In his opinion, the name of strict prohibition might, therefore,
in commerce, be got rid of altogether; but he did not see the same
objection to protecting duties, which, while they admitted of the
introduction of commodities from abroad similar to those which we
ourselves manufactured, placed them so much on a level as to allow a
competition between them." "No axiom," he added, "was more true than
this: that it was by growing what the territory of a country could grow
most cheaply, and by receiving from other countries what it could not
produce except at too great an expense, that the greatest degree of
happiness was to be communicated to the greatest extent of population."
In assenting to the motion, the first minister[3] of the crown expressed
his own opinion of the great advantage resulting from unrestricted
freedom of trade. "Of the soundness of that general principle," he
observed, "I can entertain no doubt. I can entertain no doubt of what
would have been the great advantages to the civilized world, if the
system of unrestricted trade had been acted upon by every nation from
the earliest period of its commercial intercourse with its neighbors. If
to those advantages there could have been any exceptions, I am persuaded
that they would have been but few; and I am also persuaded that the
cases to which they would have referred would not have been, in
themselves, connected with the trade and commerce of England. But we are
now in a situation in which, I will not say that a reference to the
principle of unrestricted trade can be of no use, because such a
reference may correct erroneous reasoning, but in which it is impossible
for us, or for any country in the world but the United States of
America, to act unreservedly on that principle.
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