The same statute permits, at the lowest prices, the importation of corn, in order to be exported again duty free, provided it is in the meantime lodged in a warehouse under the joint locks of the king and the importer.This liberty, indeed, extends to no more than twenty-five of the different ports of Great Britain.They are, however, the principal ones, and there may not, perhaps, be warehouses proper for this purpose in the greater part of the others.
So far this law seems evidently an improvement upon the ancient system.
But by the same law a bounty of two shillings the quarter is given for the exportation of oats whenever the price does not exceed fourteen shillings.No bounty had ever been given before for the exportation of this grain, no more than for that of pease or beans.
By the same law, too, the exportation of wheat is prohibited so soon as the price rises to forty-four shillings the quarter;that of rye so soon as it rises to twenty-eight shillings; that of barley so soon as it rises to twenty-two shillings; and that of oats so soon as they rise to fourteen shillings.Those several prices seem all of them a good deal too low, and there seems to be an impropriety, besides, in prohibiting exportation altogether at those precise prices at which that bounty, which was given in order to force it, is withdrawn.The bounty ought certainly either to have been withdrawn at a much lower price, or exportation ought to have been allowed at a much higher.
So far, therefore, this law seems to be inferior to the ancient system.With all its imperfections, however, we may perhaps say of it what was said of the laws of Solon, that, though not the best in itself, it is the best which the interests, prejudices, and temper of the times would admit of.It may perhaps in due time prepare the way for a better.
CHAPTER VI
Of Treaties of Commerce WHEN a nation binds itself by treaty either to permit the entry of certain goods from one foreign country which it prohibits from all others, or to exempt the goods of one country from duties to which it subjects those of all others, the country, or at least the merchants and manufacturers of the country, whose commerce is so favoured, must necessarily derive great advantage from the treaty.Those merchants and manufacturers enjoy a sort of monopoly in the country which is so indulgent to them.That country becomes a market both more extensive and more advantageous for their goods: more extensive, because the goods of other nations being either excluded or subjected to heavier duties, it takes off a greater quantity of theirs: more advantageous, because the merchants of the favoured country, enjoying a sort of monopoly there, will often sell their goods for a better price than if exposed to the free competition of all other nations.
Such treaties, however, though they may be advantageous to the merchants and manufacturers of the favoured, are necessarily disadvantageous to those of the favouring country.A monopoly is thus granted against them to a foreign nation; and they must frequently buy the foreign goods they have occasion for dearer than if the free competition of other nations was admitted.That part of its own produce with which such a nation purchases foreign goods must consequently be sold cheaper, because when two things are exchanged for one another, the cheapness of the one is a necessary consequence, or rather the same thing with the dearness of the other.The exchangeable value of its annual produce, therefore, is likely to be diminished by every such treaty.This diminution, however, can scarce amount to any positive loss, but only to a lessening of the gain which it might otherwise make.Though it sells its goods cheaper than it otherwise might do, it will not probably sell them for less than they cost; nor, as in the case of bounties, for a price which will not replace the capital employed in bringing them to market, together with the ordinary profits of stock.The trade could not go on long if it did.Even the favouring country, therefore, may still gain by the trade, though less than if there was a free competition.
Some treaties of commerce, however, have been supposed advantageous upon principles very different from these; and a commercial country has sometimes granted a monopoly of this kind against itself to certain goods of a foreign nation, because it expected that in the whole commerce between them, it would annually sell more than it would buy, and that a balance in gold and silver would be annually returned to it.It is upon this principle that the treaty of commerce between England and Portugal, concluded in 1703 by Mr.Methuen, has been so much commended.The following is a literal translation of that treaty, which consists of three articles only.
ART.I.
His sacred royal majesty of Portugal promises, both in his own name, and that of his successors, to admit, for ever hereafter, into Portugal, the woollen cloths, and the rest of the woollen manufactures of the British, as was accustomed, till they were prohibited by the law; nevertheless upon this condition:
ART.II.