Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

"What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarcely 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."*. Vlog:

If it be the interest of a nation to purchase from a foreign country when that country sells cheaper; how can its interest be injured by selling to the foreign country when it purchases dearer? What difference is there between purchasing cheap from a foreign country and-selling dear to that country? It is not easy to discover any difference. robid wer

[ocr errors]

Does not the capital which purchases the produce of foreign industry, replace a foreign capital as well as in the case of selling national produce to a foreign country PIs not the labour of the foreign country supported by national capital in one case as in the other?Ife in the case of selling to a foreign country, the capital of the merchant replaces a foreign capital, his capital also replaces a foreign capital when he purchases the produce of the foreign country. If, by selling to the amount of twenty millions of the produce of home-industry, the capital of the merchants who import in return foreign commodities to the amount of twenty millions, exchanges twenty millions of national capital for twenty millions of foreign capital, the same merchants, when they purchase the produce of foreign industry to the amout of twenty millions, exchange alike twenty millions of

*Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. pages 191, 192.

national capital for twenty millions of foreign capital. The two cases are perfectly parallel; and it is only through an inconceivable inattention that Adam Smith has applied to each a different doctrine.*

If he supposed that, in the case of purchasing foreign commodities, the returns of the national capital are quicker than in the case of selling the produce of national labour to foreign countries, he still laboured under a manifest error.

Whether foreign countries bring the produce of their industry, or national merchants go to fetch it from the spot where it is produced, the result is always the same; and in both cases the returns are as slow as in the case of selling to a foreign country.

If national merchants fetch the produce of foreign industry, they export the produce of national industry to pay for it; and the length of the voyage out and home is the same as when the foreign trade imports the produce of foreign industry, and exports the produce of national industry; consequently, selling to a foreign country and purchasing in a foreign country are both alike subject to the inconveniency of a slow return of capital.

But does that inconveniency really exist, or is it not rather delusive and imaginary.

The capitals employed in the home-trade may, it is true, stimulate national industry in a double degree to what those employed in foreign trade do: but they cannot set so great a quantity of labour in motion, because the home-consumption is limited, whilst that of the foreign markets is unbounded. This reflection of an Italian author is, I think, as true as sagacious. See Palmieri's excellent work, Della Publica Felicita.

The general labour of a country does not depend on the celerity or slowness of the returns of commercial capitals; credit supplies their absence; and, provided they bring back a more abundant foreign produce than the national produce exported, national labour loses nothing of its activity and productiveness. Labour is not interested in the quickness of the returns, but in the consumption of its produce; and whenever that consumption experiences no delay, labour preserves all its activity, Commerce always easily réplaces the capitals of labour, when it finds a sale for its produce. The credit which it gives to the consumers, affords safe resources to replace the capital of labour. It can negociate the documents of the credit it has given in a thousand ways, and, by discounting its bills, accelerate the return of its capital according to the wants or exigencies of labour.*

National labour therefore is never a sufferer from the slowness of the returns of the capital destined for its support; it only suffers from the slowness, difficulty, or insufficiency of the consumption of its produce, and from its reduced price or depreciation. When the produce of labour is depreciated, or sold very cheap, the wages of labour afford but a scanty pittance to the labourers, the profit of stock is incon

The Italian author whom I quoted in the preceding note, observes again on this head, that if the home-trade, by the rapidity of its returns, allows the same capital to be employed several times which foreign trade allows to be employed only once, foreign trade employs a greater quantity; and this greater quantity of capital employed compensates for the slowness of its returns, and yields profits much more considerable.

siderable; land yields a poor rent, or even none at all; labour languishes, industry pines, and national wealth decays. That the produce of national labour is consumed at home, and that the capital of the hometrade always replaces two national capitals, is of little importance; national wealth is not improved, nor is the condition of the people rendered less miserable by the circumstance.

But when the produce of national labour is sold at a high price, the labourer than receives ample wages, the profit of stock is great, the rent of land considerable, national industry flourishes, opulence is progressive, and the wealth of the state becomes the immoveable basis of its power: whether this high price of the produce of national labour be paid by foreign countries, is of no moment; its effects are not less certain nor less prosperous.

The question reduces itself simply to this: does the foreign or the home-trade procure the most advantageous price to the produce of national labour? And I think it has been sufficiently answered in favour of foreign trade. Consequently, all nations are, in my opinion, powerfully interested in giving to foreign the preference over the home trade.

Consistently with his principles, Adam Smith assigns the last, place to the carrying trade, the capital of which is merely employed in replacing the capitals which support the labour of foreign countries.

But his opinion is directly opposite to that of D'Avenant, whose knowledge and information on

subjects connected with political economy are entitled to the highest consideration.

"Freight," says D'Avenant, "is not only the most politic, but the most national and most certain profit a country can possibly make by trade."*

Such a difference between two justly esteemed wri ters deserves to be investigated.

And first it ought to be observed, that the assertion that the capital employed in the carrying trade replaces only foreign capitals destined to support the labour of a foreign country, is not correct. This capital supports also the labour which builds and fits vessels out; it pays the wages of the sailors,† the commission for warehouses; and all the advances to which it gives rise. It is the origin and principle of the transit trade, which is so profitable in all its branches, because it pays considerable wages, and maintains a great number of individuals at the expence of the industry of other nations..

Notwithstanding these numerous advantages, I do not think that the carrying trade is the most benefi

* Vol. ii. page 275.

The author forgets that Adam Smith himself observed, that, "when the carrying trade of any particular country is carried on with the ships and sailers of that country, that part of the capital employed in it which pays the freight is distributed among and puts into motion a certain number of productive labourers of that country." Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. page 68.) But Adam Smith did not enter much into the subject, because Great Britain had no carrying trade at the time he wrote, and this is also the probable reason why he neglected mentioning the transit trade.-T.

« ForrigeFortsett »