CHAPTER XXVIII 



A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES — 

 ADAM smith's FAMOUS APHORISM — WRONG INTER- 

 PRETATION BY FREE-TRADERS 



One of the chief bases of Free-trade, and perhaps the chiefest, is 

 Adam Smith's famous maxim which is quoted by every Free- 

 trader, for out of it spring many of the Free-trade doctrines. 



" It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to 

 aliempt lo make at linmo a'hat it will cot-i him mors to make than to 

 huij. Th(j tailor docs not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys 

 tlicin of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make 

 his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make 

 neither the one nor the other, but employs these different artiticcrs. 

 All of them lind it for their interest to employ their whole industry 

 in a way in which they have some advantat^e over their neighbours, 

 and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same 

 thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion 

 for. What is ^h'udence in the condwl of every private familij can scarce 

 be folly in that of a great kingdom ^ * 



It is the easiest thing in the world to fling abroad principles 

 and lay down " laws," but a more difficult thing to get people 

 to follow them. 



" Glendower. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. 

 Hotqnir, Why, so can I, or so can any man. 



But will they come, when you do call them ? " f 



Human Fallibility 



No man questions the genius of Landseer, or denies the 

 engineering skill of Ptobert Stephenson, yet the former com- 

 mitted a fundamental error in technique in his famous picture, 

 " The Shoeing Forge," while the latter lost England the Suez 



* " Woalfcb of Nations," Book IV. chap. ii. 



t First part of Kincj Henry IV. 



293 



