Let this suffice at present, upon the general principles which influence the stop necessary to be put to the importation of foreign commodities, and to the diminution of national wealth, in the case we have had before us.
Next as to the articles of exportation. The most profitable branches of exportation are those of work, the less profitable those of pure natural produce. When work cannot be exported in all its perfection, because of its high price, it is better to export it with a moderate degree of perfection, than not at all; and if even this cannot be done to advantage, then will a people be obliged to renounce working except for themselves: and then, if domestic consumption does not increase in proportion to the deficiency of foreign demand, a certain number of hands will be idle, and a certain quantity of natural produce will remain upon hand. The first must disappear in a short time; they will starve or desert; the last will become an article of exportation. Here then is a new species of trade which takes place upon the extinction of the other. When a nation has been forced to reduce her exportations to articles of pure natural produce, in conformity to the principles we have been laying down, then the plan proposed in the title of this chapter is executed. She is then brought as low in point of trade as she can be, but at the same time, she may enjoy her natural advantages in spite of fortune; and in proportion to them, she may, with a good government and frugality, retain a balance of trade in her favour, which will constantly go on in augmenting her national wealth.
There is, therefore, a period at which foreign trade may stop in every article, but in natural produce. I do not know whether this period be at a great distance, when the state of trade is considered relatively to certain nations of Europe.
Were industry and frugality found to prevail equally in every part of the great political bodies, or were luxury and superfluous consumption, every where carried to the same height, trade might, without any hurt, be thrown entirely open. It would then cease to be an object of a statesman’s care and concern. On the other hand, were all nations equally careful to check every branch of unprofitable commerce, a general stagnation of trade would soon be brought about. Manufactures would no more be the object of traffic; every nation would supply itself, and nothing would be either exported or imported but natural productions.
But as industry and idleness, luxury and frugality, are constantly changing their balance throughout the nations of Europe, able merchants make it their business to inform themselves of these fluctuations, and able statesmen profit of the discovery for the re-establishment of their own commerce; and when they find that this can no more be carried on with the manufactures or produce of their own country, they engage their merchants to become carriers for their neighbours, and by these means, form as it were a third and last entrenchment, which, while they can defend it, will not suffer their foreign trade to be quite extinguished; because, by this last expedient, it may continue for some time to increase their national stock. It is in order to cut off even this resource, that some nations lay not only importations under restraint, but also the importers[[L]]. Let such precautions be carried to a certain length on all hands, and we shall see an end to the whole system of foreign trade, so much alamode, that it appears to become more and more the object of the attention as well as of the imitation of all modern statesmen.
[L]. By the act of navigation in England.
CHAP. XXV.
When a rich Nation finds her Foreign Trade reduced to the Articles of Natural Produce, what is the best plan to be followed? and what are the Consequences of such a Change of Circumstances?
There is now no more question of a trading nation; this character is lost, the moment there is a stop put to the export of the labour and ingenuity of her people.
The first objects of her care should be to increase, by every possible means, the quantity of her natural produce; to be as frugal as possible in the consumption of it, and to export the surplus to the best advantage.