If restriction on the importation of raw products hinder (as wehave seen) the utilisation of the natural resources and powers ofa State, restrictions on the importation of manufactured goods, onthe contrary, call into life and activity (in the case of apopulous country already far advanced in agriculture andcivilisation) a mass of natural powers; indeed, without doubt, thegreater half of all natural powers, which in the merelyagricultural State lie idle and dead for ever.If, on the one hand,restrictions on the importation of raw products are a hindrance tothe development not only of the manufacturing, but also of theagricultural productive, powers of a State, on the other hand, aninternal manufacturing productive power produced by restrictions onthe importation of foreign manufactures, stimulates the wholeagricultural productive powers of a State to a degree which themost flourishing foreign trade is never able to do.If theimportation of raw products makes the foreign country dependent onus and takes from it the means of manufacturing for itself, so inlike manner, by the importation of foreign manufactures, are werendered dependent on the foreign country, and the means are takenfrom us of manufacturing for ourselves.If the importation ofproducts and raw materials withdraws from the foreign country thematerial for the employment and support of its population anddiverts it to our nation, so does the importation of manufacturedfabrics take from us the opportunity of increasing our ownpopulation and of providing it with employment.If the importationof natural products and raw materials increases the influence ofour nation on the affairs of the world and gives us the means ofcarrying on commerce with all other nations and countries, so bythe importation of manufactured fabrics are we chained to the mostadvanced manufacturing nation, which can rule over us almost as itpleases, as England rules over Portugal.In short, history andstatistics alike prove the correctness of the dictum expressed bythe ministers of George I: that nations are richer and morepowerful the more they export manufactured goods, and import themeans of subsistence and raw materials.In fact, it may be provedthat entire nations have been ruined merely because they haveexported only means of subsistence and raw materials, and haveimported only manufactured goods.Montesquieu,(1*) who understoodbetter than anyone either before or after him how to learn fromHistory the lessons which she imparts to the legislator andpolitician, has well perceived this, although it was impossible forhim in his times, when political economy was as yet but littlestudied, clearly to unfold the causes of it.In contradiction tothe groundless system of the physiocratic school, he maintainedthat Poland would be more prosperous if she gave up altogetherforeign commerce, i.e.if she established a manufacturing power ofher own, and worked up and consumed her own raw materials and meansof subsistence.Only by the development of an internalmanufacturing power, by free, populous, and industrious cities,could Poland obtain a strong internal organisation, nationalindustry, liberty, and wealth; only thus could she maintain herindependence and political superiority over less cultivatedneighbours.Instead of foreign manufactured goods she should haveintroduced (as England did at one time, when she was on the samefooting as regards culture with Poland) foreign manufacturers andforeign manufacturing capital.Her aristocracy, however, preferredto export the paltry fruits of serf labour to foreign markets, andto obtain in return the cheap and fine goods made by foreigncountries.Their successors now may answer the question: whether itis advisable for a nation to buy the fabrics of a foreign countryso long as its own native manufactures are not yet sufficientlystrengthened to be able to compete in prices and quality with theforeigner.The aristocracy of other countries may bear her fate inmind whenever they are instigated by feudal inclinations; they maythen cast a glance at the English aristocracy in order to informthemselves as to what is the value to the great landed proprietorsof a strengthened manufacturing power, of free municipalinstitutions, and of wealthy towns.
Without here entering on an inquiry whether it would have beenpossible for the elective kings of Poland, under the circumstancesunder which they were placed, to introduce such a commercial systemas the hereditary kings of England have gradually developed andestablished, let us imagine that it had been done by them: can wenot perceive what rich fruits such a system would have yielded tothe Polish nation? By the aid of large and industrious towns, thecrown would have been rendered hereditary, the nobility would havebeen obliged to make it convenient to take part in legislation ina House of Peers, and to emancipate their serfs; agriculture wouldhave developed itself, as it has developed itself in England; thePolish nobility would now be rich and respected; the Polish nationwould, even if not so respected and influential in the affairs ofthe world as the English nation is, would have long ago become socivilised and powerful as to extend its influence over the lesscultivated East.Without a manufacturing power she has becomeruined and partitioned, and were she not so already she must havebecome so.Of its own accord and spontaneously no manufacturingpower was developed in her; it could not be so, because its effortswould have been always frustrated by further advanced nations.
Without a system of protection, and under a system of free tradewith further advanced nations, even if Poland had retained herindependence up to the present time, she could never have carriedon anything more than a crippled agriculture; she could never havebecome rich, powerful, and outwardly influential.
