ABSTRACT
Commercial jealousy, as already remarked, was especially directed against France, but it was mainly the Whigs who were hostile to that country and who prompted the policy that was predominant for nearly a century. The Tories, on the other hand, being less antagonistic to France, or even friendly to her, favoured a relaxation of the prohibitive or protective regulations that were enforced against her. In setting forth their considerations against the ruling attitude towards France, some of the Tory pamphleteers-Child, North, Bar bon, and the rest-were moved to enunciate declarations concerning the character of international trade which seem like anticipations of the views subsequently put forward by Adam Smith. 1 Their arguments bore primarily upon the question of overbalance, and in particular they threw doubt upon the accepted position in regard to the balance of trade between England and France. They contended that the mere fact that imports from France to England exceeded
exports from England to France was no criterion as to whether the French trade was or was not profitable to England. The point to consider was not the balance of our trade with any particular country but the general balance of our trade with all countries. It was, indeed, almost impossible to calculate the balance between two given countries, whether from the customs house returns or by any other means, and it might be th9-t though as between France and England the balance might be adverse to us, the French trade might be the occasion of commerce with other countries that would be more to our advantage. In point of fact, the Tory pamphleteers in question did not challenge the general theory of balance, but only that of the necessity of maintaining a favourable balance on the transactions with any given country, and they did not get much beyond the best of Mun in this connexion. But in supporting their pleas, some of them were drawn into making statements as to the general character of trade and commerce which are susceptible of a much broader interpretation than that which they possibly intended to be put upon them. Thus in Bar bon, we have a hint of the doctrine that goods ultimately must pay for goods, and that if we prohibit the importation of any foreign commodity, we thereby limit the exportation of so much of the native commodity as was wont to be exchanged for it. North appears to hit hard at the policy of national exclusiveness when he speaks of all the world as but one nation in the matter of trade. Though we must endeavour not to read into these utterances' more than what was in the minds of the authors, they
principles of The Wealth of Nations, but it really contains nothing that is not in accordance with mercantilist doctrine. It puts forward the aim of a favourable balance, and though it suggests a lowering of import duties on raw materials does not extend the proposal to those on manufactured goods-a very necessary part of modern free trade policy. Still the net result of his tariff reform was a removal of restrictions and thus an advance towards freedom of trade. In the colonial sphere, the policy of the typically mercantilist Molasses Act was later, as we have seen, to have serious consequences, but its enforcement was not attempted in Walpole's time, and though his colonial policy has received excessive praise yet, so far as it was one of non-interference, it was in the nature of a break with the old mercantilist ideas, and under him notable progress took place both in English and in colonial prosperity.
