428 TtlK N'ATUm; AND CAUSl'.S Of

wards a particular employment a greater share of the stockand labour of the country, than what would naturally go toit. It would only hinder any part of what would naturallygo to it from being turned away by the tax, into a less natu-ral direction, and would leave the competition between fo-reign and domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as pos-sible upon the same footing as before it. In Great, Britain,when any such tax is laid upon the produce of domestic in-dustry, it is usual at the same time, in order to stop the cla-morous complaints of our merchants and manufacturers, thatthey will be undersold at home, to lay a much heavier dutyupon the importation of all foreign goods of the same kind.

This second limitation of the freedom of trade, accordingto some people, should, upon some occasions, be extendedmuch farther than to the precise foreign commodities whichcould coine into competition with those which had beentaxed at home. When the necessaries of life have beentaxed in any country, it becomes proper, they pretend, to taxnot only the like necessaries of life imported from other coun-tries, but all sorts of foreign goods which can come into com-petition with any thing that is the produce of domestic in-dustry. Subsistence, they say, becomes necessarily dearerin consequence of such taxes ; and the price of labour mustalways rise with the price of the labourer’s subsistence.Every commodity, therefore, which is the produce of domes-tic industry, though not immediately taxed itself, becomesdearer in consequence of such taxes, because the labour whichproduces it becomes so. Such taxes, therefore, are reallyequivalent, they say, to a tax upon every particular commo-dity produced at home. In order to put domestic upon thesame footing with foreign industry, therefore, it becomes ne-cessary, they think, to lay some duty upon every foreign com-modity, equal to this enhancement of the price of the homecommodities with which it can come into competition.

Whether taxes upon the necessaries of life, such as thosein Great Britain upon soap, salt, leather, candles, &c. neces-sarily raise the price of labour, and consequently that of allother commodities, I shall consider hereafter, when I cometo treat of taxes. Supposing, however, in the mean time,that they have this effect, and they have it undoubtedly, thisgeneral enhancement of the price of all other commodities,in consequence of that of labour, is a case which differs inthe two following respects from that of a particular commo-