it is
often difficult to remedy, without occasioning,
for a time at least, still greater disorders. In
what manner, therefore, the colony trade ought
gradually to be opened; what are the restraints
which ought first, and what are those which
ought last, to be taken away; or in what manner
the natural system of perfect liberty and
justice ought gradually to be restored, we must
leave to the wisdom of future statesmen and
legislators to determine.
Five different events, unforeseen and unthought
of, have very fortunately concurred
to hinder Great Britain from feeling, so sensibly
as it was generally expected she would,
the total exclusion which has now taken place
for more than a year (from the first of December
1774) from a very important branch
of the colony trade, that of the twelve associated
provinces of North America. First,
those colonies, in preparing themselves for their
non-importation agreement, drained Great Britain
completely of all the commodities which
were fit for their market; secondly, the extraordinary
demand of the Spanish flota has, this
year, drained Germany and the north of many
commodities, linen in particular, which used
to come into competition, even in the British
market, with the manufactures of Great Britain;
thirdly, the peace between Russia and
Turkey has occasioned an extraordinary demand
from the Turkey market, which, during
the distress of the country, and while a
Russian fleet was cruising in the Archipelago,
had been very poorly supplied; fourthly, the
demand of the north of Europe for the manufactures
of Great Britain has been increasing
from year to year, for some time past;
and, fifthly, the late partition, and consequential
pacification of Poland, by opening the
market of that great country, have, this year,
added an extraordinary demand from thence
to the increasing demand of the north. These
events are all, except the fourth, in their nature
transitory and accidental; and the exclusion
from so important a branch of the colony
trade, if unfortunately it should continue
much longer, may still occasion some degree
of distress. This distress, however, as it will
come on gradually, will be felt much less severely
than if it had come on all at once; and,
in the mean time, the industry and capital of
the country may find a new employment and
direction, so as to prevent this distress from
ever rising to any considerable height.
The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore,
so far as it has turned towards that trade a
greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain
than what would otherwise have gone to
it, has in all cases turned it, from a foreign
trade of consumption with a neighbouring, into
one with a more distant country; in many
cases from a direct foreign trade of consumption
into a round-about one; and, in some
cases, from all foreign trade of consumption
into a carrying trade. It has, in all cases,
therefore, turned it from a direction in which
it would have maintained a greater quantity
of productive labour, into one in which it can
maintain a much smaller quantity. By suiting,
besides, to one particular market only, so
great a part of the industry and commerce of
Great Britain, it has rendered the whole state
of that industry and commerce more precarious
and less secure, than if their produce
had been accommodated to a greater variety
of markets.
We must carefully distinguish between the
effects of the colony trade and those of the
monopoly of that trade. The former are always
and necessarily beneficial; the latter always
and necessarily hurtful. But the former
are so beneficial, that the colony trade,
though subject to a monopoly, and, notwithstanding
the hurtful effects of that monopoly,
is still, upon the whole, beneficial, and greatly
beneficial, though a good deal less so than it
otherwise would be.
The effect of the colony trade, in its natural