[239] Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap. 2, in fine; Cannan, vol. i, p. 435.
[240] The “Navigation Laws” is a generic term for a number of laws, the most famous of them dating from the time of Cromwell. Their immediate object was the destruction of the Dutch fleet, and English commerce was organised with a view to securing this. There is no doubt but that they contributed very considerably to the development of English maritime power.
[241] Ibid., Book IV, chap. 2; vol. i, p. 429.
[242] But “when there is no probability that any such repeal can be procured it seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people, to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them.” (Ibid., Book IV, chap. 2; vol. i, p. 433.)
[243] The discussion of these various cases is to be found towards the end of chap. 2 of Book IV.
[244] This system is expounded in Book V, chap 2, part ii, art. 5.
[245] In the preface to his translation, 1821 ed., p. lxix.
[246] Rae, Life of Smith, p. 103. The author of this famous phrase is not known.
[247] J. B. Say, Traité, 1st ed., p. 240.
[248] Mantoux, La Révolution industrielle, p. 83. M. Halévy gives expression to a similar idea in his La Jeunesse de Bentham, p. 193 (Paris, 1901).