Bounties upon the exportation of any homemade commodity are liable, first to that general objection which may be made to all the different expedients of the mercantile system; the objection of forcing some part of the industry of the country into a channel less advantageous than that in which it would run of its own accord: and, secondly, to the particular objection of forcing it, not only into a channel that is less advantageous, but into one that is actually disadvantageous; the trade which cannot be carried on but by means of a bounty being necessarily a losing trade.The bounty upon the exportation of corn is liable to this further objection, that it can in no respect promote the raising of that particular commodity of which it was meant to encourage the production.When our country gentlemen, therefore, demanded the establishment of the bounty, though they acted in imitation of our merchants and manufacturers, they did not act with that complete comprehension of their own interest which commonly directs the conduct of those two other orders of people.They loaded the public revenue with a very considerable expense; they imposed a very heavy tax upon the whole body of the people; but they did not, in any sensible degree, increase the real value of their own commodity; and by lowering somewhat the real value of silver, they discouraged in some degree, the general industry of the country, and, instead of advancing, retarded more or less the improvement of their own lands, which necessarily depends upon the general industry of the country.
To encourage the production of any commodity, a bounty upon production, one should imagine, would have a more direct operation than one upon exportation.It would, besides, impose only one tax upon the people, that which they must contribute in order to pay the bounty.Instead of raising, it would tend to lower the price of the commodity in the home market; and thereby, instead of imposing a second tax upon the people, it might, at least, in part, repay them for what they had contributed to the first.Bounties upon production, however, have been very rarely granted.The prejudices established by the commercial system have taught us to believe that national wealth arises more immediately from exportation than from production.It has been more favoured accordingly, as the more immediate means of bringing money into the country.Bounties upon production, it has been said too, have been found by experience more liable to frauds than those upon exportation.How far this is true, I know not.That bounties upon exportation have been abused to many fraudulent purposes is very well known.But it is not the interest of merchants and manufacturers, the great inventors of all these expedients, that the home market should be overstocked with their goods, an event which a bounty upon production might sometimes occasion.A bounty upon exportation, by enabling them to send abroad the surplus part, and to keep up the price of what remains in the home market, effectually prevents this.Of all the expedients of the mercantile system, accordingly, it is the one of which they are the fondest.I have known the different undertakers of some particular works agree privately among themselves to give a bounty out of their own pockets upon the exportation of a certain proportion of the goods which they dealt in.This expedient succeeded so well that it more than doubled the price of their goods in the home market, notwithstanding a very considerable increase in the produce.The operation of the bounty upon corn must have been wonderfully different if it has lowered the money price of that commodity.
Something like a bounty upon production, however, has been granted upon some particular occasions.The tonnage bounties given to the white-herring and whale fisheries may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat of this nature.They tend directly, it may be supposed, to render the goods cheaper in the home market than they otherwise would be.In other respects their effects, it must be acknowledged, are the same as those of bounties upon exportation.By means of them a part of the capital of the country is employed in bringing goods to market, of which the price does not repay the cost together with the ordinary profits of stock.
But though the tonnage bounties of those fisheries do not contribute to the opulence of the nation, it may perhaps be thought that they contribute to its defence by augmenting the number of its sailors and shipping.This, it may be alleged, may sometimes be done by means of such bounties at a much smaller expense than by keeping up a great standing navy, if I may use such an expression, in the same way as a standing army.
Notwithstanding these favourable allegations, however, the following considerations dispose me to believe that, in granting at least one of these bounties, the legislature has been very grossly imposed upon.
First, the herring buss bounty seems too large.
From the commencement of the winter fishing, 1771, to the end of the winter fishing, 1781, the tonnage bounty upon the herring buss fishery has been at thirty shillings the ton.During these eleven years the whole number of barrels caught by the herring buss fishery of Scotland amounted to 378,347.The herrings caught and cured at sea are called sea-sticks.In order to render them what are called merchantable herrings, it is necessary to repack them with an additional quantity of salt; and in this case, it is reckoned that three barrels of sea-sticks are usually repacked into two barrels of merchantable herrings.The number of barrels of merchantable herrings, therefore, caught during these eleven years will amount only, according to this account, to 252,231 1/3.During these eleven years the tonnage bounties paid amounted to L155,463 11s.or to 8s.2 1/4d.upon every barrel of seasticks, and to 12s.3 3/4d.upon every barrel of merchantable herrings.