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VII.

themselves could not well know that they pof- CHAP. feffed. If If upon fome occafions, therefore, it has animated them to actions of magnanimity which could not well have been expected from them, we should not wonder if upon others it has prompted them to exploits of fomewhat a different nature.

SUCH exclufive companies, therefore, are nuifances in every refpect; always more or lefs inconvenient to the countries in which they are established, and deftructive to thcfe which have the misfortune to fall under their government.

CHA P. VIII.

Conclufion of the Mercantile System.

THOUGH the encouragement of exportation, and the difcouragement of importation, are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet with regard to fome particular commodities, it seems to follow an oppofite plan: to difcourage exportation and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object, however, it pre tends, is always the fame, to enrich the country by an advantageous balance of trade. It dif

courages the exportation of the materials of manufacture, and of the inftruments of trade, in order to give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to underfell thofe of other nations in all foreign markets: and by restrain

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IV.

BOOK ing, in this manner, the exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it propofes to occafion a much greater and more valuable exportation of others. It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture, in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commodities. I do not observe, at least in our Statute Book, any encouragement given to the importation of the inftruments of trade. When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness, the fabrication of the inftruments of trade becomes itself the object of a great number of very important manufactures. To give any particular encouragement to the importation of fuch inftruments, would interfere too much with the intereft of those manufactures. Such importation, therefore, instead of being encouraged, has frequently been prohibited. Thus the importation of wool cards, except from Ireland, or when brought in as wreck or prize goods, was prohibited by the 3d of Edward IV.; which prohibition was renewed by the 39th of Elizabeth, and has been continued and rendered perpetual by fubfequent laws.

THE importation of the materials of manufacture has fometimes been encouraged by an exemption from the duties to which other goods are fubject, and fometimes by bounties.

THE importation of fheep's wool from several different countries, of cotton wool from all countries, of undreffed flax, of the greater part

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VIII.

dying drugs, of the greater part of undreffed CHAP. hides from Ireland or the British colonies, of feal fkins from the British Greenland fishery, of pig and bar iron from the British colonies, as well as of feveral other materials of manufacture, has been encouraged by an exemption from all duties, if properly entered at the customhouse. The private intereft of our merchants and manufacturers may, perhaps, have extorted from the legislature these exemptions, as well as the greater part of our other commercial regulations. They are, however, perfectly just and reasonable, and if, confiftently with the neceffities of the state, they could be extended to all the other materials of manufacture, the public would certainly be a gainer.

THE avidity of our great manufacturers, however, has in fome cafes extended these exemptions a good deal beyond what can justly be confidered as the rude materials of their work. By the 24 Geo. II. chap. 46. a small duty of only one penny the pound was impofed upon the importation of foreign brown linen yarn, instead of much higher duties to which it had been fubjected before, viz, of fixpence the pound upon fail yarn, of one fhilling the pound upon all French and Dutch yarn, and of two pounds thirteen fhillings and fourpence upon the hundred weight of all fpruce or Mufcovia yarn. But our manufacturers were not long fatisfied with this reduction. By the 29th of the fame king, chap. 15. the fame law which gave a bounty upon the exportation of British and Irish linen of

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IV.

BOOK which the price did not exceed eighteen pence the yard, even this fmall duty upon the importation of brown linen yarn was taken away. In the different operations, however, which are neceffary for the preparation of linen yarn, a good deal more industry is employed, than in the subfequent operation of preparing linen cloth from linen yarn. To fay nothing of the industry of the flax-growers and flax-dreffers, three or four spinners, at least, are neceffary, in order to keep one weaver in conftant employment; and more than four-fifths of the whole quantity of labour, neceffary for the preparation of linen cloth, is employed in that of linen yarn; but our spinners are poor people, women commonly, fcattered about in all different parts of the country, without fupport or protection. It is not by the fale of their work, but by that of the complete work of the weavers, that our great mafter manufacturers make their profits. As it is their intereft to fell the complete manufacture as dear, fo is it to buy the materials as cheap as poffible. By extorting from the legiflature bounties upon the exportation of their own linen, high duties upon the importation of all foreign linen, and a total prohibition of the home confumption of fome forts of French linen, they endeavour to fell their own goods as dear as poffible. By encouraging the importation of foreign linen yarn, and thereby bringing it into competition. with that which is made by our own people, they endeavour to buy the work of the poor fpinners as cheap as poffible. They are as in

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tent to keep down the wages of their own weavers, as the earnings of the poor fpinners, and it is by no means for the benefit of the workman, that they endeavour either to raife the price of the complete work, or to lower that of the rude materials. It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and the powerful, that is principally encouraged by our mercantile fystem. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent, is too often, either neglected, or oppreffed.

BOTH the bounty upon the exportation of linen, and the exemption from duty upon the importation of foreign yarn, which were granted only for fifteen years, but continued by two different prolongations, expire with the end of the feffion of parliament which shall immediately follow the 24th of June 1786.

THE encouragement given to the importation of the materials of manufacture by bounties, has been principally confined to fuch as were imported from our American plantations.

THE firft bounties of this kind were thofe granted, about the beginning of the present century, upon the importation of naval ftores from America. Under this denomination were comprehended timber fit for mafts, yards, and bowfprits; hemp; tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty, however, of one pound the ton upon masting-timber, and that of fix pounds the ton upon hemp, were extended to fuch as fhould be imported into England from Scotland. Both thefe bounties continued without any variation,

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