As for Switzerland, it must be remarked in the first place thatshe does not constitute a nation, at least not one of normalmagnitude which can be ranked as a great nation, but is merely aconglomeration of municipalities.Possessing no sea-coast, hemmedin between three great nations, she lacks all inducement to striveto obtain a native commercial marine, or direct trade with tropicalcountries; she need pay no regard to the establishment of a navalpower, or to founding or acquiring colonies.Switzerland laid thefoundation of her present very moderate degree of prosperity at thetime when she still belonged to the German Empire.Since that time,she has been almost entirely free from internal wars, her capitalhas been permitted to increase from generation to generation, asscarcely any of it was required by her municipal governments fordischarging their expenses.Amid the devastations occasioned by thedespotism, fanaticism, wars, and revolutions, with which Europe wasperturbed during the last centuries, Switzerland offered an asylumto all who desired to transfer their capital and talents to anothercountry than their own, and thus acquired considerable wealth fromabroad.Germany has never adopted strong commercial restrictionsagainst Switzerland, and a large part of the manufactured productsof the latter has obtained a market in Germany.Moreover, theindustry of Switzerland was never a national one, one comprisingthe production of articles of common use, but chiefly an industryin articles of luxury, the products of which could be easilysmuggled into the neighbouring countries or transported to distantparts of the world.Furthermore, her territory is most favourablysituated for intermediate trade, and in this respect is in somemeasure privileged.Again, their excellent opportunity of becomingacquainted with the languages, laws, institutions, andcircumstances of the three nations which adjoin her must have giventhe Swiss important advantages in intermediate commerce and inevery other respect.Civil and religious liberty and universaleducation have evoked in the Swiss, activity and a spirit ofenterprise which, in view of the narrow limits of their country'sinternal agriculture, and of her internal resources for supportingher population, drove the Swiss to foreign countries, where theyamassed wealth, by means of military service, by commerce, byindustries of every kind, in order to bring it home to theirfatherland.If under such special circumstances they managed toacquire mental and material resources, in order to develop a fewbranches of industry for producing articles of luxury, if theseindustries could maintain themselves without protective duties bysales to foreign countries, it cannot thence be concluded thatgreat nations could follow a similar policy under wholly differentcircumstances.In her small national expenditure Switzerlandpossesses an advantage which great nations could only attain ifthey, like Switzerland, resolved themselves into meremunicipalities and thus exposed their nationality to foreignattacks.
That Spain acted foolishly in preventing the exportation of theprecious metals, especially since she herself produced such a largeexcess of these articles, must be admitted by every reasonableperson.It is a mistake, however, to attribute the decline of theindustry and national well-being of Spain to her restrictionsagainst the importation of manufactured goods.If Spain had notexpelled the Moors and Jews, and had never had an Inquisition; ifCharles V had permitted religious liberty in Spain; if the priestsand monks had been changed into teachers of the people, and theirimmense property secularised, or at least reduced to what wasactually necessary for their maintenance; if, in consequence ofthese measures, civil liberty had gained a firm footing, the feudalnobility had been reformed and the monarchy limited; if, in a word,Spain had politically developed herself in consequence of aReformation, as England did, and if the same spirit had extended toher colonies, a prohibitive and protective policy would have hadsimilar effects in Spain as it had in England, and this all themore because at the time of Charles V the Spaniards were moreadvanced than the English and French in every respect, and theNetherlands only (of all countries) occupied a more advancedposition than Spain, whose industrial and commercial spirit mighthave been transferred to Spain by means of the protective policy,provided that the institutions and conditions of Spain were such aswould have invited foreign talents and capital to her shores,instead of driving her own native talents and capital into foreigncountries.
To what causes England owes her manufacturing and commercialsupremacy, we have shown in our fifth chapter.
It is especially owing to her civil, mental, and religiousliberty, to the nature and excellence of her politicalinstitutions, that the commercial policy of England has beenenabled to make the most of the natural riches of the country, andfully to develop the productive powers of the nation.But who woulddeny that other nations are capable of raising themselves to thesame degree of liberty? Who would venture to maintain that naturehas denied to other nations the means which are requisite formanufacturing industry?
