resulting from the possession of its colonies,
every country has engrossed to itself completely.
The advantages resulting from
their trade, it has been obliged to share with
many other countries.
At first sight, no doubt, the monopoly of
the great commerce of America naturally
seems to be an acquisition of the highest
value. To the undiscerning eye of giddy
ambition it naturally presents itself, amidst
the confused scramble of politics and war, as
a very dazzling object to fight for. The dazzling
splendour of the object, however, the
immense greatness of the commerce, is the
very quality which renders the monopoly of
it hurtful, or which makes one employment,
in its own nature necessarily less advantageous
to the country than the greater part of
other employments, absorb a much greater
proportion of the capital of the country than
what would otherwise have gone to it.
The mercantile stock of every country, it
has been shown in the second book, naturally
seeks, if one may say so, the employment
most advantageous to that country. If it is
employed in the carrying trade, the country
to which it belongs becomes the emporium of
the goods of all the countries whose trade
that stock carries on. But the owner of that
stock necessarily wishes to dispose of as great
a part of those goods as he can at home.
He thereby saves himself the trouble, risk,
and expense of exportation; and he will upon
that account be glad to sell them at home,
not only for a much smaller price, but with
somewhat a smaller profit, than he might expect
to make by sending them abroad. He
naturally, therefore, endeavours as much as
he can to turn his carrying trade into a
foreign trade of consumption. If his stock,
again, is employed in a foreign trade of consumption,
he will, for the same reason, be
glad to dispose of, at home, as great a part
as he can of the home goods which he collects
in order to export to some foreign market,
and he will thus endeavour, as much as he
can, to turn his foreign trade of consumption
into a home trade. The mercantile stock of
every country naturally courts in this manner
the near, and shuns the distant employment;
naturally courts the employment in which
the returns are frequent, and shuns that in
which they are distant and slow; naturally
courts the employment in which it can maintain
the greatest quantity of productive labour
in the country to which it belongs, or in
which its owner resides, and shuns that in
which it can maintain there the smallest
quantity. It naturally courts the employment
which in ordinary cases is most advantageous,
and shuns that which in ordinary
cases is least advantageous to that country.
But if, in any one of these distant employments,
which in ordinary cases are less advantageous
to the country, the profit should
happen to rise somewhat higher than what is
sufficient to balance the natural preference
which is given to nearer employments, this
superiority of profit will draw stock from those
nearer employments, till the profits of all return
to their proper level. This superiority
of profit, however, is a proof that, in the actual
circumstances of the society, those distant
employments are somewhat understocked
in proportion to other employments, and that
the stock of the society is not distributed in
the properest manner among all the different
employments carried on in it. It is a proof
that something is either bought cheaper or
sold dearer than it ought to be, and that some
particular class of citizens is more or less
oppressed, either by paying more, or by getting
less than what is suitable to that equality
which ought to take place, and which naturally
does take place, among all the different
classes of them. Though the same capital
never will maintain the same quantity of productive
labour in a distant as in a near employment,
yet a distant employment may be
as necessary for the welfare of the society as
a near one; the goods which the distant
employment deals in being necessary, perhaps,
for carrying on many of the nearer employments.
But if the profits of those who deal
in such goods are above their proper level,
those goods will be sold dearer than they
ought to be, or somewhat above their natural
price, and all those engaged in the nearer employments
will be more or less oppressed by
this high price. Their interest, therefore, in
this case, requires, that some stock should
be withdrawn from those nearer employments,
and turned towards that distant one, in order
to reduce its profits to their proper level, and
the price of the goods which it deals in to
their natural price. In this extraordinary
case, the public interest requires that some
stock should be withdrawn from those employments
which, in ordinary cases, are more
advantageous, and turned towards one which,
in ordinary cases, is less advantageous to the
public; and, in this extraordinary case, the
natural interests and inclinations of men coincide
as exactly with the public interests as in
all other ordinary cases, and lead them to
withdraw stock from the near, and to turn it
towards the distant employments.
It is thus that the private interests and passions
of individuals naturally dispose them to
turn their stock towards the employments
which in ordinary cases, are most advantageous
to the society. But if from this natural
preference they should turn too much of it
towards those employments, the fall of profit
in them, and the rise of it in all others, immediately
dispose them to alter this faulty distribution.
Without any intervention of law,
therefore, the private interests and passions of
men naturally lead them to divide and distribute
the stock of every society among all the