Before I enter upon the method of removing these several inconveniencies, I must observe, that as we are at present treating of the relative height of the price of manufactures, a competition between nations is constantly implied. It is this which obliges a statesman to be principally attentive to the rise of prices. The term competition is relative to, and conveys the idea of emulation between two parties striving to compass the same end. I must therefore distinguish between the endeavours which a nation makes to retain a superiority already got, and those of another which strives to get the better of it. The first I shall call a competition to retain; the second, a competition to acquire.
The first three heads represent the inconveniencies to which the competitors to retain are liable; and the fourth comprehends those to which the competitors to acquire are most commonly exposed.
Having digested our subject into order, I shall run through the principles which severally influence the removing of every inconvenience, whether incident to a nation whose foreign trade is already well established, or to another naturally calculated for entring into a competition for the acquisition of it.
In proposing a remedy for the particular causes of augmentation here set down, we must suppose every one entirely simple, and uncompounded with the others; a thing which in fact seldom happens. This I do for the sake of distinctness; and the principal difficulty in practice is to combine the remedies in proportion to the complication of the disease. I now come to the first of the four causes of high prices, to wit, consolidated profits.
The whole doctrine of these has been abundantly set forth in the 10th chapter. We there explained the nature of them, shewed how the subversion of the balance, by a long preponderancy of the scale of demand, had the effect of consolidating profits in a country of luxury; and observed, that the reducing them to the proper standard could never fail of bringing those who had long enjoyed them, into distress.
The question here is to reduce them, when foreign trade cannot otherwise be retained, let the consequences be ever so hurtful to certain individuals. When the well being of a nation comes in competition with a temporary inconvenience to some of the inhabitants, the general good must be preferred to particular considerations.
I have observed above, that domestic luxury, by offering high prices upon certain species of industry, calls off many hands employed to supply the articles of exportation, upon which profits are generally very moderate. The first natural and immediate effect of this, is, to diminish the hands employed in furnishing the foreign demand; consequently, to diminish the supply; consequently, to occasion a simple competition on the side of the strangers, who are the purchasers; consequently, to augment profits, until by their rise and consolidation the market is deserted.
The very progress here laid down, points out the remedy. The number of hands employed in these particular branches must be multiplied; and if the luxurious taste and wealth of the country prevent any one who can do better, from betaking himself to a species of industry lucrative to the nation, but ungrateful to those who exercise it, the statesman must collect the children of the wretched into workhouses, and breed them to this employment, under the best regulations possible for saving every article of unnecessary expence; here likewise may be employed occasionally those above mentioned, whom the change of modes may have cast out of employment, until they can be better provided for. This is also an outlet for foundlings, since many of those who work for foreign exportation, are justly to be ranked in the lowest classes of the people; and in the first book we proposed, that every one brought up at the expence of public charity, should be thrown in for recruiting these classes, which can with greatest difficulty support their own propagation.
Here let me observe, that although it be true in general, that the greatest part of exportable manufactures do yield but very middling profits, from the extension of industry in different countries, yet sundry exceptions may be found; especially in nations renowned for their elegance of taste. But how quickly do we see these lucrative branches of foreign trade cut off, from the very inconvenience we here seek a remedy for. The reason is plain. When strangers demand such manufactures, they only share in the instruments of foreign luxury, which bring every where considerable profits to the manufacturer. These high profits easily establish a rivalship in favour of the nation to whom they are supplied; because a hint is sufficient to enable such as exercise a similar profession in that country, to supply their own inhabitants. This being the case, an able statesman should be constantly attentive to every growing taste in foreign nations for the inventions of his people; and so soon as his luxurious workmen have set any one on foot, he may throw that branch into the hands of the most frugal, in order to support it, and give them such encouragement as to prevent, at least, the rivalship of those strangers who are accustomed to work for large profits. This is one method of turning a branch of luxury into an article of foreign trade. Let me illustrate this by an example.
What great advantages do not the French reap from the exportation of their modes? But we quickly find their varnishes, gauzes, ribbands, and colifichets, imitated by other nations, for no other reason but because of the large, or at least consolidated profits enjoyed by the French workmen themselves, who, fertile in new inventions, and supported by their reputation for elegance of dress, have got into possession of the right of prescribing to all Europe the standard of taste in articles of mere superfluity. This however is no permanent prerogative; and that elegant people, by long setting the example, and determining the standard of refinement in some luxurious arts, will at last inspire a similar taste into their scholars, who will thereby be enabled to supplant them. Whereas were they careful to supply all their inventions at the lowest prices possible, they would ever continue to be the only furnishers.