The Wealth of Nations

OF RESTRAINTS UPON IMPORTATION FROM
FOREIGN COUNTRIES OF SUCH GOODS AS CAN BE PRODUCED AT HOME.

By restraining, either by high duties, or by absolute prohibitions, the
importation of such goods from foreign countries as can be produced at
home, the monopoly of the home market is more or less secured to the
domestic industry employed in producing them. Thus the prohibition of
importing either live cattle or salt provisions from foreign countries,
secures to the graziers of Great Britain the monopoly of the home market
for butcher’s meat. The high duties upon the importation of corn, which,
in times of moderate plenty, amount to a prohibition, give a like
advantage to the growers of that commodity. The prohibition of the
importation of foreign woollen is equally favourable to the woollen
manufacturers. The silk manufacture, though altogether employed upon
foreign materials, has lately obtained the same advantage. The linen
manufacture has not yet obtained it, but is making great strides towards
it. Many other sorts of manufactures have, in the same manner obtained in
Great Britain, either altogether, or very nearly, a monopoly against their
countrymen. The variety of goods, of which the importation into Great
Britain is prohibited, either absolutely, or under certain circumstances,
greatly exceeds what can easily be suspected by those who are not well
acquainted with the laws of the customs.

That this monopoly of the home market frequently gives great encouragement
to that particular species of industry which enjoys it, and frequently
turns towards that employment a greater share of both the labour and stock
of the society than would otherwise have gone to it, cannot be doubted.
But whether it tends either to increase the general industry of the
society, or to give it the most advantageous direction, is not, perhaps,
altogether so evident.

The general industry of the society can never exceed what the capital of
the society can employ. As the number of workmen that can be kept in
employment by any particular person must bear a certain proportion to his
capital, so the number of those that can be continually employed by all
the members of a great society must bear a certain proportion to the whole
capital of the society, and never can exceed that proportion. No
regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any
society beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part of
it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone; and it is
by no means certain that this artificial direction is likely to be more
advantageous to the society, than that into which it would have gone of
its own accord.

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most
advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own
advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But
the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him
to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.

First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home as
he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic
industry, provided always that he can thereby obtain the ordinary, or not
a great deal less than the ordinary profits of stock.

Thus, upon equal, or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant
naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade of consumption, and
the foreign trade of consumption to the carrying trade. In the home trade,
his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently is in the
foreign trade of consumption. He can know better the character and
situation of the persons whom he trusts; and if he should happen to be
deceived, he knows better the laws of the country from which he must seek
redress. In the carrying trade, the capital of the merchant is, as it
were, divided between two foreign countries, and no part of it is ever
necessarily brought home, or placed under his own immediate view and
command. The capital which an Amsterdam merchant employs in carrying corn
from Koningsberg to Lisbon, and fruit and wine from Lisbon to Koningsberg,
must generally be the one half of it at Koningsberg, and the other half at
Lisbon. No part of it need ever come to Amsterdam. The natural residence
of such a merchant should either be at Koningsberg or Lisbon; and it can
only be some very particular circumstances which can make him prefer the
residence of Amsterdam. The uneasiness, however, which he feels at being
separated so far from his capital, generally determines him to bring part
both of the Koningsberg goods which he destines for the market of Lisbon,
and of the Lisbon goods which he destines for that of Koningsberg, to
Amsterdam; and though this necessarily subjects him to a double charge of
loading and unloading as well as to the payment of some duties and
customs, yet, for the sake of having some part of his capital always under
his own view and command, he willingly submits to this extraordinary
charge; and it is in this manner that every country which has any
considerable share of the carrying trade, becomes always the emporium, or
general market, for the goods of all the different countries whose trade
it carries on. The merchant, in order to save a second loading and
unloading, endeavours always to sell in the home market, as much of the
goods of all those different countries as he can; and thus, so far as he
can, to convert his carrying trade into a foreign trade of consumption. A
merchant, in the same manner, who is engaged in the foreign trade of
consumption, when he collects goods for foreign markets, will always be
glad, upon equal or nearly equal profits, to sell as great a part of them
at home as he can. He saves himself the risk and trouble of exportation,
when, so far as he can, he thus converts his foreign trade of consumption
into a home trade. Home is in this manner the centre, if I may say so,
round which the capitals of the inhabitants of every country are
continually circulating, and towards which they are always tending,
though, by particular causes, they may sometimes be driven off and
repelled from it towards more distant employments. But a capital employed
in the home trade, it has already been shown, necessarily puts into motion
a greater quantity of domestic industry, and gives revenue and employment
to a greater number of the inhabitants of the country, than an equal
capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption; and one employed in
the foreign trade of consumption has the same advantage over an equal
capital employed in the carrying trade. Upon equal, or only nearly equal
profits, therefore, every individual naturally inclines to employ his
capital in the manner in which it is likely to afford the greatest support
to domestic industry, and to give revenue and employment to the greatest
number of people of his own country.

Secondly, every individual who employs his capital in the support of
domestic industry, necessarily endeavours so to direct that industry, that
its produce may be of the greatest possible value.

The produce of industry is what it adds to the subject or materials upon
which it is employed. In proportion as the value of this produce is great
or small, so will likewise be the profits of the employer. But it is only
for the sake of profit that any man employs a capital in the support of
industry; and he will always, therefore, endeavour to employ it in the
support of that industry of which the produce is likely to be of the
greatest value, or to exchange for the greatest quantity either of money
or of other goods.

But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the
exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather
is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every
individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his
capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that
industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual
necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great
as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public
interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support
of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security;
and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of
the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in
many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no
part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it
was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes
that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to
promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to
trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common
among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them
from it.

What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and
of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every
individual, it is evident, can in his local situation judge much better
than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should
attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their
capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention,
but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no
single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would
nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and
presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic
industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to
direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals,
and must in almost all cases be either a useless or a hurtful regulation.
If the produce of domestic can be brought there as cheap as that of
foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it
must generally be hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent master of a
family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to
make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but
buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own
clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make neither the one
nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find it
for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they
have some advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of
its produce, or, what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it,
whatever else they have occasion for.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be
folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with
a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them
with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in
which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country being
always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be
diminished, no more than that of the abovementioned artificers; but only
left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest
advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest advantage, when it
is thus directed towards an object which it can buy cheaper than it can
make. The value of its annual produce is certainly more or less
diminished, when it is thus turned away from producing commodities
evidently of more value than the commodity which it is directed to
produce. According to the supposition, that commodity could be purchased
from foreign countries cheaper than it can be made at home; it could
therefore have been purchased with a part only of the commodities, or,
what is the same thing, with a part only of the price of the commodities,
which the industry employed by an equal capital would have produced at
home, had it been left to follow its natural course. The industry of the
country, therefore, is thus turned away from a more to a less advantageous
employment; and the exchangeable value of its annual produce, instead of
being increased, according to the intention of the lawgiver, must
necessarily be diminished by every such regulation.

By means of such regulations, indeed, a particular manufacture may
sometimes be acquired sooner than it could have been otherwise, and after
a certain time may be made at home as cheap, or cheaper, than in the
foreign country. But though the industry of the society may be thus
carried with advantage into a particular channel sooner than it could have
been otherwise, it will by no means follow that the sum-total, either of
its industry, or of its revenue, can ever be augmented by any such
regulation. The industry of the society can augment only in proportion as
its capital augments, and its capital can augment only in proportion to
what can be gradually saved out of its revenue. But the immediate effect
of every such regulation is to diminish its revenue; and what diminishes
its revenue is certainly not very likely to augment its capital faster
than it would have augmented of its own accord, had both capital and
industry been left to find out their natural employments.

Though, for want of such regulations, the society should never acquire the
proposed manufacture, it would not upon that account necessarily be the
poorer in anyone period of its duration. In every period of its duration
its whole capital and industry might still have been employed, though upon
different objects, in the manner that was most advantageous at the time.
In every period its revenue might have been the greatest which its capital
could afford, and both capital and revenue might have been augmented with
the greatest possible rapidity.

The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing
particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by
all the world to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of glasses,
hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and
very good wine, too, can be made of them, at about thirty times the
expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign
countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all
foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and Burgundy in
Scotland? But if there would be a manifest absurdity in turning towards
any employment thirty times more of the capital and industry of the
country than would be necessary to purchase from foreign countries an
equal quantity of the commodities wanted, there must be an absurdity,
though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly of the same kind, in turning
towards any such employment a thirtieth, or even a three hundredth part
more of either. Whether the 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.

Even the free importation of foreign corn could very little affect the
interest of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much more bulky
commodity than butcher’s meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a
pound of butcher’s meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign corn
imported even in times of the greatest scarcity, may satisfy our farmers
that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation. The
average quantity imported, one year with another, amounts only, according
to the very well informed author of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade, to
23,728 quarters of all sorts of grain, and does not exceed the five
hundredth and seventy-one part of the annual consumption. But as the
bounty upon corn occasions a greater exportation in years of plenty, so it
must, of consequence, occasion a greater importation in years of scarcity,
than in the actual state of tillage would otherwise take place. By means
of it, the plenty of one year does not compensate the scarcity of another;
and as the average quantity exported is necessarily augmented by it, so
must likewise, in the actual state of tillage, the average quantity
imported. If there were no bounty, as less corn would be exported, so it
is probable that, one year with another, less would be imported than at
present. The corn-merchants, the fetchers and carriers of corn between
Great Britain and foreign countries, would have much less employment, and
might suffer considerably; but the country gentlemen and farmers could
suffer very little. It is in the corn-merchants, accordingly, rather than
the country gentlemen and farmers, that I have observed the greatest
anxiety for the renewal and continuation of the bounty.

Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their great honour, of all people,
the least subject to the wretched spirit of monopoly. The undertaker of a
great manufactory is sometimes alarmed if another work of the same kind is
established within twenty miles of him; the Dutch undertaker of the
woollen manufacture at Abbeville, stipulated that no work of the same kind
should be established within thirty leagues of that city. Farmers and
country gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed rather to
promote, than to obstruct, the cultivation and improvement of their
neighbours farms and estates. They have no secrets, such as those of the
greater part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of
communicating to their neighbours, and of extending as far as possible any
new practice which they may have found to be advantageous. “Pius
quaestus”, says old Cato, “stabilissimusque, minimeque invidiosus;
minimeque male cogitantes sunt, qui in eo studio occupati sunt.” Country
gentlemen and farmers, dispersed in different parts of the country, cannot
so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers, who being collected into
towns, and accustomed to that exclusive corporation spirit which prevails
in them, naturally endeavour to obtain, against all their countrymen, the
same exclusive privilege which they generally possess against the
inhabitants of their respective towns. They accordingly seem to have been
the original inventors of those restraints upon the importation of foreign
goods, which secure to them the monopoly of the home market. It was
probably in imitation of them, and to put themselves upon a level with
those who, they found, were disposed to oppress them, that the country
gentlemen and farmers of Great Britain so far forgot the generosity which
is natural to their station, as to demand the exclusive privilege of
supplying their countrymen with corn and butcher’s meat. They did not,
perhaps, take time to consider how much less their interest could be
affected by the freedom of trade, than that of the people whose example
they followed.

To prohibit, by a perpetual law, the importation of foreign corn and
cattle, is in reality to enact, that the population and industry of the
country shall, at no time, exceed what the rude produce of its own soil
can maintain.

There seem, however, to be two cases, in which it will generally be
advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign, for the encouragement of
domestic industry.

The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the
defence of the country. The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends
very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The act of
navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors and
shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country,
in some cases, by absolute prohibitions, and in others, by heavy burdens
upon the shipping of foreign countries. The following are the principal
dispositions of this act.

First, All ships, of which the owners, masters, and three-fourths of the
mariners, are not British subjects, are prohibited, upon pain of
forfeiting ship and cargo, from trading to the British settlements and
plantations, or from being employed in the coasting trade of Great
Britain.

Secondly, A great variety of the most bulky articles of importation can be
brought into Great Britain only, either in such ships as are above
described, or in ships of the country where those goods are produced, and
of which the owners, masters, and three-fourths of the mariners, are of
that particular country; and when imported even in ships of this latter
kind, they are subject to double aliens duty. If imported in ships of any
other country, the penalty is forfeiture of ship and goods. When this act
was made, the Dutch were, what they still are, the great carriers of
Europe; and by this regulation they were entirely excluded from being the
carriers to Great Britain, or from importing to us the goods of any other
European country.

Thirdly, A great variety of the most bulky articles of importation are
prohibited from being imported, even in British ships, from any country
but that in which they are produced, under pain of forfeiting ship and
cargo. This regulation, too, was probably intended against the Dutch.
Holland was then, as now, the great emporium for all European goods; and
by this regulation, British ships were hindered from loading in Holland
the goods of any other European country.

Fourthly, Salt fish of all kinds, whale fins, whalebone, oil, and blubber,
not caught by and cured on board British vessels, when imported into Great
Britain, are subject to double aliens duty. The Dutch, as they are still
the principal, were then the only fishers in Europe that attempted to
supply foreign nations with fish. By this regulation, a very heavy burden
was laid upon their supplying Great Britain.

When the act of navigation was made, though England and Holland were not
actually at war, the most violent animosity subsisted between the two
nations. It had begun during the government of the long parliament, which
first framed this act, and it broke out soon after in the Dutch wars,
during that of the Protector and of Charles II. It is not impossible,
therefore, that some of the regulations of this famous act may have
proceeded from national animosity. They are as wise, however, as if they
had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. National animosity,
at that particular time, aimed at the very same object which the most
deliberate wisdom would have recommended, the diminution of the naval
power of Holland, the only naval power which could endanger the security
of England.

The act of navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the
growth of that opulence which can arise from it. The interest of a nation,
in its commercial relations to foreign nations, is, like that of a
merchant with regard to the different people with whom he deals, to buy as
cheap, and to sell as dear as possible. But it will be most likely to buy
cheap, when, by the most perfect freedom of trade, it encourages all
nations to bring to it the goods which it has occasion to purchase; and,
for the same reason, it will be most likely to sell dear, when its markets
are thus filled with the greatest number of buyers. The act of navigation,
it is true, lays no burden upon foreign ships that come to export the
produce of British industry. Even the ancient aliens duty, which used to
be paid upon all goods, exported as well as imported, has, by several
subsequent acts, been taken off from the greater part of the articles of
exportation. But if foreigners, either by prohibitions or high duties, are
hindered from coming to sell, they cannot always afford to come to buy;
because, coming without a cargo, they must lose the freight from their own
country to Great Britain. By diminishing the number of sellers, therefore,
we necessarily diminish that of buyers, and are thus likely not only to
buy foreign goods dearer, but to sell our own cheaper, than if there was a
more perfect freedom of trade. As defence, however, is of much more
importance than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of
all the commercial regulations of England.

The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some
burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, is when
some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case,
it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like
produce of the former. This would not give the monopoly of the home
market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular employment a
greater share of the stock and labour of the country, than what would
naturally go to it. It would only hinder any part of what would naturally
go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less natural direction,
and would leave the competition between foreign and domestic industry,
after the tax, as nearly as possible upon the same footing as before it.
In Great Britain, when any such tax is laid upon the produce of domestic
industry, it is usual, at the same time, in order to stop the clamorous
complaints of our merchants and manufacturers, that they will be undersold
at home, to lay a much heavier duty upon the importation of all foreign
goods of the same kind.

This second limitation of the freedom of trade, according to some people,
should, upon most occasions, be extended much farther than to the precise
foreign commodities which could come into competition with those which had
been taxed at home. When the necessaries of life have been taxed in any
country, it becomes proper, they pretend, to tax not only the like
necessaries of life imported from other countries, but all sorts of
foreign goods which can come into competition with any thing that is the
produce of domestic industry. Subsistence, they say, becomes necessarily
dearer in consequence of such taxes; and the price of labour must always
rise with the price of the labourer’s subsistence. Every commodity,
therefore, which is the produce of domestic industry, though not
immediately taxed itself, becomes dearer in consequence of such taxes,
because the labour which produces it becomes so. Such taxes, therefore,
are really equivalent, they say, to a tax upon every particular commodity
produced at home. In order to put domestic upon the same footing with
foreign industry, therefore, it becomes necessary, they think, to lay some
duty upon every foreign commodity, equal to this enhancement of the price
of the home commodities with which it can come into competition.

Whether taxes upon the necessaries of life, such as those in Great Britain
upon soap, salt, leather, candles, etc. necessarily raise the price of
labour, and consequently that of all other commodities, I shall consider
hereafter, when I come to treat of taxes. Supposing, however, in the mean
time, that they have this effect, and they have it undoubtedly, this
general enhancement of the price of all commodities, in consequence of
that labour, is a case which differs in the two following respects from
that of a particular commodity, of which the price was enhanced by a
particular tax immediately imposed upon it.

First, It might always be known with great exactness, how far the price of
such a commodity could be enhanced by such a tax; but how far the general
enhancement of the price of labour might affect that of every different
commodity about which labour was employed, could never be known with any
tolerable exactness. It would be impossible, therefore, to proportion,
with any tolerable exactness, the tax of every foreign, to the enhancement
of the price of every home commodity.

Secondly, Taxes upon the necessaries of life have nearly the same effect
upon the circumstances of the people as a poor soil and a bad climate.
Provisions are thereby rendered dearer, in the same manner as if it
required extraordinary labour and expense to raise them. As, in the
natural scarcity arising from soil and climate, it would be absurd to
direct the people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals and
industry, so is it likewise in the artificial scarcity arising from such
taxes. To be left to accommodate, as well as they could, their industry to
their situation, and to find out those employments in which,
notwithstanding their unfavourable circumstances, they might have some
advantage either in the home or in the foreign market, is what, in both
cases, would evidently be most for their advantage. To lay a new-tax upon
them, because they are already overburdened with taxes, and because they
already pay too dear for the necessaries of life, to make them likewise
pay too dear for the greater part of other commodities, is certainly a
most absurd way of making amends.

Such taxes, when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal
to the barrenness of the earth, and the inclemency of the heavens, and yet
it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been
most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great a
disorder. As the strongest bodies only can live and enjoy health under an
unwholesome regimen, so the nations only, that in every sort of industry
have the greatest natural and acquired advantages, can subsist and prosper
under such taxes. Holland is the country in Europe in which they abound
most, and which, from peculiar circumstances, continues to prosper, not by
means of them, as has been most absurdly supposed, but in spite of them.

As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay
some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, so
there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of
deliberation, in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free
importation of certain foreign goods; and, in the other, how far, or in
what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation, after it
has been for some time interrupted.

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it
is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods, is
when some foreign nation restrains, by high duties or prohibitions, the
importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge, in
this case, naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the
like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their
manufactures into ours. Nations, accordingly, seldom fail to retaliate in
this manner. The French have been particularly forward to favour their own
manufactures, by restraining the importation of such foreign goods as
could come into competition with them. In this consisted a great part of
the policy of Mr Colbert, who, notwithstanding his great abilities, seems
in this case to have been imposed upon by the sophistry of merchants and
manufacturers, who are always demanding a monopoly against their
countrymen. It is at present the opinion of the most intelligent men in
France, that his operations of this kind have not been beneficial to his
country. That minister, by the tariff of 1667, imposed very high duties
upon a great number of foreign manufactures. Upon his refusing to moderate
them in favour of the Dutch, they, in 1671, prohibited the importation of
the wines, brandies, and manufactures of France. The war of 1672 seems to
have been in part occasioned by this commercial dispute. The peace of
Nimeguen put an end to it in 1678, by moderating some of those duties in
favour of the Dutch, who in consequence took off their prohibition. It was
about the same time that the French and English began mutually to oppress
each other’s industry, by the like duties and prohibitions, of which the
French, however, seem to have set the first example, The spirit of
hostility which has subsisted between the two nations ever since, has
hitherto hindered them from being moderated on either side. In 1697, the
English prohibited the importation of bone lace, the manufacture of
Flanders. The government of that country, at that time under the dominion
of Spain, prohibited, in return, the importation of English woollens. In
1700, the prohibition of importing bone lace into England was taken off
upon condition that the importation of English woollens into Flanders
should be put on the same footing as before.

There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a
probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or
prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will
generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying
dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether such
retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not, perhaps,
belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought
to be governed by general principles, which are always the same, as to the
skill of that insidious and crafty animal vulgarly called a statesman or
politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of
affairs. When there is no probability that any such repeal can be
procured, it seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain
classes of our people, to do another injury ourselves, not only to those
classes, but to almost all the other classes of them. When our neighbours
prohibit some manufacture of ours, we generally prohibit, not only the
same, for that alone would seldom affect them considerably, but some other
manufacture of theirs. This may, no doubt, give encouragement to some
particular class of workmen among ourselves, and, by excluding some of
their rivals, may enable them to raise their price in the home market.
Those workmen however, who suffered by our neighbours prohibition, will
not be benefited by ours. On the contrary, they, and almost all the other
classes of our citizens, will thereby be obliged to pay dearer than before
for certain goods. Every such law, therefore, imposes a real tax upon the
whole country, not in favour of that particular class of workmen who were
injured by our neighbours prohibitions, but of some other class.

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how far,
or in what manner, it is proper to restore the free importation of foreign
goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is when particular
manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon all foreign
goods which can come into competition with them, have been so far extended
as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in this case require
that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and
with a good deal of reserve and circumspection. Were those high duties and
prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods of the same
kind might be poured so fast into the home market, as to deprive all at
once many thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means
of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be
very considerable. It would in all probability, however, be much less than
is commonly imagined, for the two following reasons.

First, All those manufactures of which any part is commonly exported to
other European countries without a bounty, could be very little affected
by the freest importation of foreign goods. Such manufactures must be sold
as cheap abroad as any other foreign goods of the same quality and kind,
and consequently must be sold cheaper at home. They would still,
therefore, keep possession of the home market; and though a capricious man
of fashion might sometimes prefer foreign wares, merely because they were
foreign, to cheaper and better goods of the same kind that were made at
home, this folly could, from the nature of things, extend to so few, that
it could make no sensible impression upon the general employment of the
people. But a great part of all the different branches of our woollen
manufacture, of our tanned leather, and of our hardware, are annually
exported to other European countries without any bounty, and these are the
manufactures which employ the greatest number of hands. The silk, perhaps,
is the manufacture which would suffer the most by this freedom of trade,
and after it the linen, though the latter much less than the former.

Secondly, Though a great number of people should, by thus restoring the
freedom of trade, be thrown all at once out of their ordinary employment
and common method of subsistence, it would by no means follow that they
would thereby be deprived either of employment or subsistence. By the
reduction of the army and navy at the end of the late war, more than
100,000 soldiers and seamen, a number equal to what is employed in the
greatest manufactures, were all at once thrown out of their ordinary
employment: but though they no doubt suffered some inconveniency, they
were not thereby deprived of all employment and subsistence. The greater
part of the seamen, it is probable, gradually betook themselves to the
merchant service as they could find occasion, and in the mean time both
they and the soldiers were absorbed in the great mass of the people, and
employed in a great variety of occupations. Not only no great convulsion,
but no sensible disorder, arose from so great a change in the situation of
more than 100,000 men, all accustomed to the use of arms, and many of them
to rapine and plunder. The number of vagrants was scarce anywhere sensibly
increased by it; even the wages of labour were not reduced by it in any
occupation, so far as I have been able to learn, except in that of seamen
in the merchant service. But if we compare together the habits of a
soldier and of any sort of manufacturer, we shall find that those of the
latter do not tend so much to disqualify him from being employed in a new
trade, as those of the former from being employed in any. The manufacturer
has always been accustomed to look for his subsistence from his labour
only; the soldier to expect it from his pay. Application and industry have
been familiar to the one; idleness and dissipation to the other. But it is
surely much easier to change the direction of industry from one sort of
labour to another, than to turn idleness and dissipation to any. To the
greater part of manufactures, besides, it has already been observed, there
are other collateral manufactures of so similar a nature, that a workman
can easily transfer his industry from one of them to another. The greater
part of such workmen, too, are occasionally employed in country labour.
The stock which employed them in a particular manufacture before, will
still remain in the country, to employ an equal number of people in some
other way. The capital of the country remaining the same, the demand for
labour will likewise be the same, or very nearly the same, though it may
be exerted in different places, and for different occupations. Soldiers
and seamen, indeed, when discharged from the king’s service, are at
liberty to exercise any trade within any town or place of Great Britain or
Ireland. Let the same natural liberty of exercising what species of
industry they please, be restored to all his Majesty’s subjects, in the
same manner as to soldiers and seamen; that is, break down the exclusive
privileges of corporations, and repeal the statute of apprenticeship, both
which are really encroachments upon natural Liberty, and add to those the
repeal of the law of settlements, so that a poor workman, when thrown out
of employment, either in one trade or in one place, may seek for it in
another trade or in another place, without the fear either of a
prosecution or of a removal; and neither the public nor the individuals
will suffer much more from the occasional disbanding some particular
classes of manufacturers, than from that of the soldiers. Our
manufacturers have no doubt great merit with their country, but they
cannot have more than those who defend it with their blood, nor deserve to
be treated with more delicacy.

To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely
restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or
Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the
public, but, what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of
many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army to
oppose, with the same zeal and unanimity, any reduction in the number of
forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every law
that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home market;
were the former to animate their soldiers, in the same manner as the
latter inflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage the
proposers of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army would be
as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish, in any respect,
the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This
monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of
them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable
to the government, and, upon many occasions, intimidate the legislature.
The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening
this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding
trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose
numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on
the contrary, and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to
thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank,
nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous
abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real
danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed
monopolists.

The undertaker of a great manufacture, who, by the home markets being
suddenly laid open to the competition of foreigners, should be obliged to
abandon his trade, would no doubt suffer very considerably. That part of
his capital which had usually been employed in purchasing materials, and
in paying his workmen, might, without much difficulty, perhaps, find
another employment; but that part of it which was fixed in workhouses, and
in the instruments of trade, could scarce be disposed of without
considerable loss. The equitable regard, therefore, to his interest,
requires that changes of this kind should never be introduced suddenly,
but slowly, gradually, and after a very long warning. The legislature,
were it possible that its deliberations could be always directed, not by
the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an extensive view
of the general good, ought, upon this very account, perhaps, to be
particularly careful, neither to establish any new monopolies of this
kind, nor to extend further those which are already established. Every
such regulation introduces some degree of real disorder into the
constitution of the state, which it will be difficult afterwards to cure
without occasioning another disorder.

How far it may be proper to impose taxes upon the importation of foreign
goods, in order not to prevent their importation, but to raise a revenue
for government, I shall consider hereafter when I come to treat of taxes.
Taxes imposed with a view to prevent, or even to diminish importation, are
evidently as destructive of the revenue of the customs as of the freedom
of trade.