CHAPTER II. 



The Rise of Manufactures. 



The s}«tematic suppression of all attempts of the colonists to 

 manufacture woolens, linen, iron tools and utensils, or anything 

 else which would otherwise be bought directly from Great 

 Britain was a part of the colonial policy which has already been 

 described. It was entirely natural that England should have 

 found it most advantageous to work up the raw materials of 

 the British Isles and the American plantations into manufac- 

 tured articles for foreign export. It was equally desirable, from 

 the government point of view, that foreign nations should not 

 be allowed to buy directly from the plantations raw materials 

 or food supplies which England could control ; and that they 

 should not supply manufactured articles to British colonies. 



Here the national economists ran on the horns of a dilemma. 

 The British colonists in America were, at the outset, essentially 

 an agricultural people. Had they been a primitive people, they 

 might have been economically self-sufficing, since the variety of 

 soil and climate favored the production of enough to supply 

 the necessities of life, when once inter-colonial barter should 

 be established. But, being civilized European settlers accus- 

 tomed to luxuries of dress and a high standard of living, they 

 desired many articles which they could not, for many genera- 

 tions, have brought to perfection by their own industry. If 

 the balance of their trade with the mother-country had been 

 perfectly adjusted, they could still, in a clumsy fashion, have 

 exchanged food products and raw materials for manufactures, 

 without much distress for lack of the precious metals as a me- 

 dium of exchange. But, as a matter of fact, if they bought 

 more than they sold, which they in every way were encouraged 

 to do, they were expected, somehow, to procure coin to pay 

 for the balance. 



