第139章

Deceit, however, it is to be observed, when exercised in the exchange of mere luxuries, occasions an immediate gain, instead of loss, to communities.

When there was a prohibition on French silks imported into Britain, they were particularly fashionable, their great expense rendered them a fit material for vanity.The British manufacturer could make fabrics not to be distinguished from them, but which of course as British goods would not sell.They were, however, readily vended as smuggled French goods by individuals hired to hawk them about under that guise.The deceit was certainly an immediate loss to no one, a considerable gain to the manufacturer.(122) The ulterior effects of all deceit, however, in weakening the moral principle, must ever be injurious to communities.

In exchanges effected by the intervention of credit the necessity of perfect fair dealing is more apparent, and the losses occasioned by fraud and deceit still greater.The persons giving the credit must generally depend for repayment on the good faith of the persons receiving it.The extent consequently to which these transactions can in any community be carried, must be measured by the general probity of its members.Where people are inclined to make promises which they have reason to fear they may not be able to fulfil, or which they know they cannot fulfil, the system of credit is confined or destroyed.

The prevalence of a spirit of integrity in credit transactions, would seem to proceed from similar principles to those, on which good faith and honesty in all transactions depend.

The exchange of instruments between communities is obstructed by restrictions, prohibitions, or war.To the effects of these we have already partially adverted.They operate differently, as the commodities are utilities, or luxuries.

1.An interruption of the exchange of utilities between communities checks accumulation, by taking from it the materials on which it exerts itself; it excites the inventive faculty, by prompting it to discover fresh materials, and new means of forming them into instruments.According, therefore, to the circumstances of the community, and the nature of the materials within reach of its members, it may either come to be a good or an evil.

Were the intercourse between two communities, of which the one A exchanges coal for the wool of the other B, suddenly to cease, the event might be felt as a very great evil, and, at first, the substitutes for these materials requiring more labor to work them up into instruments of the sort required, the whole stock of instruments possessed by both societies might be carried on in the series some distance towards the more slowly returning orders.

It might happen, however, that in the society B importing coal, there were beds of coal as easy to work as in A, and that in the other A importing wool, there were tracts of land as capable of feeding sheep as those employed for that purpose in B.In this case, it is probable that invention would apply to such materials, and that, in time, coal would be obtained in B, at as cheap a rate as in A, and wool in A at as cheap a rate as in B.Were it so, by the saving of labor and of time in the transport of the commodities from country to country, the stocks of instruments in both societies would be placed in orders of more quick return than they were at the commencement of the interruption.Whether the loss on the one hand, or the saving on the other, might, in the circumstances of either society, be fitly esteemed greater, would depend on whether or not there were materials in existence that by the power of invention might with sufficient ease, and within the requisite time supply the particular wants in question.There might not be fit materials, or the time requisite to work them up might be too long.

Before the cession of Norway to Sweden, it was reckoned to produce grain or vegetables for its inhabitants sufficient only for four or five months.

Its supplies for the rest of the year were obtained from Denmark, to which country, in return for corn received from it, it exported timber.When the great powers had resolved on its annexation to Sweden, a British fleet blockaded its coast, the peasantry came in starving crowds to the towns, and a country from which the bravest race in Europe once issued, was compelled to yield without a stroke.The insult then received, and the hardships endured, had the effect of giving a great stimulus to agriculture.The more opulent formed themselves into societies for the purpose of improving the art, individuals skilled in its operations were engaged in Britain, and in a few years a great addition was made to the agricultural produce of the country.(123) The time in this case required for the formation of instruments was too great, even supposing there had been a sufficiency of materials of which to construct them, and had not, therefore, the society submitted, it must have endured excessive evils.