Book IV: Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

OF RESTRAINTS UPON IMPORTATION FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES OF SUCH
GOODS AS CAN BE PRODUCED AT HOME.

By restraining, either by high duties, or by absolute
prohibitions, the importation of such goods from foreign
countries as can be produced at home, the monopoly of the home
market is more or less secured to the domestic industry employed
in producing them. Thus the prohibition of importing either live
cattle or salt provisions from foreign countries, secures to the
graziers of Great Britain the monopoly of the home market for
butcher's meat. The high duties upon the importation of corn,
which, in times of moderate plenty, amount to a prohibition, give
a like advantage to the growers of that commodity. The
prohibition of the importation of foreign woollen is equally
favourable to the woollen manufacturers. The silk manufacture,
though altogether employed upon foreign materials, has lately
obtained the same advantage. The linen manufacture has not yet
obtained it, but is making great strides towards it. Many other
sorts of manufactures have, in the same manner obtained in Great
Britain, either altogether, or very nearly, a monopoly against
their countrymen. The variety of goods, of which the importation
into Great Britain is prohibited, either absolutely, or under
certain circumstances, greatly exceeds what can easily be
suspected by those who are not well acquainted with the laws of
the customs.

That this monopoly of the home market frequently gives great
encouragement to that particular species of industry which enjoys
it, and frequently turns towards that employment a greater share
of both the labour and stock of the society than would otherwise
have gone to it, cannot be doubted. But whether it tends either
to increase the general industry of the society, or to give it
the most advantageous direction, is not, perhaps, altogether so
evident.

The general industry of the society can never exceed what the
capital of the society can employ. As the number of workmen that
can be kept in employment by any particular person must bear a
certain proportion to his capital, so the number of those that
can be continually employed by all the members of a great society
must bear a certain proportion to the whole capital of the
society, and never can exceed that proportion. No regulation of
commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any society
beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part
of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have
gone; and it is by no means certain that this artificial
direction is likely to be more advantageous to the society, than
that into which it would have gone of its own accord.

Every