[A2-1-9] Even Peter Martyr considered the colonization of countries which yielded the same products as the mother country of no advantage (Ocean, Dec., VIII, 10). On Spanish maps the most flourishing portions of America at present are designated as tierras de ningun provecho. And the English for a long time, ascribed value to their New England possessions, so far as the mother country was concerned, only to the extent it was possible to provide the West Indies from that quarter with corn, meat and wood. (Roscher, Kolonien, p. 262.)
[A2-1-10] Compare Botero, Ragion di Stato (1591); Law, Money and Trade (1705), p. 19 ff.; and Verri, Opuscoli, pp. 325, 333. Meditazioni (1771), cap. 19.
[A2-1-11] Thus Child, spite of all his esteem for the discoverers of the balance-problem, calls attention to cases in which exports suffer so much waste (Abgang), or imports are sold so advantageously, that an apparently favorable balance made a people poorer, and an apparently unfavorable one, richer. From the value of the imported commodities the self-earned freight has to be deducted. Countries like Ireland, many colonies, etc., have a preponderance of exportations, because they, by means of the same, pay a rent to absent capitalists or to landowners. (p. 312 ff.)
[A2-1-12] Mun admits that, for instance, the East Indian trade makes England richer, although it causes the exportation of much English money. But the exporter of money who, in exchange for it, brings back reëxportable commodities, should be compared to the sower. (Ch. 4.) Similarly, C. Roberts, The Treasure of Trafficke (1641), and even A. Serra, III, 2. According to Child, the loss in the East Indian trade is compensated for chiefly by this, that England obtains there the saltpeter it needs to satisfy its demand, and that the ships engaged in that trade are peculiarly well fitted for war. (l. c.) Saavedra Faxardo, for similar reasons, declared the discovery of America to be a misfortune. (Idea Principis Christiani politici, 1649, Symb., 68 seq.)
[A2-1-13] Thus Law, Dutot, Darjes and Büsch. Even the violent opponent of the mercantile system, Boisguillebert, could not entirely escape this view. Compare vol. I, § 96.
[A2-1-14] This is true, especially of the protectionist weekly paper: British Merchant or Commerce preserved (1713 ff.), in the contest with the weekly Tory paper edited by Defoe: Mercator or Commerce retrieved, which Charles King systematized and published anew in 1721. Later Ulloa: Noticias Americanas (1772), cap. 12. Adam Smith also concedes that many of the best writers on commerce, at the beginning of their books, allow that the wealth of a country consists not only in gold and silver, but also in goods of every description; but that further on they tend more and more to forget this qualification of the meaning of wealth. (W. of N., IV, ch. 1.) Hence it is that, in recent text-books, so many are now called adherents and now opponents of the mercantile system.
[A2-1-15] Even Colbert says: nothing is more precious in a state than the labor of men (Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de C. publiés par P. Clement, 1861 ff., II, 105). The great trade with foreign countries and the small trade in the interior contribute equally to the welfare of nations. (II, 548.) I would not hesitate to do away with all privileges, the moment I found that greater or as great advantages attended their abolition. (II, 694.) His duty-system of 1664 was a simplification, but also an important diminution of his earlier chaotic tariff. (II, 787 ff.)
SECTION II.
REACTION AGAINST THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
The reaction against the mercantile theory of the balance of trade, which reached its height in Adam Smith, was based principally upon the following considerations: