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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

a few sorts of goods of the most general use and consump-tion. If they were extended to almost all sorts of goods, asat present, public warehouses of sufficient extent could noteasily be provided, and goods of a very delicate nature, orof which the preservation required much care and attention,could not safely be trusted by the merchant in any warehousebut his own.

If by such a system of administration smuggling to anyconsiderable extent could be prevented even under prettyhigh duties ; and if every duty was occasionally eitherheightened or lowered according as it was most likely, eitherthe one way or the other, to alford the greatest revenue tothe state; taxation being always employed as an instrumentof revenue and never of monopoly; it seems not improbablethat a revenue, at least equal to the present neat revenue ofthe customs, might be drawn from duties upon the importa-tion of only a few sorts of goods of the most general use andconsumption; and that the duties of customs might thus bebrought to the same degree of simplicity, certainty, and pre-cision, as those of excise. What the revenue at presentloses, by drawbacks upon the re-exportation of foreign goodswhich are afterward relanded and consumed at home, wouldunder this system be saved altogether. If to this saving,which would alone be very considerable, were added theabolition of all bounties upon the exportation of home pro-duce ; in all cases in which those bounties were not in realitydrawbacks of some duties of excise which had before beenadvanced ; it cannot well be doubted but that the neat revenueof customs might after an alteration of this kind, be fully equalto what it had ever been before.

If by such a change of system the public revenue sufferedno loss, the trade and manufactures of the country would cer-tainly gain a very considerable advantage. The trade in thecommodities not taxed, by far the greatest number, would beperfectly free, and might be carried on to and from all partsof the world with every possible advantage. Among thosecommodities would be comprehended all the necessaries oflife, and all the materials of manufacture. So far as the freeimportation of the necessaries of life reduced their averagemoney price in the home market, it would reduce the moneyprice of labour, but without reducing in any respect its realrecompense. The value of money is in proportion to the quan-tity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase. That of