s._ in France. Now, if corn had previously been
at 3_l._ 15_s._ per quarter in France, the French consumers would have
been benefited by 5_s._ per quarter on all imported corn; if the natural
price of corn in France were before 4_l._, they would have gained the
whole bounty of 10_s._ per quarter. France would thus be benefited by
the loss sustained by England: she would not gain a part only of what
England lost, but in some cases the whole.

It may however be said, that a bounty on exportation is a measure of
internal policy, and could not easily be imposed by the mother country.

If it would suit the interests of Jamaica and Holland to make an
exchange of the commodities which they respectively produce, without the
intervention of England, it is quite certain, that by their being
prevented from so doing, the interests of Holland and Jamaica would
suffer; but if Jamaica is obliged to send her goods to England, and
there exchange them for Dutch goods, an English capital, or English
agency, will be employed in a trade in which it would not otherwise be
engaged. It is allured thither by a bounty, not paid by England, but by
Holland and Jamaica.

That the loss sustained, through a disadvantageous distribution of
labour in two countries, may be beneficial to one of them, while the
other is made to suffer more than the loss actually belonging to such a
distribution, has been stated by Adam Smith himself; which, if true,
will at once prove that a measure, which may be greatly hurtful to a
colony, may be partially beneficial to the mother country.

Speaking of treaties of commerce, he says, "When a nation binds itself
by treaty, either to permit the entry of certain goods from one foreign
country which it prohibits from all others, or to exempt the goods of
one country from duties to which it subjects those of all others, the
country, or at least the merchants and manufacturers of the country,
whose commerce is so favoured, must necessarily derive great advantage
from the treaty. Those merchants and manufacturers enjoy a sort of
monopoly in the country, which is so indulgent to them. That country
becomes a market both more extensive and more advantageous for their
goods; more extensive, because the goods of other nations, being either
excluded or subjected to heavier duties, it takes off a greater quantity
of them; more advantageous, because the merchants of the favoured
country enjoying a sort of monopoly there, will often