He likewise forfeits to the king all his lands,
goods, and chattels; is declared an alien in
every respect; and is put out of the king's
protection.
It is unnecessary, I imagine, to observe how
contrary such regulations are to the boasted
liberty of the subject, of which we affect to
be so very jealous; but which, in this case, is
so plainly sacrificed to the futile interests of
our merchants and manufacturers.
The laudable motive of all these regulations,
is to extend our own manufactures, not
by their own improvement, but by the depression
of those of all our neighbours, and
by putting an end, as much as possible, to
the troublesome competition of such odious
and disagreeable rivals. Our master manufacturers
think it reasonable that they themselves
should have the monopoly of the ingenuity
of all their countrymen. Though by
restraining, in some trades, the number of
apprentices which can be employed at one
time, and by imposing the necessity of a long
apprenticeship in all trades, they endeavour,
all of them, to confine the knowledge of their
respective employments to as small a number
as possible; they are unwilling, however, that
any part of this small number should go abroad
to instruct foreigners.
Consumption is the sole end and purpose
of all production; and the interest of the producer
ought to be attended to, only so far as
it may be necessary for promoting that of the
consumer.
The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that
it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.
But in the mercantile system, the interest of
the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed
to that of the producer; and it seems to consider
production, and not consumption, as
the ultimate end and object of all industry
and commerce.
In the restraints upon the importation of
all foreign commodities which can come into
competition with those of our own growth or
manufacture, the interest of the home consumer
is evidently sacrificed to that of the
producer. It is altogether for the benefit of
the latter, that the former is obliged to pay
that enhancement of price which this monopoly
almost always occasions.
It is altogether for the benefit of the producer,
that bounties are granted upon the
exportation of some of his productions. The
home consumer is obliged to pay, first, the
tax which is necessary for paying the bounty;
and, secondly, the still greater tax which necessarily
arises from the enhancement of the
price of the commodity in the home market.
By the famous treaty of commerce with
Portugal, the consumer is prevented by high
duties from purchasing of a neighbouring
country, a commodity which our own climate
does not produce; but is obliged to purchase
it of a distant country, though it is acknowledged,
that the commodity of the distant
country is of a worse quality than that of the
near one. The home consumer is obliged to
submit to this inconvenience, in order that
the producer may import into the distant
country some of his productions, upon more
advantageous terms than he otherwise would
have been allowed to do. The consumer, too,
is obliged to pay whatever enhancement in
the price of those very productions this forced
exportation may occasion in the home market.
But in the system of laws which has been
established for the management of our American
and West Indies colonies, the interest of
the home consumer has been sacrificed to that
of the producer, which a more extravagant
profusion than in all our other commercial
regulations. A great empire has been established
for the sole purpose of raising up a
nation of customers, who should be obliged
to buy, from the shops of our different producers,
all the goods with which these could
supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement
of price which this monopoly
might afford our producers, the home consumers
have been burdened with the whole
expense of maintaining and defending that
empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose
only, in the last two wars, more than
two hundred millions have been spent, and a
new debt of more than a hundred and seventy
millions has been contracted, over and above
all that had been expended for the same
purpose in former wars. The interest of
this debt alone is not only greater than the
whole extraordinary profit which, it never
could be pretended, was made by the monopoly
of the colony trade, but than the whole
value of that trade, or than the whole value
of the goods which, at an average, have been
annually exported to the colonies.
It cannot be very difficult to determine who
have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile
system; not the consumers, we may
believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected;
but the producers, whose interest
has been so carefully attended to; and among
this latter class, our merchants and manufacturers
have been by far the principal architects.
In the mercantile regulations, which
have been taken notice of in this chapter, the
interest of our manufacturers has been most
peculiarly attended to; and the interest, not
so much of the consumers, as that of some
other sets of producers, has been sacrificed
to it.