If the prohibitive system gives a very powerful, though very expensive encouragement to rising manufactures, it can offer, in regard to such, no advantage to those which are already prosperous; the sacrifice at least which it im poses on consumers, is entirely useless. If the manufac ture was destined for exportation, government, by granting a monopoly of the interior market, causes it to abandon its ancient habits to assume others which probably are less advantageous. Every manufacture destined for exporta tion gives proof of not fearing the competition of foreigners. From the moment that it can support competition abroad, notwithstanding the expense of transport, it has still less reason to dread this competition in the very place of pro duction. Thus nothing is more common than to see goods prohibited which never could have been imported with advantage, and which gained credit solely by being so prohibited.
By the prohibitive system, governments had proposed to increase the number and productive powers of their manufactures. It is doubtful if they rightly knew the price they paid for this advantage, and the prodigious sacrifices they imposed on consumers, their subjects, to bring into existence an unborn class of producers ; but they succeeded much more rapidly even than speculators on political economy expected. For a time they excited the bitterest complaints on the part of consumers ; but even these complaints ceased afterwards, because sacrifices in fact had also ceased, and manufactures so powerfully encouraged, had soon provided with profusion for the national wants. But this emulation of all governments to establish manufactures every where, has produced two strange and unexpected effects on the commercial system of Europe ; one is the disproportionate increase of pro duction without any relation to consumption; the other is the effort of each nation to live isolated, to suffice for itself, and refuse every kind of foreign trade.
Before governments had been seized with this manufac turing ardour, the establishment of a new manufacture had always to struggle with a crowd of national habits and pre judices, which form as it were the inertia of the human mind. To overcome this force, it was necessary to offer speculators a very manifest advantage ; hence a new species of industry could scarcely arise without a distinct previous demand, and the market was always found, before the manufacture destined to occupy it. Governments. in their zeal, have not proceeded upon this principle; they have ordered stockings and hats beforehand; reckoning that legs and heads would be found afterwards. They have seen their people well and economically clothed by strangers, and yet have caused them to produce clothes in the country itself. During war, this new production was not capable
of being too exactly appreciated ; but when peace came, it was found that all things had been made in double quantity ; and the readier the mutual communication of states had become, the more embarrassed were they to dispose of ill their works executed without (MICA'S.
Consumers who at the beginning had been satisfied, afterwards found themselves called to unexpected gains, because merchants, eager to recover their funds, were forced to sell a very great quantity of goods with loss. 111i.nufacturers gave the signal for these sacrifices ; re signing themselves to a cruel loss of their capital, they induced extensive merchants to furnish themselves with goods buyoud their custom or ability, in order to profit by what appeared a good opportunity. Several of the latter have been forced to t xi» rience a similar loss, before their excessive supply could he introduced to the shops of retail dealers; and these again before they could make them be ac cepted by consumers. A universal embarrassment was felt by manufacturers, merchants, and retailers, and this was fol lowed by the annihilation of the capital destined to support industry. The fruit of long saving and long labour was lost in a year. Consumers have gained certainly, but their gain is scarcely perceptible even to themselves. By laying up a stock of goods for several years to profit by their cheapness, they have also included themselves in the general embarrass ment, and still farther retarded the period when the balance can be re-established between consumption and production.
According to the former organization of Europe, all states did not make pretences to all kinds of industry. Some had attached themselves to agriculture, others to navigation, others to manufactures; and the condition of these latter, even in prosperous times, could not have ap peared so worthy of envy as to demand prodigious efforts to attain it. A miserable and degraded population almost always produced these rich stuffs ; these elegant orna ments, this furniture which it was never destined to enjoy ; and if the men who directed these unhappy workmen sometimes raised immense fortunes, those fortunes were as frequently destroyed. The development of nations pro ceeds naturally in all directions ; it is scarcely ever prudent to obstruct it, but it is no less dangerous to hasten it ; and the governments of Europe, by having on all hands attempted to force nations, are at the present day loaded with a population, which they have created by requiring superfluous labour, and which they know not how to save from the horrors of famine.