Colbert's tariff of 1664not merely simplified but considerably reduced the existing duties;the tariff of 1667indeed increasedthem,but that was really a political measure directed against the Dutch.It seems certain that France owed in a large measureto his policy the vast development of trade and manufactures which so much impressed the imagination of contemporaryEurope,and of which we hear so much from English writers of the time of Petty.But this policy had also undeniably its darkside.Industry was forced by such systematic regulation to follow invariable courses,instead of adapting itself to changingtastes and popular demand.Nor was it free to simplify the processes of production,or to introduce increased division oflabour and improved appliances.Spontaneity,initiation,and invention were repressed or discouraged,and thus ulteriorsacrificed in a great measure to immediate results.The more enlightened statesmen,and Colbert in particular,endeavoured,it is true,to minimise these disadvantages by procuring,often at great expense,and communicating to the trades throughinspectors nominated by the Government,information respecting improved processes employed elsewhere in the severalarts;but this,though in some degree a real,was certainly on the whole,and in the long run,an insufficient compensation.
We must not expect from the writers of this stage any exposition of political economy as a whole;the publications whichappeared were for the most part evoked by special exigencies,and related to particular questions,usually of a practical kind,which arose out of the great movements of the time.They were in fact of the nature of counsels to the Governments ofstates,pointing out how best they might develop the productive powers at their disposal and increase the resources of theirrespective countries.They are conceived (as List claims for them)strictly in the spirit of national economy,andcosmopolitanism is essentially foreign to them.On these monographs the mercantile theory sometimes had little influence,the problems discussed not involving its tenets.But it must in most cases be taken to be the scheme of fundamental doctrine(so far as it was ever entitled to such a description)which in the last resort underlies the writer's conclusions.
