An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

sort of goods which

he might happen to deal in, than in money. Such a merchant would

have no occasion to keep any part of his stock by him unemployed,

and in ready money, for answering occasional demands. He could

have, at all times, a larget quantity of goods in his shop or

warehouse, and he could deal to a greater extent. But it seldom

happens to be convenient for all the correspondents of a merchant

to receive payment for the goods which they sell to him, in goods

of some other kind which he happens to deal in. The British

merchants who trade to Virginia and Maryland, happen to be a

particular set of correspondents, to whom it is more convenient

to receive payment for the goods which they sell to those

colonies in tobacco, than in gold and silver. They expect to make

a profit by the sale of the tobacco ; they could make none by

that of the gold and silver. Gold and silver, therefore, very

seldom appear in the commerce between Great Britain and the

tobacco colonies. Maryland and Virginia have as little occasion

for those metals in their foreign, as in their domestic commerce.

They are said, accordingly, to have less gold and silver money

than any other colonies in America. They are reckoned, however,

as thriving, and consequently as rich, as any of their

neighbours.

 

In the northern colonies, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, the

four governments of New England, etc. the value of their own

produce which they export to Great Britain is not equal to that

of the manufactures which they import for their own use, and for

that of some of the other colonies, to which they are the

carriers. A balance, therefore, must be paid to the

mother-country in gold and silver and this balance they generally

find.

 

In the sugar colonies, the value of the produce annually exported

to Great Britain is much greater than that of all the goods

imported from thence. If the sugar and rum annually sent to the

mother-country were paid for in those colonies, Great Britain

would be obliged to send out, every year, a very large balance in

money ; and the trade to the West Indies would, by a certain

species of politicians, be considered as extremely

disadvantageous. But it so happens, that many of the principal

proprietors of the sugar plantations reside in Great Britain.

Their rents are remitted to them in sugar and rum, the produce of

their estates. The sugar and rum which the West India merchants

purchase in those colonies upon their own account, are not equal

in value to the goods which they annually sell there. A balance,

therefore, must necessarily be paid to them in gold and silver,

and this balance, too, is generally found.

 

The difficulty and irregularity of payment from the different

colonies to Great Britain, have not been at all in proportion to

the greatness or smallness of the balances which were

respectively due from them. Payments have, in general, been more

regular from the northern than from the tobacco colonies, though

the former have generally paid a pretty large balance in money,

while the latter have either paid no balance, or a much smaller

one. The difficulty of getting payment from our different sugar

colonies has been greater or less in proportion, not so much to

the extent of the balances respectively due from them, as to the

quantity of uncultivated land which they contained; that is, to

the greater or smaller temptation which the planters have been

under of over-trading, or of undertaking the settlement and

plantation of greater quantities of waste land than suited the

extent of their capitals. The returns from the great island of

Jamaica, where there is still much uncultivated land, have, upon

this account, been, in general, more irregular and uncertain than

those from the smaller islands of Barbadoes, Antigua, and St.

Christopher’s, which have, for these many years, been completely

cultivated, and have, upon that account, afforded less field for

the speculations of the planter. The new acquisitions of Grenada,

Tobago, St. Vincent’s, and Dominica, have opened a new field for

speculations of this kind ; and the returns front those islands

have of late been as irregular and uncertain as those from the

great island of Jamaica.

 

It is not, therefore, the poverty of the colonies which

occasions, in the greater part of them, the present scarcity of

gold and silver money. Their great demand for active and

productive stock makes it convenient for them to have as little

dead stock as possible, and disposes them, upon that account, to

content themselves with a cheaper, though less commodious

instrument of commerce, than gold and silver. They are thereby

enabled to convert the value of that gold and silver into the

instruments of trade, into the materials of clothing, into

household furniture, and into the iron work necessary for

building and extending their settlements and plantations. In

those branches of business which cannot be transacted without

gold and silver money, it appears, that they can always find the

necessary quantity of those metals; and if they frequently do not

find it, their failure is generally the effect, not of their

necessary poverty, but of their unnecessary and excessive

enterprise. It is not because they are poor that their payments

are irregular and uncertain, but because they are too eager to

become excessively rich. Though all that part of the produce of

the colony taxes, which was over and above what was necessary for

defraying the expense of their own civil and military

establishments, were to be remitted to Great Britain in gold and

silver, the colonies have abundantly wherewithal to purchase the

requisite quantity of those metals. They would in this case be

obliged, indeed, to exchange a part of their surplus produce,

with which they now purchase active and productive stock, for

dead stock. In transacting their domestic business, they

would be obliged to employ a costly, instead of a cheap

instrument of commerce; and the expense of purchasing this costly

instrument might damp somewhat the vivacity and ardour of their

excessive enterprise in the improvement of land. It might not,

however, be necessary to remit any part of the American revenue

in gold and silver. It might be remitted in bills drawn upon, and

accepted by, particular merchants or companies in Great Britain,

to whom a part of the surplus produce of America had been

consigned, who would pay into the treasury the American revenue

in money, after having themselves received the value of it in

goods ; and the whole business might frequently be transacted

without exporting a single ounce of gold or silver from America.

 

It is not contrary to justice, that both Ireland and America

should contribute towards the discharge of the public debt of

Great Britain. That debt has been contracted in support of the

government established by the Revolution ; a government to which

the protestants of Ireland owe, not only the whole authority

which they at present enjoy in their own country, but every

security which they possess for their liberty, their property,

and their religion; a government to which several of the colonies

of America owe their present charters, and consequently their

present constitution; and to which all the colonies of America

owe the liberty, security, and property, which they have ever

since enjoyed. That public debt has been contracted in the

defence, not of Great Britain alone, but of all the different

provinces of the empire. The immense debt contracted in the late

war in particular, and a great part of that contracted in the war

before, were both properly contracted in defence of America.

 

By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the

freedom of trade, other advantages much more important, and which

would much more than compensate any increase of taxes that might

accompany that union. By the union with England, the

middling and inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a

complete deliverance from the power of an aristocracy, which had

always before oppressed them. By a union with Great Britain, the

greater part of people of all ranks in Ireland would gain an

equally complete deliverance from a much more oppressive

aristocracy ; an aristocracy not founded, like that of Scotland,

in the natural and respectable distinctions of birth and fortune,

but in the most odious of all distinctions, those of religious

and political prejudices; distinctions which, more than any

other, animate both the insolence of the oppressors, and the

hatred and indignation of the oppressed, and which commonly

render the inhabitants of the same country more hostile to one

another than those of different countries ever are. Without a

union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are not

likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people.

 

No oppressive aristocracy has ever prevailed in the colonies.

Even they, however, would, in point of happiness and

tranquillity, gain considerably by a union with Great Britain. It

would, at least, deliver them from those rancourous and virulent

factions which are inseparable from small democracies, and which

have so frequently divided the affections of their people, and

disturbed the tranquillity of their governments, in their form so

nearly democratical. In the case of a total separation from Great

Britain, which, unless prevented by a union of this kind, seems

very likely to take place, those factions would be ten times more

virulent than ever. Before the commencement of the present

disturbances, the coercive power of the mother-country had always

been able to restrain those factions from breaking out into any

thing worse than gross brutality and insult. If that coercive

power were entirely taken away, they would probably soon break

out into open violence and bloodshed. In all great countries

which are united under one uniform government, the spirit of

party commonly prevails less in the remote provinces than in the

centre of the empire. The distance of those provinces from the

capital, from the principal seat of the great scramble of faction

and ambition, makes them enter less into the views of any of the

contending parties, and renders them more indifferent and

impartial spectators of the conduct of all. The spirit of party

prevails less in Scotland than in England. In the case of a

union, it would probably prevail less in Ireland than in

Scotland; and the colonies would probably soon enjoy a degree of

concord and unanimity, at present unknown in any part of the

British empire. Both Ireland and the colonies, indeed, would be

subjected to heavier taxes than any which they at present pay. In

consequence, however, of a diligent and faithful application of

the public revenue towards the discharge of the national debt,

the greater part of those taxes might not be of long continuance,

and the public revenue of Great Britain might soon be reduced to

what was necessary for maintaining a moderate

peace-establishment.

 

The territorial acquisitions of the East India Company, the

undoubted right of the Crown, that is, of the state and people of

Great Britain, might be rendered another source of revenue, more

abundant, perhaps, than all those already mentioned. Those

countries are represented as more fertile, more extensive, and,

in proportion to their extent, much richer and more populous than

Great Britain. In order to draw a great revenue from them, it

would not probably be necessary to introduce any new system of

taxation into countries which are already sufficiently, and more

than sufficiently, taxed. It might, perhaps, be more proper to

lighten than to aggravate the burden of those unfortunate

countries, and to endeavour to draw a revenue from them, not by

imposing new taxes, but by preventing the embezzlement and

misapplication of the greater part of those which they already

pay.

 

If it should be found impracticable for Great Britain to draw any

considerable