Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/427

 ARTICLES OF EXPORTATION. 411 ing them or trading in them. It may be asked, in what manner the ruling authority would be com- pensated for the sacrifice of so many privileges ? It would be compensated by the increase of in- dustry which freedom would produce. Foreign- ers from Western India, from China, and from Europe, would flock to the flivoured land of spices as traders and as settlers, and where wealth ex- isted, the government of these islands, of whatever nation, would not want, what no government has ever wanted, the means of appropriating a share of that wealth for the exigencies of the state. The duties upon trade would necessarily constitute the most important branch of revenue. From the su- perior protection and security which European in- stitutions are sure to confer beyond native ones, the lands would acquire a value, and the rate of the unappropriated ones would, of course, become a respectable source of revenue. This would in- sure at least as large a revenue as the existing sys- tem, which, it is now well known, was not only no source of commercial profit, but, for many years, was inadequate to defray the bare expences of the local establishments necessary to enforce it. The advocates of monopoly have objected to any at- tempt to ameliorate the condition of the inhabit- ants of the Moluccas, by restoring to them their natural rights, that they would be incapable of ex- ercising any rational freedom of conduct in their