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Book IV, Chapter VIII, 1
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CONCLUSION OF THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
Though the encouragement of exportation, and the discouragement of importation, are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet, with regard to some particular commodities, it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation, and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by an advantageous balance of trade. It discourages the exportation of the materials of manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order to give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those of other nations in all foreign markets; and by restraining, in this manner, the exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it proposes to occasion 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 instruments of trade. When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness, the fabrication of the instruments of trade becomes itself the object of a great number of very important manufactures. To give any particular encouragement to the importation of such instruments, would interfere too much with the interest 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 3rd of Edward IV.; which prohibition was renewed by the 39th of Elizabeth, and has been continued and rendered perpetual by subsequent laws.
The importation of the materials of manufacture has sometimes been encouraged by an exemption from the duties to which other goods are subject, and sometimes by bounties.
The importation of sheep’s wool from several different countries, of cotton wool from all countries, of undressed flax, of the greater part of dyeing drugs, of the greater part of undressed hides from Ireland, or the British colonies, of seal skins from the British Greenland fishery, of pig and bar iron from the British colonies, as well as of several other materials of manufacture, has been encouraged by an exemption from all duties, if properly entered at the custom-house. The private interest 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, consistently with the necessities 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 some cases extended these exemptions a good deal beyond what can justly be considered as the rude materials of their work. By the 24th Geo. II. chap. 46, a small duty of only 1d. the pound was imposed upon the importation of foreign brown linen yarn, instead of much higher duties, to which it had been subjected before, viz. of 6d. the pound upon sail yarn, of 1s. the pound upon all French and Dutch yarn, and of £2:13:4 upon the hundred weight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn. But our manufacturers were not long satisfied with this reduction: by the 29th of the same king, chap. 15, the same law which gave a bounty upon the exportation of British and Irish linen, of which the price did not exceed 18d. the yard, even this small duty upon the importation of brown linen yarn was taken away. In the different operations, however, which are necessary for the preparation of linen yarn, a good deal more industry is employed, than in the subsequent operation of preparing linen cloth from linen yarn. To say nothing of the industry of the flax-growers and flaxdressers, three or four spinners at least are necessary in order to keep one weaver in constant employment; and more than four-fifths of the whole quantity of labour necessary for the preparation of linen cloth, is employed in that of linen yarn; but our spinners are poor people; women commonly scattered about in all different parts of the country, without support or protection. It is not by the sale of their work, but by that of the complete work of the weavers, that our great master manufacturers make their profits. As it is their interest to sell the complete manufacture as dear, so it is to buy the materials as cheap as possible. By extorting from the legislature bounties upon the exportation of their own linen, high duties upon the importation of all foreign linen, and a total prohibition of the home consumption of some sorts of French linen, they endeavour to sell their own goods as dear as possible. 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 spinners as cheap as possible. They are as intent to keep down the wages of their own weavers, as the earnings of the poor spinners; and it is by no means for the benefit of the workmen that they endeavour either to raise 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 system. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent is too often either neglected or oppressed.
Both the bounty upon the exportation of linen, and the exemption from the 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 session 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 such as were imported from our American plantations.
The first bounties of this kind were those granted about the beginning of the present century, upon the importation of naval stores from America. Under this denomination were comprehended timber fit for masts, yards, and bowsprits; hemp, tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty, however, of £1 the ton upon masting-timber, and that of £6 the ton upon hemp, were extended to such as should be imported into England from Scotland. Both these bounties continued, without any variation, at the same rate, till they were severally allowed to expire; that upon hemp on the 1st of January 1741, and that upon masting-timber at the end of the session of parliament immediately following the 24th June 1781.
The bounties upon the importation of tar, pitch, and turpentine, underwent, during their continuance, several alterations. Originally, that upon tar was £4 the ton; that upon pitch the same; and that upon turpentine £3 the ton. The bounty of £4 the ton upon tar was afterwards confined to such as had been prepared in a particular manner; that upon other good, clean, and merchantable tar was reduced to £2:4s. the ton. The bounty upon pitch was likewise reduced to £1, and that upon turpentine to £1:10s. the ton.
The second bounty upon the importation of any of the materials of manufacture, according to the order of time, was that granted by the 21st Geo. II. chap.30, upon the importation of indigo from the British plantations. When the plantation indigo was worth three-fourths of the price of the best French indigo, it was, by this act, entitled to a bounty of 6d. the pound. This bounty, which, like most others, was granted only for a limited time, was continued by several prolongations, but was reduced to 4d. the pound. It was allowed to expire with the end of the session of parliament which followed the 25th March 1781.
The third bounty of this kind was that granted (much about the time that we were beginning sometimes to court, and sometimes to quarrel with our American colonies), by the 4th. Geo. III. chap. 26, upon the importation of hemp, or undressed flax, from the British plantations. This bounty was granted for twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1764 to the 24th June 1785. For the first seven years, it was to be at the rate of £8 the ton; for the second at £6; and for the third at £4. It was not extended to Scotland, of which the climate (although hemp is sometimes raised there in small quantities, and of an inferior quality) is not very fit for that produce. Such a bounty upon the importation of Scotch flax in England would have been too great a discouragement to the native produce of the southern part of the united kingdom.
The fourth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 5th Geo. III. chap. 45, upon the importation of wood from America. It was granted for nine years from the 1st January 1766 to the 1st January 1775. During the first three years, it was to be for every hundred-and-twenty good deals, at the rate of £1, and for every load containing fifty cubic feet of other square timber, at the rate of 12s. For the second three years, it was for deals, to be at the rate of 15s., and for other squared timber at the rate of 8s.; and for the third three years, it was for deals, to be at the rate of 10s.; and for every other squared timber at the rate of 5s.
The fifth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 9th Geo. III. chap. 38, upon the importation of raw silk from the British plantations. It was granted for twenty-one years, from the 1st January 1770, to the 1st January 1791. For the first seven years, it was to be at the rate of £25 for every hundred pounds value; for the second, at £20; and for the third, at £15. The management of the silk-worm, and the preparation of silk, requires so much hand-labour, and labour is so very dear in America, that even this great bounty, I have been informed, was not likely to produce any considerable effect.
The sixth Bounty of this kind was that granted by 11th Geo. III. chap. 50, for the importation of pipe, hogshead, and barrelstaves and leading from the British plantations. It was granted for nine years, from 1st January 1772 to the 1st January 1781. For the first three years, it was, for a certain quantity of each, to be at the rate of £6; for the second three years at £4; and for the third three years at £2.
The seventh and last bounty of this kind was that granted by the 19th Geo. III chap. 37, upon the importation of hemp from Ireland. It was granted in the same manner as that for the importation of hemp and undressed flax from America, for twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1779 to the 24th June 1800. The term is divided likewise into three periods, of seven years each; and in each of those periods, the rate of the Irish bounty is the same with that of the American. It does not, however, like the American bounty, extend to the importation of undressed flax. It would have been too great a discouragement to the cultivation of that plant in Great Britain. When this last bounty was granted, the British and Irish legislatures were not in much better humour with one another, than the British and American had been before. But this boon to Ireland, it is to be hoped, has been granted under more fortunate auspices than all those to America. The same commodities, upon which we thus gave bounties, when imported from America, were subjected to considerable duties when imported from any other country. The interest of our American colonies was regarded as the same with that of the mother country. Their wealth was considered as our wealth. Whatever money was sent out to them, it was said, came all back to us by the balance of trade, and we could never become a farthing the poorer by any expense which we could lay out upon them. They were our own in every respect, and it was an expense laid out upon the improvement of our own property, and for the profitable employment of our own people. It is unnecessary, I apprehend, at present to say anything further, in order to expose the folly of a system which fatal experience has now sufficiently exposed. Had our American colonies really been a part of Great Britain, those bounties might have been considered as bounties upon production, and would still have been liable to all the objections to which such bounties are liable, but to no other.
The exportation of the materials of manufacture is sometimes discouraged by absolute prohibitions, and sometimes by high duties.
Our woollen manufacturers have been more successful than any other class of workmen, in persuading the legislature that the prosperity of the nation depended upon the success and extension of their particular business. They have not only obtained a monopoly against the consumers, by an absolute prohibition of importing woollen cloths from any foreign country; but they have likewise obtained another monopoly against the sheep farmers and growers of wool, by a similar prohibition of the exportation of live sheep and wool. The severity of many of the laws which have been enacted for the security of the revenue is very justly complained of, as imposing heavy penalties upon actions which, antecedent to the statutes that declared them to be crimes, had always been understood to be innocent. But the cruellest of our revenue laws, I will venture to affirm, are mild and gentle, in comparison to some of those which the clamour of our merchants and manufacturers has extorted from the legislature, for the support of their own absurd and oppressive monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws may be said to be all written in blood.
By the 8th of Elizabeth, chap. 3, the exporter of sheep, lambs, or rams, was for the first offence, to forfeit all his goods for ever, to suffer a year’s imprisonment, and then to have his left hand cut off in a market town, upon a market day, to be there nailed up; and for the second offence, to be adjudged a felon, and to suffer death accordingly. To prevent the breed of our sheep from being propagated in foreign countries, seems to have been the object of this law. By the 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap. 18, the exportation of wool was made felony, and the exporter subjected to the same penalties and forfeitures as a felon.
For the honour of the national humanity, it is to be hoped that neither of these statutes was ever executed. The first of them, however, so far as I know, has never been directly repealed, and serjeant Hawkins seems to consider it as still in force. It may, however, perhaps be considered as virtually repealed by the 12th of Charles II. chap. 32, sect. 3, which, without expressly taking away the penalties imposed by former statutes, imposes a new penalty, viz. that of 20s. for every sheep exported, or attempted to be exported, together with the forfeiture of the sheep, and of the owner’s share of the sheep. The second of them was expressly repealed by the 7th and 8th of William III. chap. 28, sect. 4, by which it is declared that “Whereas the statute of the 13th and 14th of king Charles II. made against the exportation of wool, among other things in the said act mentioned, doth enact the same to be deemed felony, by the severity of which penalty the prosecution of offenders hath not been so effectually put in execution; be it therefore enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that so much of the said act, which relates to the making the said offence felony, be repealed and made void.”
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete English text of all five books for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
CONCLUSION OF THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
Although encouraging exports and discouraging imports are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, for certain goods it appears to follow the opposite policy: discouraging exports and encouraging imports. Yet it claims that its ultimate goal is always the same—to enrich the country through a favorable balance of trade. It discourages the export of materials used in manufacturing and of the tools of trade, to give our own workers an advantage and enable them to undersell workers from other nations in every foreign market. By restricting the export of a few goods of little value, it proposes to bring about much larger and more valuable exports of other goods. It encourages the import of materials used in manufacturing so that our people may work them up more cheaply and thus prevent a larger, more valuable import of finished goods. I find, at least in our statute book, no encouragement for importing the tools of trade. Once manufacturing reaches a certain scale, making those tools itself becomes the business of many important manufactures. Any special encouragement for importing such tools would interfere too much with those manufacturers’ interests. Such imports, therefore, rather than being encouraged, have often been prohibited. Thus the 3rd of Edward IV. prohibited the import of wool cards, except from Ireland or as goods recovered from wrecks or taken as prizes. The 39th of Elizabeth renewed that prohibition, and later laws have kept it in force permanently.
The import of materials used in manufacturing has sometimes been encouraged by exemption from duties imposed on other goods, and sometimes by bounties.
Sheep’s wool from several countries, cotton wool from every country, undressed flax, most dyeing materials, most undressed hides from Ireland or the British colonies, seal skins from the British Greenland fishery, pig and bar iron from the British colonies, and various other manufacturing materials have been encouraged through exemption from all duties, provided they are properly declared at the custom-house. The private interests of our merchants and manufacturers may perhaps have wrung these exemptions from the legislature, as they have most of our other commercial regulations. Yet the exemptions are entirely just and reasonable. If they could be extended to all other manufacturing materials without conflicting with the needs of the state, the public would certainly gain.
In some cases, however, the greed of our great manufacturers has extended these exemptions well beyond what can fairly be called the raw materials of their work. The 24th Geo. II. chap. 46 imposed a small duty of only 1d. the pound on imports of foreign brown linen yarn, replacing far higher earlier duties: 6d. the pound on sail yarn, 1s. the pound on all French and Dutch yarn, and £2:13:4 on the hundred weight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn. But our manufacturers were not long satisfied with this reduction. Under the 29th of the same king, chap. 15—the very law that granted a bounty on exports of British and Irish linen priced at no more than 18d. the yard—even that small duty on imported brown linen yarn was abolished. Yet the various operations needed to prepare linen yarn employ considerably more labor than the later operation of making linen cloth from the yarn. Even setting aside the work of flax growers and flax dressers, it takes at least three or four spinners to keep one weaver constantly employed; more than four-fifths of all the labor needed to make linen cloth goes into preparing the yarn. Our spinners, however, are poor people, usually women scattered across all parts of the country, without backing or protection. Our great master manufacturers earn their profits not from selling the spinners’ work but from selling the weavers’ finished cloth. Just as it is in their interest to sell the finished product as dearly as possible, it is in their interest to buy its materials as cheaply as possible. By wringing from the legislature bounties for exporting their own linen, high duties on all imported foreign linen, and a total ban on the domestic consumption of certain French linens, they strive to sell their own goods at the highest possible price. By encouraging imports of foreign linen yarn, bringing it into competition with yarn made by our own people, they seek to buy the poor spinners’ work for as little as possible. They are as determined to hold down their own weavers’ wages as they are the poor spinners’ earnings. They seek neither to raise the price of finished work nor to lower the price of raw materials for the workers’ benefit. Our mercantile system chiefly favors industry carried on for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Industry carried on for the benefit of the poor and needy is too often neglected or oppressed.
Both the bounty on linen exports and the exemption from duty on imported foreign yarn, originally granted for only fifteen years but extended twice, expire at the close of the parliamentary session immediately following the 24th of June 1786.
Bounties to encourage imports of manufacturing materials have been confined chiefly to materials imported from our American plantations.
The first bounties of this kind were granted around the beginning of the present century on imports of naval stores from America. That category included timber suitable for masts, yards, and bowsprits; hemp, tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty of £1 the ton on mast timber and the bounty of £6 the ton on hemp were also extended to imports into England from Scotland. Both continued unchanged at the same rates until they were separately allowed to expire: the hemp bounty on the 1st of January 1741, and the mast-timber bounty at the end of the parliamentary session immediately following the 24th June 1781.
The bounties on imported tar, pitch, and turpentine underwent several changes while they remained in force. Originally the bounty was £4 the ton for tar, the same for pitch, and £3 the ton for turpentine. The £4 the ton bounty for tar was later restricted to tar prepared in a particular way; the bounty on other good, clean, marketable tar was cut to £2:4s. the ton. The bounty on pitch was likewise cut to £1, and that on turpentine to £1:10s. the ton.
The second bounty for importing a manufacturing material, in chronological order, was granted by the 21st Geo. II. chap.30, for indigo imported from the British plantations. Under that act, plantation indigo worth three-fourths the price of the best French indigo qualified for a bounty of 6d. the pound. Like most bounties, this one was granted for a limited period. It was extended several times but reduced to 4d. the pound, and was allowed to expire with the end of the parliamentary session following the 25th March 1781.
The third bounty of this kind was granted—at about the time we were beginning alternately to court and quarrel with our American colonies—by the 4th. Geo. III. chap. 26, for hemp or undressed flax imported from the British plantations. It was granted for twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1764 to the 24th June 1785. For the first seven years it was to be £8 the ton; for the second seven, £6; and for the third seven, £4. It was not extended to Scotland, whose climate is poorly suited to hemp, although hemp is sometimes grown there in small amounts and of inferior quality. Such a bounty on Scottish flax imported into England would have discouraged the native crop of the southern part of the united kingdom too severely.
The fourth bounty of this kind was granted by the 5th Geo. III. chap. 45, for wood imported from America. It was granted for nine years, from the 1st January 1766 to the 1st January 1775. During the first three years, the rate was £1 for every hundred-and-twenty good deals, and 12s. for every load containing fifty cubic feet of other squared timber. For the second three years, the rate was 15s. for deals and 8s. for other squared timber; for the third three years, 10s. for deals and 5s. for every other squared timber.
The fifth bounty of this kind was granted by the 9th Geo. III. chap. 38, for raw silk imported from the British plantations. It was granted for twenty-one years, from the 1st January 1770 to the 1st January 1791. For the first seven years, its rate was £25 for every hundred pounds value; for the second, £20; and for the third, £15. Raising silkworms and preparing silk require so much hand labor, and labor is so expensive in America, that I have been told even this large bounty was unlikely to have any considerable effect.
The sixth bounty of this kind was granted by 11th Geo. III. chap. 50, for pipe, hogshead, and barrel staves and heading imported from the British plantations. It was granted for nine years, from 1st January 1772 to the 1st January 1781. For the first three years, it was to be £6 for a specified quantity of each; for the second three years, £4; and for the third three years, £2.
The seventh and last bounty of this kind was granted by the 19th Geo. III chap. 37, for hemp imported from Ireland. Like the bounty for hemp and undressed flax from America, it was granted for twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1779 to the 24th June 1800. Its term is likewise divided into three seven-year periods, and in each period the Irish bounty has the same rate as the American one. Unlike the American bounty, however, it does not cover imports of undressed flax. That would have discouraged cultivation of the plant in Great Britain too severely. When this last bounty was granted, the British and Irish legislatures were hardly on better terms than the British and American legislatures had been earlier. But this benefit to Ireland, one hopes, was granted under more fortunate circumstances than all the benefits granted to America. The very goods for which we thus paid bounties when imported from America faced substantial duties when imported from anywhere else. The interest of our American colonies was treated as identical to that of the mother country. Their wealth was counted as our wealth. Any money sent to them, it was said, came back to us in full through the balance of trade, and no amount spent on them could make us a farthing poorer. They belonged to us in every respect, and this expense was laid out to improve our own property and profitably employ our own people. I think it unnecessary now to say more to expose the folly of a system that disastrous experience has sufficiently exposed already. If our American colonies really had been part of Great Britain, these bounties might have been regarded as bounties on production; they would still have faced every objection applicable to such bounties, though no others.
The export of manufacturing materials is sometimes discouraged by outright prohibitions and sometimes by high duties.
Our woolen manufacturers have been more successful than any other class of workers in convincing the legislature that the nation’s prosperity depends on the success and expansion of their particular trade. They have not only obtained a monopoly against consumers through a complete ban on the import of woolen cloth from any foreign country; they have also obtained a second monopoly against sheep farmers and wool growers through a similar ban on the export of live sheep and wool. People rightly complain that many laws enacted to protect revenue impose severe penalties for acts that were always understood to be innocent before statutes declared them crimes. But I venture to say that the cruelest of our revenue laws are mild and gentle beside some of the laws our merchants and manufacturers have clamored for and wrung from the legislature to support their absurd and oppressive monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws might be said to have been written entirely in blood.
Under the 8th of Elizabeth, chap. 3, a person exporting sheep, lambs, or rams was, for a first offense, to forfeit all his goods forever, spend a year in prison, and then have his left hand cut off in a market town on a market day and nailed up there. For a second offense he was to be convicted as a felon and put to death. The law appears to have aimed at preventing the breeding of our sheep in foreign countries. Under the 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap. 18, exporting wool became a felony, exposing the exporter to the same penalties and forfeitures as a felon.
For the honor of the nation’s humanity, we must hope that neither statute was ever enforced. The first, however, has never, to my knowledge, been expressly repealed, and serjeant Hawkins seems to regard it as still in force. It might perhaps be regarded as implicitly repealed by the 12th of Charles II. chap. 32, sect. 3. That statute, without expressly removing the penalties imposed by earlier statutes, establishes a new penalty: 20s. for each sheep exported or sought to be exported, together with forfeiture of the sheep and the owner’s share in it. The second statute was expressly repealed by the 7th and 8th of William III. chap. 28, sect. 4, which declares: “Whereas the statute of the 13th and 14th of king Charles II. made against the exportation of wool, among other things in the said act mentioned, enacts the same to be deemed felony, by the severity of which penalty the prosecution of offenders has not been so effectually put in execution; be it therefore enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that so much of the said act, which relates to the making the said offense felony, be repealed and made void.”
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete English text of all five books.
Conclusion of the Mercantile System.
The mercantile system chiefly tries to enrich a country by encouraging exports and discouraging imports. Yet for some goods it appears to do the opposite: it discourages exports and encourages imports. It still claims to have the same ultimate goal, enriching the country through a favorable balance of trade. It discourages the export of manufacturing materials and tools so our workers have an advantage and can sell more cheaply than foreign workers in every foreign market. By restricting exports of a few relatively low-priced goods, it hopes to create much larger exports of more valuable goods. It encourages imports of manufacturing materials so our people can process them more cheaply and thereby avoid larger, more valuable imports of finished goods. I have not seen, at least in our statutes, any incentive to import tools used in trades. Once manufacturing reaches a certain scale, making those tools itself becomes an important field with many substantial manufactures. Giving their imports special encouragement would interfere too much with those businesses. As a result, the imports have often been banned rather than encouraged. For example, the 3rd of Edward IV. prohibited the import of wool cards, except from Ireland or as goods recovered from wrecks or taken as prizes. The 39th of Elizabeth renewed the ban, and later laws extended it and made it permanent.
Imports of manufacturing materials have sometimes been encouraged by exempting them from duties paid on other goods, and sometimes by paying bounties.
Provided they are properly declared at the customs office, the following materials have been encouraged by exemption from all duties: sheep's wool from various countries; cotton wool from every country; undressed flax; most dyeing drugs; most undressed hides from Ireland or the British colonies; seal skins from the British Greenland fishery; pig and bar iron from the British colonies; and several other manufacturing materials. Merchants and manufacturers may have pressured lawmakers into granting these exemptions for their private interests, as they have with most other rules on commerce. Still, these exemptions are entirely fair and reasonable. The public would certainly gain if the exemptions could be extended to every other manufacturing material, as far as the state's financial needs allow.
But the greed of our large manufacturers has sometimes pushed these exemptions far beyond what can reasonably be called raw materials for their work. The 24th Geo. II. chap. 46 reduced the duty on imported foreign brown linen yarn to just 1d. the pound. It replaced much higher duties: 6d. the pound on sail yarn, 1s. the pound on all French and Dutch yarn, and £2:13:4 upon the hundred weight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn. Our manufacturers were soon dissatisfied even with that reduction. The 29th of the same king, chap. 15, removed this small duty on imported brown linen yarn altogether. That same law paid a bounty on exports of British and Irish linen priced at no more than 18d. the yard. Yet the various steps needed to prepare linen yarn employ much more labor than the later step of turning yarn into linen cloth. Leaving aside the work of growing and dressing flax, at least three or four spinners are needed to keep one weaver steadily employed. More than four-fifths of all the labor needed to make linen cloth goes into making linen yarn. But our spinners are poor people, usually women scattered throughout the country with no backing or protection. Our great master manufacturers earn their profits by selling the weavers' finished work, not the spinners' work. They want to sell the finished cloth for as much as possible and buy its materials for as little as possible. By pressuring lawmakers into paying bounties on exports of their linen, imposing high duties on imports of all foreign linen, and entirely banning domestic use of some kinds of French linen, they try to sell their own goods at the highest possible price. By encouraging foreign linen yarn imports to compete with yarn made by our own people, they try to buy the poor spinners' work at the lowest possible price. They are just as determined to hold down their own weavers' wages as the poor spinners' earnings. Neither their efforts to raise finished cloth prices nor their efforts to lower raw material prices are intended to help workers. Our mercantile system mainly encourages industry that serves the rich and powerful. It too often neglects or oppresses industry that serves the poor and needy.
Both the bounty on linen exports and the duty exemption on foreign yarn imports were granted for only fifteen years and extended twice. They expire at the end of the parliamentary session immediately following the 24th of June 1786.
Bounties encouraging the import of manufacturing materials have mainly been limited to materials brought from our American plantations.
The first such bounties were granted around the beginning of this century on imports of naval stores from America. These included timber suitable for masts, yards, and bowsprits, as well as hemp, tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty of £1 the ton on timber for masts and the bounty of £6 the ton on hemp also applied to imports from Scotland into England. Both rates stayed unchanged until the bounties were allowed to expire separately: the hemp bounty on the 1st of January 1741 and the mast-timber bounty at the end of the parliamentary session immediately following the 24th June 1781.
The bounties on imported tar, pitch, and turpentine changed several times while they were in force. At first the bounty on tar was £4 the ton, the bounty on pitch was the same, and the bounty on turpentine was £3 the ton. Later the £4 the ton bounty on tar applied only to tar made in a particular way. The rate for other good, clean, marketable tar dropped to £2:4s. the ton. The pitch bounty likewise fell to £1, and the turpentine bounty to £1:10s. the ton.
The second bounty on imported manufacturing materials, in chronological order, was granted by the 21st Geo. II. chap.30 on indigo from the British plantations. Under the act, plantation indigo qualified for a bounty of 6d. the pound when it was worth three-fourths of the price of the best French indigo. This bounty, like most others, was initially granted for a limited time. Several extensions kept it in force, but its rate fell to 4d. the pound. It was allowed to expire at the end of the parliamentary session following the 25th March 1781.
The third bounty of this kind was granted around the time we were beginning alternately to court and quarrel with our American colonies. The 4th. Geo. III. chap. 26 granted it on hemp or undressed flax imported from the British plantations. It lasted twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1764 to the 24th June 1785. Its rate was £8 the ton for the first seven years, £6 for the second seven, and £4 for the third seven. It did not apply to Scotland. Though some hemp is grown there in small amounts and of inferior quality, Scotland's climate is not very suitable for it. Paying such a bounty on Scottish flax imported into England would have discouraged production in the southern part of the united kingdom too much.
The fourth such bounty was granted by the 5th Geo. III. chap. 45 on wood imported from America. It lasted nine years, from the 1st January 1766 to the 1st January 1775. For the first three years, the rate was £1 for every hundred-and-twenty good deals and 12s. for each load of other squared timber containing fifty cubic feet. For the next three years, the rates were 15s. for deals and 8s. for other squared timber. For the final three years, they were 10s. for deals and 5s. for every other squared timber.
The fifth bounty of this kind was granted by the 9th Geo. III. chap. 38 on raw silk imported from the British plantations. It lasted twenty-one years, from the 1st January 1770 to the 1st January 1791. Its rate was £25 for every hundred pounds value for the first seven years, £20 for the second seven, and £15 for the third seven. Raising silkworms and preparing silk take so much manual labor, and labor is so expensive in America, that I have been told even this large bounty was unlikely to have much effect.
The sixth such bounty was granted by 11th Geo. III. chap. 50 on imports of pipe, hogshead, and barrelstaves and leading from the British plantations. It lasted nine years, from 1st January 1772 to the 1st January 1781. For a specified amount of each material, the rate was £6 for the first three years, £4 for the next three, and £2 for the last three.
The seventh and last such bounty was granted by the 19th Geo. III chap. 37 on hemp imported from Ireland. Like the bounty on hemp and undressed flax from America, it lasted twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1779 to the 24th June 1800. Its term was also divided into three periods of seven years. In each period its rate was the same as the American bounty's rate. Unlike that bounty, however, it did not cover undressed flax. Covering it would have discouraged flax cultivation in Great Britain too much. When this last bounty was granted, the British and Irish legislatures were not getting along much better than the British and American legislatures had been earlier. Still, one hopes this gift to Ireland has been made under better circumstances than all the gifts to America. Goods that received these bounties when imported from America faced substantial duties when imported from any other country. People treated the interests of the American colonies as identical to those of the mother country. They considered the colonies' wealth our wealth. They said that, through the balance of trade, any money sent to the colonies all came back to us. They argued we could not become even a farthing poorer through anything we spent on them. The colonies were ours in every sense, they said, so spending on them improved our own property and profitably employed our own people. I think I need say nothing more now to show the foolishness of a system that disastrous experience has already exposed. If our American colonies had really been part of Great Britain, these bounties could have been viewed as bounties on production. They would still have faced all the objections to such bounties, but no others.
Exports of manufacturing materials are sometimes discouraged by outright bans and sometimes by high duties.
Our woolen manufacturers have been more successful than any other group of workers in convincing lawmakers that the nation's prosperity depends on the success and growth of their particular business. They secured a monopoly against consumers by getting foreign woolen cloth imports banned altogether. They also secured a monopoly against sheep farmers and wool growers by getting exports of live sheep and wool banned in the same way. Many laws meant to protect government revenue have rightly been criticized for imposing heavy penalties on acts that were always considered innocent before laws made them crimes. But I would argue that even our cruelest revenue laws are mild compared with some laws our merchants and manufacturers have pressured lawmakers into passing to protect their own absurd, oppressive monopolies. Like Draco's laws, these laws might be said to be written entirely in blood.
Under the 8th of Elizabeth, chap. 3, someone who exported sheep, lambs, or rams faced, for a first offense, permanent loss of all his goods and a year's imprisonment. Then his left hand was to be cut off in a market town on market day and nailed up there. A second offense was to be judged a felony and punished by death. The law seems intended to prevent sheep of our breed from reproducing abroad. Under the 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap. 18, exporting wool became a felony, and the exporter faced the same penalties and forfeitures as any felon.
For the sake of the nation's reputation for humanity, let us hope neither law was ever enforced. As far as I know, the first has never been directly repealed, and serjeant Hawkins seems to regard it as still in force. It may, however, have been repealed in effect by the 12th of Charles II. chap. 32, sect. 3. Without explicitly removing earlier penalties, that act imposes a new one: 20s. for each sheep exported or that someone tried to export, together with forfeiture of the sheep and of the owner's share of them. The second law was explicitly repealed by the 7th and 8th of William III. chap. 28, sect. 4. That act declares: “The statute of the 13th and 14th of king Charles II. against the export of wool, among other matters in that act, made this offense a felony. Because the severity of that penalty has prevented effective prosecution of offenders, the part of that act that makes the offense a felony is repealed and made void.”