have also been highly
injurious to England. By diminishing her exportation, or preventing it
from increasing as it would otherwise have done, they have kept up the
prices of all imported commodities in England, above what those prices
would have fallen to if trade had been left free.

By another obvious application of the same reasoning, it will be seen,
that there is a real foundation for the notion, that a country may be
benefited by receiving from another country the concession of what used
to be termed commercial advantages, or by restraining its colonies from
purchasing goods of any country except itself. In the figured
illustration last used (p. 34) [not available, M.D.], it is evident,
that if England had been bound by a treaty with Germany to buy linen
exclusively from her, Germany would have retained the trade which we
supposed her to lose, and would have continued to purchase cloth at a
comparatively cheap rate from England, instead of producing it by a more
costly process at home. Suppose that England had been a colony of
Germany, and we see that by compelling colonies to deal at her shop, she
may obtain a real advantage, though of a nature which we may hazard the
assertion that the founders of our colonial policy little dreamt of.

Such an advantage, however, being gained at the expense of another
country, is, at the least, simply equivalent to a tax, or tribute. Now,
if a country has just grounds, or deems superiority of power a
sufficient ground, for exacting a tribute from another country, the most
direct mode is the best. First, because it is the most intelligible, and
has least of trick or disguise. Secondly, because it allows the people
of the country paying the tribute, to raise the money in whatever way
they consider least oppressive to themselves. Thirdly, because the
indirect mode of taxing a country, by restrictions on its commerce,
disturbs the distribution of industry most advantageous to the world at
large, and occasions a greater loss to the restricted country, and to
the other countries with which that country would have traded, than gain
to the country in whose favour the restrictions are imposed. And lastly,
because a country never could obtain such privileges from an independent
nation, and has seldom been so undisguised an oppressor as to demand
them even from its colonies, without subjecting itself to restrictions
in some degree equivalent, for the benefit of those whom it has thus
tax