mer.

Commerce can never be so profitable when it merely ministers to foreign consumption, as when it is employed at home; but it will every where be most lucrative when left to itself, and will seek employment abroad, only when home cannot profitably employ it.

Might we object to any other portion of Dr Smith's reflections on this subject, as not being fully perfected and rounded, we should perhaps regret, that he had not more scientifically explained the causes from which it happens, that an exclusive company carries on business to less advantage than the private merchant. Some of his expressions might induce an unguarded reader to suppose, that there was a real, as well as a fancied, opposition between the interests of the India Company, considered as merchants and as sovereigns; that it was really advantageous to a company to raise its profits, by narrowing its own market; and that those companies who have pursued this plan, instead of having miserably mistaken, or grossly neglected their own interests, had only too eagerly consulted it.

The truth is, as the wise need not be informed, that it is as certainly the ultimate interest of a body of monopolists, as of a set of private traders, to trade as cheaply and extensively as possible, and to invest in their concern, every atom of capital which it will absorb. They will evidently find it more lucrative, at the long run, to make smaller profits on a larger capital, than larger profits on a smaller capital. Those companies, therefore, who are said to have destroyed a part of the produce which they could command in India, from a dread of too much cheapening their sales in Europe, committed an absurdity, for which it was hardly worth their while to be so wicked. Corn, rice, and whatever constitutes the staff of life, have, indeed, the property of the Sibylline books offered to the Roman monarch; and any falling off in the ordinary supply of them, occasions a far more than proportional rise in their price. Had then the monopolists alluded to, been importers of such articles as these, they might have found a temporary advantage in inflaming the demand for their merchandizes, by suddenly stinting the supply, and thus starving their customers into a capitulation on their own terms. Even this, however, is ultimately a pitiful and short-sighted policy; but since mace and ginger are not bread-fruit,-since nobody but a Fakeer would chuse to live upon cloves,-and since a nutmeg is slow poison; how childish for a dealer in these commodities to play with the market for them, as if they were the prime necessaries of life! By wasting a part of the usual produce, he only teaches the consumer to manage with less; and by destroying the plenty of an unusually propititious year, he loses the oppor

tunity of whetting the consumer's appetite for more. The reader will perceive, that we refer to that frightful story, so appalling to us in our childhood, of the Dutch and their spiceries: a story exemplifying such a flight of stupidity, as we should naturally expect from a Dutchman, in any case where trade was not the thing concerned. It is like a man putting out one of his eyes, in order to strengthen the sight of the other.

But it must not be imagined, that we disbelieve this horrible story; and it is most certain, that chartered companies are not apt to push forward their commercial dealings with that vigour which characterizes the speculations of the private capitalist. Why is this, if it be as certainly, as obviously, and as greatly, their interest to do so? We answer, that it is as certainly their interest to do so, but not perhaps as greatly, nor as obviously.

It is not equally their interest, because their charter secures them from the dread of competitors, which, in the mind of the private trader, forms a powerful ally to the simple desire of bettering his condition. The private trader is pushed forward by two impulses, the hope of gaining, and the fear of losing. The chartered monopolist, for a long time at least, feels the hope without the fear; and, having the race to himself-though he knows that the faster he runs, the sooner he shall entitle himself to the prize-is yet equally convinced, that he cannot lose it, even if he walks. It is true that, in this state of things, he sometimes unexpectedly perceives an interloping rival at his heels; but his habits of oscitancy and confidence are now not easily shaken off; and the interloper, being better seasoned, (as the jockies would say), and less on his haunches, slips him, while the monopolist follows majestically behind, delighting the beholders with his magnificent curvettings and measured fire.

Besides, commercial exertion and alertness are not so obviously the interest of any large corporate society, chartered or not, as of the private merchant; that is, they are not so obviously the interest of the individuals composing such a corporation. A member of a numerous association, can seldom have the sensation that every thing depends on his single arm. Man, commercialy considered, is generally actuated by two feelings; the love of present pleasure, inclining him to indolence,-and the love of future pleasure, propelling him to action. Where action, however, is not evidently and directly connected with some future advantage, he will feel its necessity but faintly, and enter upon it with slackness. In large bodies, although the profits of all directly depend on the exertions of all, the individual profits of each man are not so immediately dependent on his individual exertion; and the love of ease, soon makes the individual discover

this fact. He is one of many; the labour of one will hardly be missed, if the many labour,-while, whatever the many gain, the one will have his full share of it. This is undoubtedly the case with all very large societies, of whatever kind, that have coalesced for the attainment of a common object; although, to determine when it is that a combination becomes too large to be vigorous,―to find the point at which the inconvenience of weight begins to overbalance the advantage of size,—would be about as hopeless an undertaking, as to determine how many sheep make a flock, or how many soldiers an army.

The general explanation, which has been just offered, of the lassitude too often characteristic of exclusive corporations, appears to us more satisfactory than that which, referring particularly to the India Company, accounts for their alleged feebleness in trade, by supposing that their heads have been turned by their acquisition of territorial power and kingly state. All is not explained, by telling us, in seemly epigrams, that this great com pany stands behind the counter, clad in purple, like Prince Simoustapha in the Arabian Nights; and, while it rules with the sittish spirit of a trader, trades with the splendid profusion of a sultan. How will this solution account for the ruin of many a chartered body of merchants, which has enjoyed no territorial sovereignty, nor possessed any thing of royalty, but its extravagance? At the same time we grant, that even this is a better solution than that of the author before us, who has entered on the subject in a passage, the only metaphysical one, and the worst, that his book contains.

Indeed, the very principle of the human mind, which prompts men to the purfuit of commerce, feems to make it impoffible that it can flourish under the management of a company. The feelings of the

merchant have not changed fince the days of HoraceImpiger extremos curris mercator ad Indos

66

Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per fa xa, per ignes." Yet if the principle of trade be felfish, it is ftrong because it is felfish. No one, however, doubts that the purfuit of gain may be liberalized into an honourable employment. Its importance, at leaft, cannot be queftioned. He who, for his own advantage, promotes the exchange of commodities between different countries, or different parts of the fame country, is a benefactor of the human race; for he promotes that which is the parent of industry, and the fource of enjoyment. But that active love of gain which infpires exertion, and which regulates its direction, is properly an individual fentiment. It cannot animate bodies, because in bodies there is no real moral perfonality. Though, in the fiction of law, a corporation may be a perfon, it but faintly refembles the individual character, and never does approach to it but mischievously. If fuch bodies were animated with the feelings of real perfons, they would be too powerful: they

would

would be Brobdignagians among the Lilliputians. It would be impoffible to live near them. They are only tolerable when they are torpid and impotent.

Of all undertakings, in which men can engage in common, trade, too, is that for which perhaps an affociation of great numbers is leaft fitted. The intereft is too difperfed; and the managers, if they have no intereft diftinct from that of the other members, neglect their duty. An undertaking, the object of which is not gain, may fucceed under a common management. Political affociations, in which a focial feeling, an efprit de corps, may exift, can profecute their ends fuccefsfully; but the love of gain is not a focial fentiment. If gain then be the object, fuccefs is impoffible, because the body never can be animated by that which is an individual feeling; and if the undertaking be of imperial magnitude, who can expect fuccefs?' p. 9. 10.

There is a mixture of truth in these remarks, which renders the operation of cutting to pieces their many fallacies a task of some delicacy. A vague notion of that dissipation of interest which occurs in a great society, is here mixed up with a confused conception of the selfish nature of avarice, and with just so much knowledge of what is called the selfish theory in morals, as may suffice for the misunderstanding of it. Whether the love of gain be resolvable into the love of pleasure, or the love of power, or both, or neither, we will not here think of inquiring: whatever be the philosophy of the thing, its natural history is plain. That wish for individual gratification which we presume to be meant by the love of gain, leads men to unite together, on this simple principle, that they find individual gratification to be best attained by the exertion of common efforts. In this manner, as the love of gain is one great cement of society in general, so it has produced innumerable junctions of men into smaller societies; such as, banks, guilds, gangs, combinations, dock companies, insurance offices, trading companies, and a host of fraternities, more or less judicious, and more or less effective, but all held together chiefly by the lucrative principle;-proof, for this very reason, against the assaults of philosophers, pamphleteers, and reviewers; and however frangible, not easily to be disunited by being gravely assured that they cannot feel the love of gain, and therefore are already in a state of disunion.

Having despatched all that we had to offer on one very important branch of the present question, we come to another of fully equal importance, although involving considerations that seem never yet to have been distinctly noticed. What is the measure of the inertness too commonly attendant on a chartered trade, and how far is that inertness likely to go? An exclusive company is not likely to be so energetic in conducting commerce as

a nation of private adventurers; but by what interval, in all probability, will its energy fall short of theirs?

It is evident, how strongly these questions bear on an inquiry into the nature of a system which is mainly defended on the score of its political utility; for if commercial experience is to be sacrificed for a political compensation, it is necessary, before we can pronounce on the adequacy of the compensation, to ascertain the extent of the sacrifice. If there would be a manifest absurdity' (says Dr Smith) in turning towards any employment, thirty times more of the capital and industry of the country, than would be necessary to purchase from foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted, there must be an absurdity, though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment a thirtieth, or even a three hundredth part more of either. All this is undeniable; but it is of some moment to determine the magnitude of the absurdity in specific cases. Human life is nothing but a compromise of advantages; and as we submit to a small evil for the sake of a greater good, so we submit to a small absurdimay ty for the sake of a superior piece of wisdom. The navigation act is a commercial absurdity of this kind, tolerated and admired on account of its political wisdom; but if it were thirty times more absurd than it is, its political wisdom would hardly overbalance its mercantile folly. Such is the use of knowing, not only whether we lose by any given commercial arrangement, but what we lose by it.

We cannot, we acknowledge, conceive it possible to determine, by any general calculus, the degree to which trade is depressed below its natural level, by being placed under the guardianship of an exclusive company. The problem seems to be in all cases a tentative one: Reasoning, however, as we are now professedly doing, from theory, we should, on this point, stand somewhere about midway between the monopolists and the antimonopolists. We should expect the depression to be considerable; but yet, in times like the present, not nearly so great as it appears in the representations of the common advocates of commercial liberty. These gentlemen always consider it as amounting to almost all the difference between riches and beggary: but we cannot, in fairness, believe this account of matters, and shall shortly submit to the reader the grounds of our scepticism.

It is to be observed, that the indefinite extension of a trade, which is consigned to a monopoly, is not opposed by any physical impossibility. Nothing is requisite, but that the monopolists shall have a distinct and vivid perception of what, as we have already observed, is undeniably their interest. An impulse is

wanting;