his "Wonderful Lamp," who, by the simple friction of his hand on the magic talisman, could summon his attendant Genii around him, and cover the festive board with supernatural abundance. For, inasmuch as the movements of the child's fingers, give to the raw cotton the surplus value it acquires when wrought, whatever corn that surplus value purchases, which did not grow on territory belonging to the nation, is, as far as the nation is concerned, as much the absolute creation of those movements, out of nothing; that is, without territory to be produced upon, as though the sheaves of wheat came in obedience to a supernatural summons, wafted on fairy wings, from a world of enchantment! CHAPTER IV. ON THE COST TO THE NATION OF MONOPOLIES, PROTECTIONS AND FORCED PRODUCTION. "The cost of living in England is perhaps nearly doubled by our suicidial policy."-Spectator. "It seems of great importance that governments should be fully convinced of the identity of public and private wealth, because it is on this truth that the maintenance of social order, the progress of public wealth, and the melioration of mankind, do in a great measure depend."-Systematic Education. LET us simplify the subject on which we are about to enter, by looking at the whole resources of the nation, whether public or private, as one fund. The nation or common wealth furnishes the revenue, independent of local taxation, with about fifty millions per annum, including all taxes, direct and indirect. We murmur at this, and talk of saving a thousand here, and a million there; but we scarcely seem to remember that the nation, or same common wealth, is out of pocket, over and above this fifty millions, paid to the revenue, a large indefinite sum, not less than, perhaps one hundred and fifty millions, possibly two hundred millions per annum, paid by the consumer, that is by us all, in artificial prices, exclusive of the share of artificial price, caused by the indirect taxation which produces revenue; but additional artificial prices, forming no part of the revenue, and the greater portion of which is utterly lost, in merely replacing the useless cost of forced production, and the remainder, appropriated by monopolists home and foreign, to some of whom it is an unnecessary boon, granted at the expense of equal justice or good-will to all, and to others of whom it proves a curse, by changing the sure, though moderate gains of regular trade, into a dangerous species of gaming, while others again are only repaid by their own monopoly, what they lose by the monopolies of others, so that it is the property which is not engaged in any trade,* and labour, as long as the labour market is overstocked, which actually bears all the loss, without any remunerating circumstance. Waving then, for the present, the whole question of the practicability of reducing our public expenditure, that is the fifty millions per annum we pay to the revenue, if we merely cease to encourage the wilful waste of forced production, and to grant the needless * Landowners, as long as they retain their bread monopoly, must consent to be classed among the monopolizing traders. boon of unjust profits, by at once, on the principle of good-will to all, or equal justice, sweeping away all monopolies, protections, and interferences whatsoever with the operations of industry, leaving all markets, whether for sale or purchase, equally free. Monopoly prices, that is additional artificial prices, over and above those occasioned by customs and excise, being thus done away with, it is manifest that the nation will save the whole of the additional sum, of not less than, perhaps one hundred and fifty millions, possibly two hundred millions per annum, which she is now out of pocket, over and above the fifty millions per annum paid to the revenue, and that, therefore, she will be the better able to furnish the revenue with the said fifty millions.* If, further, the act of sweeping away protections, monopolies and other injurious restrictions, be calculated to clear away, at the same time, certain obstructions which now choke the channels, by which new capital would else flow into the national fund, the removal of those obstructions, by admitting that new capital, would, of course, increase that fund. When that fund shall have doubled, when it shall have trebled, when it shall have become ten fold, *In public as well as in private expenses, great wealth may perhaps be admitted as an apology for great folly. But there must surely be something more than ordinary absurdity in continuing such profusion in times of general difficulty and distress." Adam Smith. will not the fifty millions per annum, with which that fund has to furnish the revenue, particularly if raised, as hereafter to be proposed, by a per centage on that fund, become, at each increase of that fund, relatively, less and less ? The grounds on which it may be considered fair to calculate, that the artificial prices occasioned by monopolies, protections, and forced production, cost the nation, at least, somewhere about one hundred and fifty millions, or possibly, two hundred millions per annum, that does no one any just good, over and above the fifty millions per annum paid to the revenue, are as follows: It is a public fact, requiring no proof, that the artificial prices occasioned by protections, monopolies, forced production, and indirect taxation, altogether, constitute much more, on an average, than half the price of every article of consumption. Mr. Kennedy, member for Tiverton, in a late pamphlet of his, calculates two thirds; which, all things considered, seems a very moderate calculation. The rates of duties, however, on most articles of consumption, varying in general from 20 to 150 per cent, are open to all who choose to glance at them. Some of the rates are very much higher. Sir Robert Peel,* by way of defending the Malt tax as being only 57 per cent, enumerated a * Debate on the Malt Tax, March, 18th, 1835. H |