Book IV: Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

OF THE EXTRAORDINARY RESTRAINTS UPON THE IMPORTATION OF GOODS OF
ALMOST ALL KINDS, FROM THOSE COUNTRIES WITH WHICH THE BALANCE IS
SUPPOSED TO BE DISADVANTAGEOUS.

Part I - Of the Unreasonableness of those Restraints, even upon
the Principles of the Commercial System.

To lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods of
almost all kinds, from those particular countries with which the
balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous, is the second
expedient by which the commercial system proposes to increase the
quantity of gold and silver. Thus, in Great Britain, Silesia
lawns may be imported for home consumption, upon paying certain
duties; but French cambrics and lawns are prohibited to be
imported, except into the port of London, there to be warehoused
for exportation. Higher duties are imposed upon the wines of
France than upon those of Portugal, or indeed of any other
country. By what is called the impost 1692, a duty of five
and-twenty per cent. of the rate or value, was laid upon all
French goods; while the goods of other nations were, the greater
part of them, subjected to much lighter duties, seldom exceeding
five per cent. The wine, brandy, salt, and vinegar of France,
were indeed excepted; these commodities being subjected to other
heavy duties, either by other laws, or by particular clauses of
the same law. In 1696, a second duty of twenty-five per cent. the
first not having been thought a sufficient discouragement, was
imposed upon all French goods, except brandy ; together with a
new duty of five-and-twenty pounds upon the ton of French wine,
and another of fifteen pounds upon the ton of French vinegar.
French goods have never been omitted in any of those general
subsidies or duties of five per cent. which have been imposed
upon all, or the greater part, of the goods enumerated in the
book of rates. If we count the one-third and two-third subsidies
as making a complete subsidy between them, there have been five
of these general subsidies; so that, before the commencement of
the present war, seventy-five per cent. may be considered as the
lowest duty to which the greater part of the goods of the growth,
produce, or manufacture of France, were liable. But upon the
greater part of goods, those duties are equivalent to a
prohibition. The French, in their turn, have, I believe, treated
our goods and manufactures just as hardly; though I am not so
well acquainted with the particular hardships which they have
imposed upon them. Those mutual restraints have put an end to
almost all fair commerce between the two nations; and smugglers
are now the principal importers, either of British goods into
France, or of French goods into Great Britain.