The critical philosophers of the eighteenth century were often destitute of the historical spirit,which was no part of theendowment needed for their principal social office.But some of the most eminent of them,especially in Scotland,showed amarked capacity and predilection for historical studies.Smith was amongst the latter;Knies and others justly remark on themasterly sketches of this kind which occur in the Wealth of Nations .The longest and most elaborate of these occupies thethird book;it is an account of the course followed by the nations of modern Europe in the successive development of theseveral forms of industry.It affords a curious example of the effect of doctrinal prepossessions in obscuring the results ofhistorical inquiry.Whilst he correctly describes the European movement of industry,and explains it as arising out ofadequate social causes,he yet,in accordance with the absolute principles which tainted his philosophy,protests against it asinvolving an entire inversion of the "natural order of things."First agriculture,then manufactures,lastly foreign commerce;any other order than this he considers "unnatural and retrograde."Hume,a more purely positive thinker,simply sees thefacts,accepts them,and classes them under a general law.
"It is a violent method,"he says,"and in most cases impracticable,to oblige the labourer to toil in order to raise from the land more than what subsists himself and family.Furnish him withmanufactures and commodities,and he will do it of himself.""If we consult history,we shall find that,in most nations,foreign trade has preceded any refinement in home manufactures,and given birth to domestic luxury."The fourth book is principally devoted to the elaborate and exhaustive polemic against the mercantile system which finallydrove it from the field of science,and has exercised a powerful influence on economic legislation.When protection is nowadvocated,it is commonly on different grounds from those which were in current use before the time of Smith.He believedthat to look for the restoration of freedom of foreign trade in Great Britain would have been "as absurd as to expect that anOceana or Utopia should be established in it";yet,mainly in consequence of his labours,that object has been completelyattained;and it has lately been said with justice that free trade might have been more generally accepted by other nations ifthe patient reasoning of Smith had not been replaced by dogmatism.
His teaching on the subject is not altogether unqualified;but,on the whole,with respect to exchanges of every kind,where economic motives alone enter,his voice is in favour offreedom.He has regard,however,to political as well as economic interests,and on the ground that "defence is of muchmore importance than opulence",pronounces the Navigation Act to have been "perhaps the wisest of all the commercialregulations of England."Whilst objecting to the prevention of the export of wool,he proposes a tax on that export assomewhat less injurious to the interest of growers than the prohibition,whilst it would "afford a sufficient advantage"to thedomestic over the foreign manufacturer.
This is,perhaps,his most marked deviation from the rigour of principle;it wasdoubtless a concession to popular opinion with a view to an attainable practical improvement The wisdom of retaliation inorder to procure the repeal of high duties or prohibitions imposed by foreign Governments depends,he says,altogether onthe likelihood of its success in effecting the object aimed at,but he does not conceal his contempt for the practice of suchexpedients.The restoration of freedom in any manufacture,when it has grown to considerable dimensions by means of highduties,should,he thinks,from motives of humanity,be brought about only by degrees and with circumspection,--thoughthe amount of evil which would be caused by the immediate abolition of the duties is,in his opinion,commonly exaggerated.
The case in which J.S.Mill would tolerate protection --that,namely,in which an industry well adapted to a country is keptdown by the acquired ascendency of foreign producers --is referred to by Smith;but he is opposed to the admission of thisexception for reasons which do not appear to be conclusive.(28)He is perhaps scarcely consistent in approving the concessionof temporary monopolies to joint-stock companies undertaking risky enterprises "of which the public is afterwards to reapthe benefit."(29)
