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on of our best political writers, by the encouragements given tomanufactures and commerce. In consonance with the principlesof the commercial system, an artificial market, and an artificialprice, extending beyond the natural extent of demand, and abovethe natural level of price, have been instituted for these latter,by bounties on exportation ; and the restriction of importation,by means of high duties, or of absolute prohibition ; that is tosay, a general tax, is laid upon other industry, to pay to our mer-chants and manufacturers such a part of price as shall enablethem to sell their commodities to foreign nations as cheap as, orcheaper than, these nations themselves could obtain them by theirown domestic industry; and they are also enabled to raise ano-ther tax upon their fellow-citizens, by exacting from them a pricefor their commodities consumed at home, exceeding the level towhich it would be beat down by the competition of the manufac-turers of other nations, were these freely admitted to our markets;the industry of agricultural production being still further depress-ed, in favour of our manufacturers, by giving them the exclusiveprivilege of buying some of these productions in the home mar-ket, and totally prohibiting their exportation to foreign nations,whilst the same commodities of foreign production are admitted,duty free, to compete with them in the home market*.
In this manner, it would seem, that capital has been enticedfrom agriculture to commerce and manufactures, and an excessof population has been raised up, above what our agriculturecan feed, and dependent for the means of their 1 subsistence uponthe agriculture of other nations. A sense of public safety seemsimperiously to demand, that such undue proportion should berectified , that capital should be restored to agriculture, that the
* This is the ease in regard to wool, by the laws of England, to which Scot-land became subject at the Union ; in consequence of which, the price of wool,in the latter country, sunk one-half after that event. Foreign wool was allow-ed to be imported duty free ; Irish wool was forced into the English market;and the exportation of wool from England prohibited, under penalties whichfuake humanity shudder, and make us deprecate the idea of being ever sub-jected to that worst of tyrannies, that of monopolizing merchants and manu-facturers. 4 The severity of many of the laws which have been enacted for thesecurity of the revenue,’ (say* Dr Adam Smith ), ‘ is very justly complained°f» as imposing heavy penalties upon actions which, antecedent to these sta-tutes that declared them to be crimes, had always been understood to be in-nocent But the cruellest of our revenue laws, I will venture to affirm, arcmild and gentle, in comparison of some of those which the clamour of ourt merchants and manufacturers has extorted from the Legislature , for the sup-t port of their own absurd aud oppressive monopolies. Like the laws of Draco,these laws may be said to be all written iu blood. * These laws have been mo-dified in regard to the penalties ; which, however, still infer the total ruin of“'e circumstances of the exporter of wool, though they do not affect his life.
Hut as the morals of the great body of the people* (continues the same au-t ^ l0r ) ‘ are not yet so corrupt, as those of the contrivers of this statute, I haverot heard that any has ever been taken of this clause.’ See
“Phil’s Wealth of Nations, Look iv. Chap. 8.