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

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folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

 

To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of

domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in

some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought

to employ their capitals, and must in almost all cases be either

a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic can

be brought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the

regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it must generally

be hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family,

never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to

make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make his own

shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not

attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer

attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those

different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to

employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some

advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of

its produce, or, what is the same thing, with the price of a part

of it, whatever else they have occasion for.

 

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can

scarce be folly In that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country

can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make

it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our

own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

The general industry of the country being always in proportion to

the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished, no

more than that of the abovementioned artificers; but only left to

find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest

advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest

advantage, when it is thus directed towards an object which it

can buy cheaper than it can make. The value of its annual produce

is certainly more or less diminished, when it is thus turned away

from producing commodities evidently of more value than the

commodity which it is directed to produce. According to the

supposition, that commodity could be purchased from foreign

countries cheaper than it can be made at home ; it could

therefore have been purchased with a part only of the

commodities, or, what is the same thing, with a part only of the

price of the commodities, which the industry employed by an equal

capital would have produced at home, had it been left to follow

its natural course. The industry of the country, therefore, is

thus turned away from a more to a less advantageous employment ;

and the exchangeable value of its annual produce, instead of

being increased, according to the intention of the lawgiver, must

necessarily be diminished by every such regulation.

 

By means of such regulations, indeed, a particular manufacture

may sometimes be acquired sooner than it could have been

otherwise, and after a certain time may be made at home as cheap,

or cheaper, than in the foreign country. But though the industry

of the society may be thus carried with advantage into a

particular channel sooner than it could have been otherwise, it

will by no means follow that the sum-total, either of its

industry, or of its revenue, can ever be augmented by any such

regulation. The industry of the society can augment only in

proportion as its capital augments, and its capital can augment

only in proportion to what can be gradually saved out of its

revenue. But the immediate effect of every such regulation is to

diminish its revenue; and what diminishes its revenue is

certainly not very likely to augment its capital faster than it

would have augmented of its own accord, had both capital and

industry been left to find out their natural employments.

 

Though, for want of such regulations, the society should never

acquire the proposed manufacture, it would not upon that account

necessarily be the poorer in anyone period of its duration. In

every period of its duration its whole capital and industry might

still have been employed, though upon different objects, in the

manner that was most advantageous at the time. In every period

its revenue might have been the greatest which its capital could

afford, and both capital and revenue might have been augmented

with the greatest possible rapidity.

 

The natural advantages which one country has over another, in

producing particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it

is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with

them. By means of glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good

grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine, too, can be

made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at

least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would

it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign

wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and Burgundy in

Scotland ? But if there would be a manifest absurdity in turning

towards any employment thirty times more of the capital and

industry of the country than would be necessary to purchase from

foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted,

there must be an absurdity, though not altogether so glaring, yet

exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment

a thirtieth, or even a three hundredth part more of either.

Whether the advantages which one country has over another be

natural or acquired, is in this respect of no consequence. As

long as the one country has those advantages, and the other wants

them, it will always be more advantageous for the latter rather

to buy of the former than to make. It is an acquired advantage

only, which one artificer has over his neighbour, who exercises

another trade; and yet they both find it more advantageous to buy

of one another, than to make what does not belong to their

particular trades.

 

Merchants and manufacturers are the people who derive the

greatest advantage from this monopoly of the home market The

prohibition of the importation of foreign cattle and of salt

provisions, together with the high duties upon foreign corn,

which in times of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, are

not near so advantageous to the graziers and farmers of Great

Britain, as other regulations of the same kind are to its

merchants and manufacturers. Manufactures, those of the finer

kind especially, are more easily transported from one country to

another than corn or cattle. It is in the fetching and carrying

manufactures, accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly

employed. In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable

foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market.

It will require a very great one to enable them to do so in the

rude produce of the soil. If the free importation of foreign

manufactures were permitted, several of the home manufactures

would probably suffer,and some of them perhaps go to ruin

altogether, and a considerable part of the stock and industry at

present employed in them, would be forced to find out some other

employment. But the freest importation of the rude produce of the

soil could have no such effect upon the agriculture of the

country.

 

If the importation of foreign cattle, for example, were made ever

so free, so few could be imported, that the grazing trade of

Great Britain could be little affected by it. Live cattle are,

perhaps, the only commodity of which the transportation is more

expensive by sea than by land. By land they carry themselves to

market. By sea, not only the cattle, but their food and their

water too, must be carried at no small expense and inconveniency.

The short sea between Ireland and Great Britain, indeed, renders

the importation of Irish cattle more easy. But though the free

importation of them, which was lately permitted only for a

limited time, were rendered perpetual, it could have no

considerable effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great

Britain. Those parts of Great Britain which border upon the Irish

sea are all grazing countries. Irish cattle could never be

imported for their use, but must be drove through those very

extensive countries, at no small expense and inconveniency,

before they could arrive at their proper market. Fat cattle could

not be drove so far. Lean cattle, therefore, could only be

imported; and such importation could interfere not with the

interest of the feeding or fattening countries, to which, by

reducing the price of lean cattle it would rather be

advantageous, but with that of the breeding countries only. The

small number of Irish cattle imported since their importation was

permitted, together with the good price at which lean cattle

still continue to sell, seem to demonstrate, that even the

breeding countries of Great Britain are never likely to be much

affected by the free importation of Irish cattle. The common

people of Ireland, indeed, are said to have sometimes opposed

with violence the exportation of their cattle. But if the

exporters had found any great advantage in continuing the trade,

they could easily, when the law was on their side, have conquered

this mobbish opposition.

 

Feeding and fattening countries, besides, must always be highly

improved, whereas breeding countries are generally uncultivated.

The high price of lean cattle, by augmenting the value of

uncultivated land, is like a bounty against improvement. To any

country which was highly improved throughout, it would be more

advantageous to import its lean cattle than to breed them. The

province of Holland, accordingly, is said to follow this maxim at

present. The mountains of Scotland, Wales, and Northumberland,

indeed, are countries not capable of much improvement, and seem

destined by nature to be the breeding countries of Great Britain.

The freest importation of foreign cattle could have no other

effect than to hinder those breeding countries from taking

advantage of the increasing population and improvement of the

rest of the kingdom, from raising their price to an exorbitant

height, and from laying a real tax upon all the more improved and

cultivated parts of the country.

 

The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner,

could have as little effect upon the interest of the graziers of

Great Britain as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not

only a very bulky commodity, but when compared with fresh meat

they are a commodity both of worse quality, and, as they cost

more labour and expense, of higher price. They could never,

therefore, come into competition with the fresh meat, though they

might with the salt provisions of the country. They might be used

for victualling ships for distant voyages, and such like uses,

but could never make any considerable part of the food of the

people. The small quantity of salt provisions imported from

Ireland since their importation was rendered free, is an

experimental proof that our graziers have nothing to apprehend

from it. It does not appear that the price of butchet’s meat

has ever been sensibly affected by it.

 

Even the free importation of foreign corn could very little

affect the interest of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a

much more bulky commodity than butcher’s meat. A pound of wheat

at a penny is as dear as a pound of butcher’s meat at fourpence.

The small quantity of foreign corn imported even in times of the

greatest scarcity, may satisfy our farmers that they can have

nothing to fear from the freest importation. The average quantity

imported, one year with another, amounts only, according to the

very well informed author of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade,