370 



B O U N T Y. 



Bounty. Second, The other, and by far the greater class 

 of bounties, comprehends those which relate more di- 

 rectly to the commercial prosperity of a state. These, 

 therefore, have, or profess to have, for their object, 

 the encouragement of some particular branch of agri- 

 culture, trade, or manufacture. For this purpose, 

 direct bounties upon production have seldom been re- 

 sorted to by the British legislature. Those upon 

 exportation have been the favourite, and almost exclu- 

 sive mode. 



Among custom-house people, the term, as connect- 

 ed with exportation, and as we are now using it, is 

 frequently confounded with that of drawback. Ac- 

 cording to them, every payment made by the govern- 



ported without them, to deprive other branches, which 

 require no such aid, of their necessary supply, or to * 

 prevent the capital so diverted, from establishing new 

 and independent modes of employment for itself? 

 And who does not acknowledge, that, besides this ne- 

 gative disadvantage, the positive evil of a double tax 

 does not result to the community ; one to pay the 

 bounty, and another in the advanced price of the 

 commodity in the home market, after part of it has 

 been forced abroad by the bounty ? It is pretended, 

 that new and hazardous manufactures and departments 

 of trade are cherished by this expedient. We should 

 be glad to know any one particular manufacture or 

 branch of trade which could be fairly proved to have 

 derived its maturity from this cause. On the con- 



Er.unl 



ment to the exporter of a commodity which has un- 

 dergone any change since its importation, is bounty, trary.the very nature of the thing seems to indicate the 

 although it should, in fact, be only a return of the impossibility of the fact. No expedient could more 



hough 



duty formerly advanced upon it, when under another 

 shape. Thus, what is called a bounty upon the ex- 

 portation of wrought silk, is, in truth, nothing else 

 than a return or drawback of the duties upon raw 

 silk imported. The term drawback they confine to 

 the return of duties upon those commodities which 

 remain the same as when imported. The two things, 

 however, are in their nature clearly distinct. Nor in 

 our reasonings upon them, is there any difficulty in 

 preventing this impropriety in the use of the terms 

 from affecting the accuracy of our conclusions. Boun- 

 ty upon exportation, denotes a clear advance from the 

 public treasury, without reference to any import du- 

 ties formerly exacted upon the commodity itself, or 

 the raw material of which it is composed. In the 

 loose sense of the custom-house, it can frequently be 

 the subject of little approbation or censure. In that 

 sense, it often implies nothing else than a refunding, 

 more or less, of a duty formerly exacted, and there- 

 fore so far only tends to restore things to their for- 

 mer equilibrium. In the sense, however, in which 

 the term is properly used, a bounty upon exportation 

 must produce some positive effect, either good or evil. 

 Bounties of this sort form one of the great expe- 

 dients by which the Mercantile System undertakes to 

 enrich the country. While by heavy duties, says this 

 system, you restrain the importation of foreign com- 

 modities, and encourage by liberal bounties the ex- 

 portation of your own, the balance of trade with every 

 other state must necessarily be in your favour. This 

 balance must as necessarily be paid in gold and silver; 

 and as these metals form the only species of riches 

 worth the coveting, the nation must inevitably grow 

 rich. It is long since the foundations of this system 

 were demonstrated to be in error ; but the fabric it- 

 self is, to this hour, incessantly propped by the 

 busy and eager hands of a vigilant self-interest. 

 None but persons of obtuse intellect are, now- 

 a-days, blind to the absurdity of its principles ; 

 whilst its pernicious operation is still permitted to 

 gratify a mercantile and manufacturing avarice, at the 

 expence of the general community. Who now main- 

 tains the exploded doctrine of a balance of trade, or 

 indulges a childish fancy for gold and silver as the 

 only or principal characteristics of national wealth ? 

 \Vho docs not now see that bounties upon exporta- 

 tion can have no other effect than, by diverting capi- 

 tal to branches of employment which cannot be sup. 



effectually bribe the indolence and negligence of those 

 who were to receive the bounty. Trusting to their 

 profit at all events, in the premium to be paid to them 

 from the public revenue, the inducement to extraordi- 

 nary skill and dexterity must be prodigiously lessened. 

 The fact accordingly we believe to be, that when- 

 ever the bounty has been withdrawn from any branch 

 of manufacture or trade, that owed its origin and 

 first progress entirely or mainly to it, languor and 

 decay have been the consequence. We say " entire- 

 ly or mainly ;" for where the physical, local, or mo- 

 ral circumstances of the country, afforded sufficient 

 encouragement of themselves, the expedient of a 

 bounty was only the more absurd, and could serve 

 only to retard the natural progress to maturity. 



Bounties being distinguished as they relate to the 

 defence, and as they relate to the commercial pros- 

 perity of the state, a third sort may be regarded as 

 arising from both. This properly forms no new 

 class, but is merely a compound of the elements of 

 the other two. To this class may be referred all 

 the different bounties upon exportation which we 

 have just been considering. All of them, it is 

 said, encourage more or less the extension of our na- 

 vigation and shipping. But this effect, if it exist at 

 all beyond what would otherwise have taken place 

 had the export and import trade been left to their na- 

 tural balance, exists in so subordinate a degree, and 

 is so little insisted upon in comparison of their other 

 great result, the pretended favourable balance of 

 trade, that they must always be principally viewed 

 as affecting our commercial prosperity. There are, 

 however, bounties of this mixed description, which 

 deserve to be considered as principally affecting the 

 defence of the state. Of this sort are the bounties 

 upon the sail-cloth and gunpowder exported. That 

 as much of these commodities would by this time 

 have been manufactured in this country without the 

 encouragement of the bounties as with it, is at least 

 problematical ; and our security has at every differ- 

 ent point of time been too closely connected with a 

 full and ready supply of them, to have allowed them 

 to depend upon a balance of probabilities. 



But by far the most interesting bounty of this 

 mixed character, is that given upon the exportation 

 of grain. Dr Smith condemns it, not only on the prin- 

 ciple applicable to all other bounties upon exporta- 

 tion, but also on the principle peculiar to itself, that 



