If the natural advantages upon such articles are less considerable, no duty can be imposed. Exportation may then be encouraged by granting still greater privileges to strangers or others, who may promote the exportation at little cost to the state.
If in the last place, the natural produce of a country be common to others, where it is perhaps equally plentiful; it will be difficult to procure the exportation of it; and yet it may happen, that too great an abundance of it at home, may occasion inconveniencies. In this case, the statesman must give a premium or bounty upon exportation, as the only method of getting rid of a superfluity, which may influence so much the whole mass of the commodity produced, as to sink the price of the industry of those employed in it, below the standard of their physical-necessary. By giving, therefore, this premium, he supports industry in that branch; he takes nothing from the national wealth; and the exportation, which takes place in consequence of the bounty, is all clear gain. This is an uncommon operation in trade, but it has so intimate a connection with the doctrine of taxes, and the proper application of public money, that I will postpone the farther consideration of it until I come to that branch of my subject; and the rather, that this book is swelling beyond its due proportion.
I have little occasion to speak of importations, into a country which exports no manufactures. The ruling principle in such cases, is to suffer no importation but what tends to encourage the exportation of the surplus of natural produce, and which, at the same time, has no tendency to rival any branch of domestic industry. Thus it is much better for a northern country to pamper the taste of her rich inhabitants with wines and spices, than to discourage agriculture by the importation of rice and foreign grain; supposing the alternative quite optional, and the one as well as the other to be the returns of her own superfluity.
I come next to the consideration of her inland trade, and consumption of her own manufactures. Here there is no question of either an increase or diminution of her wealth, but only of making it circulate in the best manner to keep every body employed. Several considerations must here influence our statesman’s conduct, and a due regard must be had to every one of them. I shall reduce them to three different heads, and pass them in review very cursorily, as we have already explained sufficiently the principles upon which they depend.
1mo. To regulate consumption and the progress of luxury, in proportion to the hands which are found to supply them.
2do. To regulate the multiplication of inhabitants according to the extent of the fertility of the soil. These two considerations must constantly go hand in hand.
In so far therefore, as the statesman finds his country still capable of improvement, in so far he may encourage a demand for work, and even countenance new branches of superfluous consumption; since the equivalent to be given for them must of necessity prove an encouragement to agriculture. But whenever the country becomes thoroughly cultivated and peopled to the full proportion of its own produce, a check must be put to multiplication, that is, to luxury, or misery and depopulation will follow; unless indeed, we suppose that numbers are to be supported at the expence of national wealth, the fatal consequences of which we have already pointed out.
3tio. He should regulate the distribution of the classes of his people, according to the political situation of the country.
This is the most complicated case of all. It would be imprudent, for example, in a very small state situated on the continent, to distribute all its inhabitants into producers and consumers, as we have called them on several occasions; that is, into those who live upon a revenue already acquired, and those who are constantly employed in acquiring one by supplying the wants of the other. There must be a third class; to wit, those who are maintained and taken care of at the expence of the whole community, to serve as a defence. This set of men give no real equivalent for what they receive; that is to say, none which can circulate or pass from hand to hand; but still they are usefully employed as members of a society mutually tied together by the band of reciprocal dependence. Here is no vice implied; but at the same time, the statesman must attend to the consequences of such a distribution of classes.
The richer any state is, the more it has to fear from its neighbours: consequently, the greater proportion of the inhabitants must be maintained for its defence, at the expence of the industry of the other inhabitants. This must diminish the number of free hands employed in manufactures, and in supplying articles of consumption: consequently, it would be imprudent to encourage the progress of luxury, while public safety calls for a diminution of the hands which must supply it. If in such circumstances luxury do not suffer a check, demand will rise above the proper standard; living will become dearer daily, prices will rise, and they will prove an obstacle to the recovery of foreign trade; an object of which a prudent statesman will never lose sight for a moment.