viduals, is no proof of its expediency. To establish this, it must also be shown that it is advantageous, or at least not injurious, to the public-that it does not sacrifice the interests of the community to those of a favoured few. No system of commercial policy deserves to be preferred to another, except in so far as it may be better fitted to advance the welfare of the nation. If a restricted will do this more effectually than a free and unfettered trade, it should be restricted; but if otherwise, not. Neither freedom nor prohibition is, in itself, good or bad. The influence which each exercises over the public is the only thing to be attended to. The supply of its wants is the real end and purpose of all sorts of industrious undertakings; and the interests of those engaged in them should occupy the attention of government only, when it is believed that they may be made, through its interference, more subservient to their legitimate object.

We have already seen, that the workmen employed in a country cannot exceed the numbers which its capital can feed and maintain. But it is plain that no regulation can directly add any thing to capital. It most frequently, indeed, diverts a portion of it into channels into which it would not otherwise have flowed. This, however, is its only. effect; and the real question for consideration is-Whether the artificial direction which is thus given to a portion of the national capital, renders it more or less productive than it would have been, had it been left at liberty to seek out channels of employment for itself?

In discussing this question it may be observed, in the first place, that every individual is constantly endeavouring to find out the most advantageous methods of employing his capital and labour. It is true that it is his own advantage, and not that of the society, which he has in view; but a society being merely a collection of individuals, it is plain that each, in steadily pursuing his own aggrandizement, is following the line of conduct most for the general advantage. Hence, were no particular branches

of industry encouraged more than others, those would be preferred which naturally afforded the greatest facilities for acquiring fortunes, and, consequently, for increasing the riches of the country. Self-interest is the most powerful stimulus that can be applied to excite the industry, and to sharpen the intellect and ingenuity of man; and no proposition is more true, than that each individual can, in his local situation, judge better what is advantageous and useful for himself than any other person. "The statesman," says Smith, "who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."1

But, in the second place, it is evident, that the prevention of importation has in effect the consequence, so justly censured by Smith, of dictating to individuals how they shall employ their capital and labour. It deprives them of such articles as cannot be raised at home; and it compels them to pay a higher price for such as may be so raised, though with comparative difficulty. But to prohibit an individual from using any article merely because it is the product of another country, or to compel him to pay an unnecessarily enhanced price for it, is at once oppressive and impolitic. Were there no restraints on importation, we should import all those articles which may be bought at a lower price from the foreigner than from the home producers. Our conduct as a nation would then be regulated by the principles that regulate the conduct of individuals in private life; and it is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, not to attempt to make at home what it would cost more to make than to buy. The tailor, as Smith has

1" Wealth of Nations," p. 200.

remarked, does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them from a shoemaker; the shoemaker, on his part, does not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor; and the farmer makes neither the one nor the other, but obtains them in exchange for corn and cattle. In civilized societies, every individual finds it for his advantage to employ himself in some particular business, and to exchange a part of his peculiar produce for such parts of the produce of others as he may have occasion for. And it has not yet been shown that that conduct which is universally admitted to be wise and proper in individuals, should be unwise or absurd in the case of a state,—that is, in the case of the individuals inhabiting a particular tract of country!

The repeal of restrictions will not enable foreigners to supply any part of those commodities that may be as cheaply produced at home as abroad. And home producers, it should be borne in mind, have great advantages on their side. The price of their commodities is not so much enhanced by the expense of conveyance; and they are intimately acquainted with the language, laws, fashions, and credit of those with whom they deal. A foreigner has none of these circumstances in his favour; and, consequently, comes into the home market under disadvantages with which nothing but the greater cheapness of his goods can enable him to contend. But if a Frenchman, or an American, can supply us with any article cheaper than we can raise it, why should we not buy it of him? Why not extend the same principle to foreigners that is found to be so extremely advantageous in dealing with our immediate neighbours? Though our ports were open for the reception of all the commodities of all the commercial nations of the world, none would be purchased u less the purchasers concluded it to be for their advantage; that is, unless they obtained the article from the foreigners at a less price than they could obtain it for from their own countrymen.

The fact that we are able to import a commodity from a particular foreign market at a lower price than it can be raised for here, or imported from any other place, shows that some of our peculiar productions fetch a higher price in that market than any where else. The price of a commodity is merely the quantity of money, or of some other commodity, given for it. No one doubts that we may buy claret cheaper in Bordeaux than in any other place; but, if so, it necessarily follows that we are able to dispose of the produce given for claret to greater advantage there than elsewhere. There is no test of high or low price, except the quantity of other things for which an article exchanges. And thus it is evident, that when we prohibit buying in the cheapest markets, we, at the same time, and by the same act, prohibit selling in the dearest markets. Suppose that, by sending a certain quantity of cottons or hardware to Brazil, we might get in exchange 150 hogsheads of sugar; and that the same quantity, if sent to Jamaica, will only fetch 100 hogsheads: is it not obvious, that by preventing the importation of the former we force our goods to be sold for two-thirds the price they would otherwise have brought? To suppose that a system productive of such results should be a means of increasing national wealth, is to suppose what is evidently contradictory and absurd.

When a restriction is laid on the importation of any description of commodities, their price rises, and the home producers of the same or similar articles get an immediate advantage: but what they gain in this way is of very trifling importance. For, as additional capital is drawn to the business, prices are speedily reduced to the level that barely affords the ordinary rate of profit. This level may be either identical with that at which prices previously stood, or it may be higher. If the former should happen to be the case, little, though something, will have been lost, but nothing whatever will have been gained by the restriction. Capital will have been transferred from one employment to another;

and while a greater quantity of the produce formerly imported from abroad will henceforth be produced at home, there will be a corresponding diminution in the production of that which had been exported to the foreigners in payment of the imports. But, in the vast majority of cases, the price is not the same after a prohibition has been enacted, but is permanently raised; for, if an article may be as cheaply produced at home as abroad, its prohibition would be unnecessary, and would not be thought of. Suppose that the importation of a foreign article for which we paid a million sterling is prohibited, and that it costs a million and a quarter to raise it at home: it is clear that the prohibition will have precisely the same effect on the consumers of the article, as if, supposing the trade to have continued free, a peculiar tax of £250,000 a-year had been laid on them. But it will be observed, that had such a tax been imposed, its produce would have come into the hands of government, and have formed a portion of the national income; whereas the increased cost of the article being, under the circumstances supposed, occasioned by an increased difficulty of production, is of no advantage to any one.

It consequently results, that even in those rare cases in which a restrictive regulation has no tendency to raise prices, it is hurtful, by changing the natural distribution of capital, and lessening the foreign demand for the produce of industry to the same extent that it increases the home demand. But in that incomparably more numerous class of cases in which restrictions occasion a rise in the price of the articles which they affect, they are infinitely more injurious. Besides varying the natural distribution of capital, and circumscribing foreign trade, they then impose a burden on the consumers, for no purpose of general or public utility; they tempt individuals to withdraw from really advantageous businesses, to engage in those that cannot be prosecuted without national loss, and which must be abandoned the moment the prohibition ceases to be enforced; and are thus, in the end, productive of the most grievous injury, even to