IS IT SOUND POLICY IN ANY GOVERNMENT TO IMPOSE RESTRAINTS ON THE IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN GOODS, WITH THE VIEW OF PROTECTING DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES?

MANY readers may think, that this question has long since been satisfactorily settled; but the fact is, that, however the most eminent political writers may agree about it, there are numbers in the commercial world who regard the restrictive system as a source of real wealth to the country which adopts it. In the United States of America, strenuous exertions have been recently made to impress the government and the people with the salutary effects of giving encouragement to their own infant manufactures, or protecting them from competition

by prohibitions, or excessive duties on foreign articles of the same kind; and the advocates of this system have pointed to England as an example of the wealth which it has produced. They have urged upon the attention of their countrymen, that although English writers have declaimed against bounties, and monopolies, and protecting duties, yet that the government itself has pertinaciously adhered to them; and that it appeared to be the policy of these islanders to hold out one doctrine to other countries, while they themselves cunningly acted upon another.

In the consideration of the present question, it is useful to keep in view the distinction between the policy of a free trade, abstractedly considered, and the policy of establishing it in a country where the contrary system has long existed, and has drawn capital and industry into channels, from which it would produce much evil to remove them. It is, in fact, on the latter point, or the application of the doctrine, that controversy generally arises, many being willing to admit the abstract principle,

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who are determinedly opposed to every measure for putting it in practice. It is a great point gained, however, to have the abstract principle admitted; to have an accordance of opinion as to what would be the best system, if circumstances left us free to choose. "A perfect freedom of trade," says Malthus, vision, which it is to be feared can never be realized. But still it should be our object to make as near approaches to it as we can. It should always be considered as the great general rule. And whenever any deviations from it are proposed, those who propose them are bound clearly to make out the exception."

This whole subject has been so ably explained by Adam Smith, in the fourth book of his Wealth of Nations, that subsequent writers have had little else to do than repeat his arguments, and illustrate his positions. One simple proposition is, in truth, sufficient to decide the question, and is the basis of all the reasonings of our great economist upon it. It is, "that in every country it always is, and must be, the interest of the great body of the people to

buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest."

The present topic is, of course, more or less fully treated of in almost all works on Political Economy; and it is unnecessary here to make particular references to the works of Say, Malthus, Ricardo, Torrens, Mill, and others. Amongst other treatises, the reader may consult a pamphlet, entitled, Observations on the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System, from the MSS of Jeremy Bentham, Esq., in which there are various arguments, economical, moral, and political, urged in favour of a free trade.

OUGHT THERE ΤΟ BE ANY LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE WITH THE IMPORTATION OR EXPORTATION OF CORN?

In the preceding question, respecting restraints on importation, we purposely limited the inquiry to manufactured goods, because the subject of a free trade in corn is of a magnitude and importance to require a separate discussion, and involves considerations peculiar to itself. Of a question so much agitated, and abounding in so many collateral topics, it would not be easy, within our confined limits, to bring a condensed exposition before the eye of the reader. We select, however, a passage from Say, which touches upon the most popular and material points of the controversy.