See what difference a year of independence has produced in public opinion. In those whom you then looked upon as enemies, you have discovered your truest friends, whilst those formerly esteemed as friends have proved enemies. Remember your former ideas on commerce and manufactures, and compare them with those which you at present entertain. Accustomed to the blind habits of Spanish monopoly, you then believed that Guayaquil would be robbed, were not her commerce limited to her own merchants. All foreigners were forbidden by restrictive laws from attending even to their own business and interests: now you appreciate a true policy, and your enlightened Government is ready to further public opinion in the promotion of your riches, strength, and happiness, as well as to assist these, by disseminating through the press the political opinions of great and wise men—without fear of the Inquisition, the faggot, or the stake.
It is very gratifying to me to observe the change which has taken place in your ideas of political economy, and to see that you can appreciate and despise the clamour of the few who would still interrupt the public prosperity; though it is difficult to believe how any citizen of Guayaquil can be capable of opposing his private interest to the public good, as though his particular profit were superior to that of the community, or as if commerce, agriculture, and manufactures were to be paralysed for his especial behoof.
Guayaquilenos! Let your public press declare the consequences of monopoly, and affix your names to the defence of your enlightened system. Let it shew that, if your province contains 80,000 inhabitants, and that if 80 of these are privileged merchants according to the old system, 9,999 persons out of 10,000 must suffer because their cotton, coffee, tobacco, timber, and other productions must come into the hands of the monopolist, as the only purchaser of what they have to sell, and the only seller of what they must necessarily buy! the effect being that he will buy at the lowest possible rate, and sell at the dearest, so that not only are the 9,999 injured, but the lands will remain waste, the manufactories without workmen, and the people will be lazy and poor for want of a stimulus, it being a law of nature that no man will labour solely for the gain of another.
Tell the monopolist that the true method of acquiring general riches, political power, and even his own private advantage, is to sell his country's produce as high, and foreign goods as low as possible—and that public competition can alone accomplish this. Let foreign merchants who bring capital, and those who practise any art or handicraft, be permitted to settle freely; and thus a competition will be formed, from which all must reap advantage.
Then will land and fixed property increase in value; the magazines, instead of being the receptacles of filth and crime, will be full of the richest foreign and domestic productions, and all will be energy and activity, because the reward will be in proportion to the labour. Your river will be filled with ships, and the monopolist degraded and shamed. You will bless the day in which Omnipotence permitted the veil of obscurity to be rent asunder, under which the despotism of Spain, the abominable tyranny of the Inquisition, and the want of liberty of the press, so long hid the truth from your sight.
Let your customs' duties be moderate, in order to promote the greatest possible consumption of foreign and domestic goods; then smuggling will cease, and the returns to the treasury increase. Let every man do as he pleases as regards his own property, views, and interests; because every individual will watch over his own with more zeal than senates, ministers, or kings. By your enlarged views set an example to the New World; and thus, as Guayaquil is from its situation the Central Republic, it will become the centre of the agriculture, commerce, and riches of the Pacific.
Guayaquilenos! The liberality of your sentiments, and the justice of your acts and opinions, are a bulwark to your independence more secure than that of armies and squadrons. That you may pursue the path which will render you as free and happy as the territory is fertile, and may be rendered productive, is the sincere wish of your obliged friend and servant,
COCHRANE.
The English reader may consider a lecture of this nature superfluous to an emancipated people, but the adherence to injurious monoplies, in spite of independence, was one of the most marked features of the South American Republics, and one which I never lost an opportunity of combating. Even the Chilian Republic, which was amongst the first to assert its freedom, increased its monopolistic practices, instead of diminishing them. One or two examples will not be here out of place.
English malt liquor bore a very high price in Chili, from the heavy freight and customs' duties. An ingenious Scotchman, named Macfarlane, set up a brewery at considerable expense, and malt costing in Chili barely a shilling per fanega (about a bushel), soon produced beer of a fine quality, at a low price. The Government forthwith imposed a duty on his beer equal to the whole freight from England, customs' dues, and his profit, the consequence being, that the brewery was stopped and the capital employed lost. He had unwittingly interfered with the established duties on beer!