History teaches that arts and trades migrated from city tocity, from one country to another.Persecuted and oppressed athome, they took refuge in cities and in countries where freedom,protection, and support were assured to them.In this way theymigrated from Greece and Asia to Italy; from Italy to Germany,Flanders, and Brabant; and from thence to Holland and England.
Everywhere it was want of sense and despotism that drove them away,and the spirit of freedom that attracted them.But for the folly ofthe Continental governments, England would have had difficulty inattaining supremacy in industry.But does it appear more consistentwith wisdom for us in Germany to wait patiently until other nationsare impolitic enough to drive out their industries and thus compelthem to seek a refuge with us, or that we should, without waitingfor such contingencies, invite them by proffered advantages tosettle down amongst us?
It is true that experience teaches that the wind bears the seedfrom one region to another, and that thus waste moorlands have beentransformed into dense forests; but would it on that account bewise policy for the forester to wait until the wind in the courseof ages effects this transformation?
Is it unwise on his part if by sowing and planting he seeks toattain the same object within a few decades? History tells us thatwhole nations have successfully accomplished that which we see theforester do? Single free cities, or small republics andconfederations of such cities and states, limited in territorialpossessions, of small population and insignificant military power,but fortified by the energy of youthful freedom and favoured bygeographical position as well as by fortunate circumstances andopportunities, flourished by means of manufactures and commercelong before the great monarchies; and by free commercialintercourse with the latter, by which they exported to themmanufactured goods and imported raw produce in exchange, raisedthemselves to a high degree of wealth and power.Thus did Venice,the Hanse Towns the Belgians and the Dutch.
Nor was this system of free trade less profitable at first tothe great monarchies themselves, with whom these smallercommunities had commercial intercourse.For, having regard to thewealth of their natural resources and to their undeveloped socialcondition the free importation of foreign manufactured goods andthe exportation of native produce presented the surest and mosteffectual means of developing their own powers of production, ofinstilling habits of industry into their subjects who were addictedto idleness and turbulence, of inducing their landowners and noblesto feel an interest in industry, of arousing the dormant spirit ofenterprise amongst their merchants, and especially of raising theirown civilisation, industry, and power.
These effects were learned generally by Great Britain from thetrade and manufacturing industry of the Italians, the Hansards, theBelgians, and the Dutch.But having attained to a certain grade ofdevelopment by means of free trade, the great monarchies perceivedthat the highest degree of civilisation, power, and wealth can onlybe attained by a combination of manufactures and commerce withagriculture.They perceived that their newly established nativemanufactures could never hope to succeed in free competition withthe old and long established manufactures of foreigners; that theirnative fisheries and native mercantile marine, the foundations oftheir naval power, could never make successful progress withoutspecial privileges; and that the spirit of enterprise of theirnative merchants would always be kept down by the overwhelmingreserves of capital, the greater experience and sagacity of theforeigners.Hence they sought, by a system of restrictions,privileges, and encouragements, to transplant on to their nativesoil the wealth, the talents, and the spirit of enterprise of theforeigners.This policy was pursued with greater or lesser, withspeedier or more tardy success, just in proportion as the measuresadopted were more or less judiciously adapted to the object inview, and applied and pursued with more or less energy andperseverance.
England, above all other nations, has adopted this policy.
Often interrupted in its execution from the want of intelligenceand self-restraint on the part of her rulers, or owing to internalcommotions and foreign wars, it first assumed the character of asettled and practically efficient policy under Edward VI,Elizabeth, and the revolutionary period.For how could the measuresof Edward III work satisfactorily when it was not till under HenryVI that the law permitted the carriage of corn from one Englishcounty to another, or the shipment of it to foreign parts; whenstill under Henry VII and Henry VIII all interest on money, evendiscount on bills, was held to be usury, and when it was stillthought at the time that trade might be encouraged by fixing by lawat a low figure the price of woollen goods and the rate of wages,and that the production of corn could be increased by prohibitingsheep farming on a large scale?
And how much sooner would England's woollen manufactures andmaritime trade have reached a high standard of prosperity had notHenry VIII regarded a rise in the prices of corn as an evil; hadhe, instead of driving foreign workmen by wholesale from thekingdom, sought like his predecessors to augment their number byencouraging their immigration; and had not Henry VII refused hissanction to the Act of Navigation as proposed by Parliament?
