e were contrary to reason; and that all mankind, how
destitute soever of these advantages themselves, could do nothing so wise
as to admit all their goods without any protective duties whatever.
Merchants widely engaged in mercantile speculations, who were buying and
selling in all parts of the world, and whose interest it was to purchase
as largely and as cheaply as possible, and to sell as extensively and as
dearly as was consistent with that extent, had no difficulty in arriving
at the conclusion, that commerce should be left perfectly free, that all
protective duties for the shelter of native industry should be abolished,
and that the only charges on the transport of goods should be the cost of
transit and their own profits. Every shilling taken from the import duties
was so much put in their pockets, either directly by their gaining the
remitted duty, or by their indirectly feeling the benefit of it, in the
reduction of price and the widening of the market. Capitalists and
bankers, who had vast sums to lend, found nothing so reasonable as that
they should be permitted, without restraint, to exact any amount of usury
they chose from the necessities, the folly, or the cupidity of their
debtors. The opinion became general, that a nation could only be made rich
by the same means as an individual manufacturer, and that the excess of
the price obtained for the produce of national labour above the cost of
production, was the measure of national wealth.

Under the influence of these opinions, prohibitions, restrictions, and
import duties gave way on all sides. To the huge mass of the ignorant
vulgar, the very sound of "_abolition of restrictions_" was delightful.
Restraint was what they hated, exclusive privilege was their abomination,
liberty of thought and action their supposed elysium. To abolish
monopolies, incorporations, crafts, guildries, and statutes of
apprenticeship, seemed a mighty step in the emancipation of the human
race. Thus they cordially and universally joined in the cry for liberation
from every sort of restriction, alike in thought, commerce, industry, and
action, which had been first raised by the philosophers, and afterwards
generally embraced by the capitalists and merchants. Amidst a chorus of
congratulations, mutual applauses, and sanguine anticipations, with the
cordial approbation of the political economists, the general concurrence
of the merchants, and the loud shouts of the multitude, the doctri