834

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

are the particular produce of our colonies, has sometimesbeen prohibited, and sometimes subjected to higher duties.The exportation of English wool has been prohibited. Thatof beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum Senega, has beensubjected to higher duties; Great Britain , by the conquestof Canada and Senegal , having got almost the monopoly ofthose commodities.

That the mercantile system has not been very favourableto the revenue of the great body of the people, to the annualproduce of the land and labour of the country, I have endea-voured to shew in the fourth book of this Inquiry. It seemsnot to have been more favourable to the revenue of the sove-reign ; so far at least as that revenue depends upon the dutiesof customs.

In consequence of that system, the importation of severalsorts of goods has been prohibited altogether. This prohi-bition has in some cases entirely prevented, and in othershas very much diminished the importation of those commo-dities, by reducing the importers to the necessity of smug-gling. It has entirely prevented the importation of foreignwoollens; and it has very much diminished that of foreignsilks and velvets. In both cases it has entirely annihilatedthe revenue of customs which might have been levied uponsuch importation.

The high duties which have been imposed upon the impor-tation of many different sorts of foreign goods, in order todiscourage their consumption in Great Britain , have in manycases served only to encourage smuggling, and in all caseshave reduced the revenue of the customs below what moremoderate duties would have afforded. The saying of Dr.Swift, that in the arithmetic of the customs two and two, in-stead of making four, make sometimes only one, holds per-fectly true with regard to such heavy duties, which nevercould have been imposed had not the mercantile system taughtus, in many cases, to employ taxation as an instrument notof revenue of monopoly.

The bounties which are sometimes given upon the expor-tation of home produce and manufactures, and the drawbackswhich are paid upon the re-exportation of the greater partof foreign goods, have given occasion to many frauds, andof a species of smuggling more destructive of the publicrevenue than any other. In order to obtain the bounty ordrawback, the goods, it is well known, are sometimes shipped