Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/109

Rh of acuteness, some of the most difficult questions connected with the subject of the origin and distribution of wealth. But the subject of foreign trade at least had never before been so systematically examined as it now came to be by a crowd of writers in the disputes that arose between various rival commercial interests. We have already had occasion to exhibit some specimens of the reasonings and general views of several of these early speculators, divided as they already were into a number of hostile schools and factions. The prevalent or more popular theories were what have been called the mercantile and manufacturing systems, which, although distinct, were so far from being opposed, that a belief in the one led naturally to the adoption of the other. The manufacturing system, however, was held by some who were not among the adherents of the mercantile system; and of the two it certainly was by far the least unreasonable. The mercantile system assumed that nothing was really wealth except gold and silver; and that consequently the sole test of the profitableness of any branch of trade was whether, on the whole, it brought more money into the country than it took out of it. The fundamental principle of the manufacturing system was, that a trade was profitable to the public whenever, by means of any restrictions or exclusive privileges, it could be made gainful to the capitalists by whom it was carried 2