Α Treatise ON COMMERCIAL LAW. CHAP. I. Introductory Observations on the Advantages resulting from Commerce and its particular Branches, and the Regulations affecting it. resulting from port and increase IT is an acknowledged principle in political economy, that the Of the advantages great object of all rational politics is to produce the greatest commerce in its quantity of happiness in a given tract of country;-that this is stimulus to imto be effected by increasing the number of percipients, provided and fisheries, and prove agriculture they be comfortably supported ;—and that the way to increase consequent supsuch number usefully and permanently, is to increase the effective of population. demand for labour, which stimulates the improvement of agriculture and other sources of subsistence;-and that consequently it is the duty of every legislator to adopt measures conducive to this end (1). It follows that commerce, and the regulations which affect it, are valuable or injurious exactly in the degree in which they promote or retard this great object. It is obvious that the increase of population must be effected principally by the encouragement of agriculture and fisheries, which afford the provision for its support (2). But the encourage (1) 2 Malthus, 433. 2 Smith, 200. 2 Paley, Mor. Phil. 345. Sir J. Child on Trade, 167, 8. Tucker on Trade and Naturaliza- (2) 1 Malthus, 272. 2 Malthus, ment of agriculture can take place only by an increase of those equivalents which may be given to the owners of the soil in exchange for its produce (1); for the soil of any tract of land will yield, with due cultivation, a much greater quantity of produce than can be necessary for the support of the owner, and of the labourers and servants whom he employs; and therefore, if there were no equivalent that could be given to him for his superfluity, if there were nothing which he wanted and others had to spare, he would cease to produce that superfluity at all. He would bring into cultivation only so much land as would satisfy the immediate wants of his family and dependants, and leave the rest in vast forests for the chase, or unproductive commons for the cattle of his villagers (2). He would not part with the land, because that would diminish his power and importance; he would live as our ancestors appear to have done in the feudal times (3). But when, by the introduction of manufactures and commerce, the less opulent classes of society begin to prepare and to offer for sale something of their own which is useful or ornamental, and to seek a profit by circulating in one district of the state the natural produce peculiar to another, the desire of possessing these new or remote conveniences or luxuries becomes a motive with each proprietor of the land to enlarge its cultivation, and by the consequently extended distribution of the earth's produce, population receives a fresh impulse (4). This impulse having once been originated, continues, under any circumstances of tolerable security, to operate with gradual but unwearied force upon the uncultivated land as long as there remains a want, natural or artificial, which domestic skill and industry can gratify (5). The manufacturing and commercial classes still bring into market either goods, or 137. See Ld. Somers Tracts, vol. 12. p. 73. Colquhoun on Wealth, &c. of British Empire, 15. 3 Adolphus, Polit. Stat. British Empire, 277 to 280, for some judicious observations on improvement of fisheries. (1) Id. ibid. 2 Paley, 368. 370. 3 Hume, 403. 2 Smith, 104. (2) 2 Paley, 368. 370, 1. 374, 5. 2 Smith, 104. 3 Hume, 403. Anderson's Hist. Com. vol. 1. Preface, and id. Introd. p. 42. Aristot. Politics, b. 1. c. 6. (3) This opinion is elucidated. by Sir J. Child on Trade, Preface, and by the passage in 2 Smith's Wealth of Nations, 158, &c. (4) 3 Hume, 403. 2 Paley, 368. 372. 2 Smith, 104. Tucker on Trade, Introduction, p. 6. Sir J. Child on Trade and its Influence on Population, 2d part, 29, 30. 35. (5) Hence it is clear that increase of commerce enhances the value of land. See Sir J. Child's Discourse on Trade, Preface. the money by which goods are represented, and the agricultural classes still continue to purchase those goods, or that money, by an increase of the produce of the earth. And all orders of the state, thus mutually enriching themselves, and thus equally contributing to augment the funds for the maintenance of the labourer, become more and more able to support the expences attendant on an increase of population. commerce. But as every climate is limited to certain natural produc- Utility of foreign tions, and every community to particular manufactures, beyond which its skill does not extend, the quantity of conveniences or luxuries which the commercial classes of each country could furnish to the proprietors of land from native resources alone, would be too small to encourage the cultivation of the soil in a degree sufficient for the maintenance of a large population. It has therefore been found convenient by almost every state to encourage the intercourse of its own inhabitants with those of foreign countries; where new productions may be gathered from the earth, and new arts acquired from the people (1). The tin and the wool of Great Britain, when completely distributed by internal commerce to all the districts of the kingdom which require them in their raw state, and worked up into manufactures for the complete supply of all the British individuals with whom an effective demand exists, would, after the attainment of these immediate objects, become merely useless without foreign commerce. The agricultural classes, having no need of such commodities, would not enlarge their own labour to procure them: the increase therefore in the produce of the earth would pause, and the progress of population must necessarily be impeded for want of a commensurate augmentation in the means of subsistence. But here the impulse of foreign commerce arises, and applies its force to the career of improvement. The tin or the wool of Great Britain is carried to other countries; and their cotton and tobacco, for which a demand exists at home, are brought hither in return. The necessity for these is “There is an inseparable affinity in all nations and at all times between land and trade, which are twins, and have always and ever will wax and wane together. It cannot be ill with trade but land will fall, nor ill with lands but trade will feel it." See also Tucker (1) 2 Paley, 373, 4, 5. 2 Smith, |