careful neither to establish any new monopolies of this kind, nor to extend further those which are already estab lished. Every such legislation introduces some degree of real disorder into the constitution of the state, which it will be difficult afterwards to cure without occasioning another disorder.

How far it may be proper to impose taxes upon the importation of foreign goods, in order, not to prevent their importation, but to raise a revenue for government, I shall consider hereafter when I come to treat of taxes. Taxes imposed with a view to prevent, or even to diminish impor tation, are evidently as destructive of the revenue of the customs as of the freedom of trade.

CHAPTER III.

EFFECTS OF REGULATIONS PRESCRIBING THE NATURE OF PRODUCTS.

BY JEAN-BAPTISTE SAY.

LANQUI, in his History of Political Economy, says: "Adam Smith had thrown much light on the theory of banks, division of labor, and the foundation of the value of things; he had made virtual discoveries, but he had not lived long enough to observe their applications. It was only after his death that people could judge of the effects of unlimited competition of which he was one of the first apostles, and the complicated pauperism of our days had not disturbed the serenity of those in which he lived. Political Economy was only the science of the production of wealth. It was reserved for a Frenchman (Jean-Baptiste Say), to complete the work and initiate us into the mysteries of the distribution of the profits of the labor at the same time that he made known to us the so varied phenomena of the consumption of products."

The natural wants of society and its circumstances for the time being, occasion a more or less lively demand for particular kinds of products. Consequently, in these branches of production, productive services are somewhat better paid. than in the rest; that is to say, the profits upon land, capital, and labor, devoted to those branches of production, are some somewhat larger. This additional profit naturally attracts producers, and thus the nature of the products is always regulated by the wants of society.

When authority throws itself in the way of this natural course of things, and says, the product you are about to create, that which yields the greatest profits, and is consequently the most in request, is by no means the most suitable to your circumstances, you must undertake some other, it evidently directs a portion of the productive energies of the nation towards an object of less desire, at the expense of another of more urgent desire.

In France, about the year 1794, there were some persons persecuted, and even brought to the scaffold, for having converted corn land into pasturage. Yet the moment these unhappy people found it more profitable to feed cattle than to grow corn, one might have been sure that society stood more in need of cattle than of corn, and that greater value could be produced in one way than in the other.

But, said the public authorities, the value produced is of less importance than the nature of the product, and we would rather have you raise ten dollars worth of grain than twenty dollars worth of butcher's meat. In this they betrayed their ignorance of this simple truth, that the greatest product is always the best; and that an estate, which should produce in butcher's meat wherewith to purchase twice as much wheat as could have been raised upon it, produces, in reality, twice as much wheat as if it had been sowed with grain; since wheat to twice the amount is to be got for its product. This way of getting wheat, they will say to you, does not increase its total quantity. True, unless it be introduced from abroad; but nevertheless, this article must at the time be relatively more plentiful than butcher's meat, because the product of two acres of wheat is given for that of one of pasture.* And, if wheat be sufficiently scarce, and in sufficient request

* At the disastrous period in question, there was no actual want of wheat; the growers merely felt a disinclination to sell for paper money. Wheat was sold for real value at a very reasonable rate; and, though a hundred thousand acres of pasture land had been converted into arable, the disinclination to exchange wheat for a discredited paper money would not have been a jot reduced.

to make tillage more profitable than grazing, legislative interference is superfluous altogether; for self-interest will make the producer turn his attention to the former.

The only question then is, which is the most likely to know what kind of cultivation yields the largest returns, the cultivator or the government; and we may fairly take it for granted, that the cultivator, residing on the spot, making it the object of constant study and inquiry, and more interested in success than anybody, is better informed in this respect than the government.

Should it be insisted upon in argument, that the cultivator knows only the price-current of the day, and does not, like the government, provide for the future wants of the people, it may be answered, that one of the talents of a producer, and a talent his own interest obliges him assiduously to cultivate, is not the mere knowledge, but the fore-knowledge, of human wants.

An evil of the same description was occasioned, when, at another period, the proprietors were compelled to cultivate beet-root or woad in lieu of grain; indeed, we may observe, en passant, that it is always a bad speculation to attempt raising the products of the torrid, under the sun of the temperate latitudes. The saccharine and coloring juices, raised on the European soils, with all the forcing in the world, are very inferior in quantity and quality to those that grow in profusion in other climates; while, on the other hand, those soils yield abundance of grain and fruits too bulky and heavy to be imported from a distance. In condemning our lands to the growth of products ill suited to them, instead of those they are better calculated for, and, consequently, buying very dear what we might have cheap enough, if we would consent to receive them from places where they are produced with advantage, we are ourselves the victims of our own absurdity. It is the very acme of skill, to turn the powers of nature to best account, and the height of madness

to contend against them; which is in fact wasting part of our strength, in destroying those powers she designed for our aid.

Again, it is laid down as a maxim, that it is better to buy products dear, when the price remains in the country, than to get them cheap from foreign growers. On this point I must refer my readers to that analysis of production which we have just gone through. It will there be seen, that products are not to be obtained without some sacrifice, without the consumption of commodities and productive ser vices in some ratio or other, the value of which is in this way as completely lost to the community, as if it were to be exported.

I can hardly suppose any government will be bold enough to object, that it is indifferent about the profit, which might be derived from a more advantageous production, because it would fall to the lot of individuals. The worst governments, those which set up their own interest in the most direct opposition to that of their subjects, have by this time learned, that the revenues of individuals are the regenerating source of public revenue; and that, even under despotic and military sway, where taxation is mere organized spoliation, the subjects can pay only what they have themselves acquired.

The maxims we have been applying to agriculture are equally applicable to manufacture. Sometimes a government entertains a notion, that the manufacture of a native raw material is better for the national industry, than the manufacture of a foreign raw material. It is in conformity to this notion, that we have seen instances of preference given to the woolen and linen above the cotton manufacture. By this conduct we contrive, as far as in us lies, to limit the bounty of nature, which pours forth in different climates a variety of materials adapted to our innumerable wants. Whenever human efforts succeed in attaching to these gifts