BOUNTY, a term applied to any sum granted by the legislature towards creating or encouraging some kind of undertaking believed to be of national importance. At one time there was no end to the giving of bounties in this way from the public purse— there were bounties on exporting corn, with a view to encouraging agriculture; there were bounties on the tonnage of vessels employed in the herring and whalefisheries; on the importation of materials of manufactures; on the importation of indigo from the colonies; on the exportation of Irish linen, etc. The fallacy of thin costly and factitious process for fostering commerce, manufactures, and agriculture was amply demonstrated by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations,- one of his more striking facts being, that every barrel of herrings which sold for 20s., cost the government about 253. The notion that bounties may properly be given as an encouragement in the infancy of undertakings. has been happily exploded. It is ascertained that, besides taxing the general commu nity in order to reward or encourage individuals, bounties do no real Food to the parties SO favored; for by such inducements they engage in business for winch they have no special vocation, or which, in existing circumstances, it would be preferable to let alone. Misdirection of capital, talent, and industry are, in short, the inevitable result
of bounties, as of all measures alleged to be for the special protection of trade. The subsidies in the form of extra rates paid to certain steamboat companies for carrying the mails may be said to be the last remnant of British bounties. The carrying of the mails, as involving greater responsibIlitieS than ordinary goods, is paid at much higher rates, even where the ordinary traffic is remunerative, as on the Atlantic route, which is crossed by the greatest number of steamboat lines. Here the post-office, after a trial of open competition for the conveyance of the mails, in 1878 returned to the system of special contracts with certain of the most reliable companies at increased rates. These contracts have been objected to in the house of commons as monopolies.