WEALTH OF NATIONS. 177 



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 else- 

 where. 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 chapter, 

 containing not a summary of the insuperable objections 

 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, speci- 

 fying those actually given or imposed. These it is unne- 

 cessary to abstract. 



In concluding the analysis of this, the most important 

 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 character 

 to the land-owners and farmers, inferior in patriotism 

 and disinterestedness, inferior in good feeling in short 

 only to be praised for their greater acuteness, 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, breaks forth constantly 



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