WEALTH OF NATIONS. 227 



can never raise it so cheaply or so profitably as when 

 left free ; that all restraints upon importation diminish 

 the value of home produce by raising the price of the 

 foreign, which is its price ; that all bounties are a waste 

 of the capital, and obstruct the very ends they are in- 

 tended to gain ; finally, that the metals themselves are 

 not wealth, but only one part, and a very small and 

 most insignificant part, of the national capital, Avhich 

 might be augmented to exuberance, and make the na- 

 tion abundantly and superabundantly wealthy, without 

 any specie at all, if means could be devised of restrain- 

 ing the excessive issue of a paper currency, or any other 

 instrument could be devised for conveniently effecting 

 exchanges accustomed as we now are to these obvious 

 views of this subject, we seem to wonder that the ela- 

 borate exposure of manifest error to which the sioc 

 chapters of Dr. Smith's work are devoted, each chapter 

 examining one of the resources of the mercantile sys- 

 tem, should ever have been required in order to over- 

 throw the fabric. But it is because he wrote those 

 invaluable chapters that these doctrines, which though 

 often before attacked, as we have seen, both abroad 

 and at home, yet continued everywhere to prevail, and 

 especially to prevail among the rulers of the world, at 

 length received their demonstrative refutation, and that 

 we now can look back with wonder on the darkness 

 which this great light dispelled. 



i. If the importation of any commodity is restricted, 

 there is an inducement held out to the raising or the 

 manufacturing of that commodity at home ; capital is 

 drawn towards its production which would not other- 

 wise have been so employed, and workmen are engaged 

 in raising or manufacturing it who would have been 

 otherwise occupied. But this is hurtful on two ac- 

 counts ; men's regard for their own interest is sure to 

 make them work and employ workmen in the way most 

 likely to yield them a profit; and the natural advantages 

 of each country or district of a country for raising or 



