chap. xix.J SPICE MONOPOLY. 455 



are to some extent parallel cases to this supposititious 

 one, and I believe the Dutch Government will act most 

 unwisely if they give up their monopoly. 



Even the destruction of the nutmeg and clove trees in 

 many islands, in order to restrict their cultivation to one or 

 two where the monopoly could be easily guarded, usually 

 made the theme of so much virtuous indignation against 

 the Dutch, may be defended on similar principles, and is 

 certainly not nearly so bad as many monopolies we our- 

 selves have till very recently maintained. Nutmegs and 

 cloves are not necessaries of life ; they are not even used 

 as spices by the natives of the Moluccas, and no one was 

 materially or permanently injured by the destruction of 

 the trees, since there are a hundred other products that can 

 be grown in the same islands, ecmally valuable and far 

 more beneficial in a social point of view. It is a case 

 exactly parallel to our prohibition of the growth of tobacco 

 in England, for fiscal purposes, and is, morally and economi- 

 cally, neither better nor worse. The salt monopoly which 

 we so long maintained in India was much worse. As long 

 as we keep up a system of excise and customs on articles 

 of daily use, which requires an elaborate array of officers 

 and coastguards to carry into effect, and which creates a 

 number of purely legal crimes, it is the height of absurdity 

 for us to affect indignation at the conduct of the Dutch, 

 who carried out a much more justifiable, less hurtful, and 



