WEALTH OF NATIONS. 245 



of the mother country. The market for her produce 

 is thus continued ; the intercourse of emigration and of 

 trade is maintained between the nations now become 

 independent ; common origin, common language, com- 

 mon laws and customs, making the firm bond which 

 naturally exists between the parent state and the colony, 

 survive their political severance ; and if no untoward 

 circumstances have attended that event, there must 

 always remain a natural amity and alliance between the 

 two branches of the same people. All these things 

 have been fully explained in the work upon Colonial 

 Policy which I published two-and-forty years ago, and 

 they are there illustrated by the history of all the 

 European settlements in America and elsewhere. It 

 is also there shown how little the charge of colonial 

 government has been, and how rarely colonial interests 

 have involved the mother country in war. 



vii. The subject of the mercantile system, the first 

 part of the fourth book, is closed with a general chap- 

 ter, containing not a summary of the insuperable objec- 

 tions to that theory, as might have been expected from 

 the title ' Conclusion of the Mercantile System' but 

 a number of remarks on bounties and prohibitions, 

 specifying those actually given or imposed. These it 

 is unnecessary to abstract. 



In concluding the analysis of this, the most impor- 

 tant part of Dr. Smith's work, we may be permitted to 

 consider, with some regret, that he should have so con- 

 stantly expressed himself with harshness respecting the 

 mercantile and manufacturing classes of the community, 

 or rather the merchants and the master manufacturers. 

 He, on all occasions, regards them as inferior in cha- 

 racter to the land-owners and farmers, inferior in 

 patriotism and disinterestedness, inferior in good feel- 

 ing in short only to be praised for their greater acute- 

 ness, and better knowledge of their own interests. 

 This spirit, which he derives from a view of the many 

 restrictive laws which may no doubt be traced to them. 



