dities in the manner which their own interests and choice would
dictate. In order to make them dearer it is absolutely necessary to make
them scarcer; for quantity being large or small in proportion to demand,
alone can regulate the price;--protection, therefore, to any commodity
simply means that the quantity supplied to the community shall be less
than circumstances would naturally provide, but that for the smaller
quantity supplied under the restriction of law the same sum shall be
paid as the larger quantity would command without such restriction.

Time was when the Sovereigns of England relied chiefly on the granting
of patents to individuals for the exclusive exercise of certain trades
or occupations in particular places, as the means of rewarding the
services of some, and as a provision for others of their adherents,
followers, and favourites, who either held the exclusive supply in their
own hands on their own terms, or who again granted to others under them
that privilege, receiving from them a portion of the gains. In the
course of time, however, the public began to discover that these
monopolies acted upon them directly as a tax of a most odious
description; that the privileged person found it needful always to keep
the supply short to obtain his high price (for as soon as he admitted
plenty he had no command of price)--that, in short, the sovereign, in
conferring a mark of regard on a favourite, gave not that which he
himself possessed, but only invested him with the power of imposing a
contribution on the public.

The public once awake to the true operation of such privileges, and
severely suffering under the injuries which they inflicted,
perseveringly struggled against these odious monopolies, until the
system was entirely abandoned, and the crown was deprived of the power
of granting patents of this class. But though the public saw clearly
enough that these privileges granted by the sovereign to individuals
operated thus prejudicially on the community, they did not see with
equal clearness that the same power transferred to, and exercised by,
Parliament, to confer similar privileges on classes; to do for a number
of men what the sovereign had before done for single men, would, to the
remaining portion of the community, be just as prejudicial as the abuses
against which they had struggled. That like the sovereign, the
Parliament, in protecting or giving privileges to a class, gave nothing
which they poss