Chap. XII: Of the Competition between Nations

Mankind daily profit by experience, and acquire knowledge at their own cost.

We have said that what lays the foundation of foreign trade, is the ease and convenience which strangers find in having their wants supplied by those who have set industry on foot. The natural consequence of this foreign demand is to bring in wealth, and to promote augmentations of every kind. As long as these go on, it will be impossible for other nations to rival the traders, because their situation is every day growing better: dexterity increasing diminishes the price of work; every circumstance, in short, becomes more favourable; the balance never vibrates, but by one of the scales growing positively heavier, and it is constantly coming even by an increase of weight on the other side. We have seen how these revolutions never can raise the intrinsic value of goods, and have observed that this is the road to greatness.

The slower any man travels, the longer he is in coming to his journey's end; and when his health requires travelling, and that he cannot go far from home, he rides out in a morning and comes home to dinner.

This represents another kind of vibration of the balance, and when things are come to such a height as to render a train of augmentations impossible, the next best expedient is, to permit alternate vibrations of diminution and augmentation.

Work augments, I shall suppose, and no more demand can be procured; it may then be a good expedient to diminish hands, by making soldiers of them; by employing them in public works; or by sending them out of the country to become useful in its colonies. These operations give a relative weight to the scale of demand, and revive a competition on that side. Then the industrious hands must be gently increased a-new, and the balance kept in vibration as long as possible. By these alternate augmentations and diminutions, hurtful revolutions, and the subversion of the balance, may be prevented. This is an expedient for standing still without harm, when one cannot go forward to advantage.

If such a plan be followed, an industrious nation will continue in a situation to profit of the smallest advantage from revolutions in other countries, occasioned by the subversion of their balance; which may present an opportunity of new vibrations by alternate augmentations.

On such occasions, the abilities of a statesman are discovered, in directing and conducting what I call the delicacy of national competition. We shall then observe him imitating the mariners, who do not take in their sails when the wind falls calm, but keep them trimmed and ready to profit of the least breath of a favourable gale. Let me follow my comparison: The trading nations of Europe represent a fleet of ships, every one striving who shall get first to a certain port. The statesman of each is the master. The same wind blows upon all; and this wind is the principle of self-interest, which engages every consumer to seek the cheapest and the best market. No trade wind can be more general, or more constant than this; the natural advantages of each country represent the degree of goodness of each vessel; but the master who sails his ship with the greatest dexterity, and he who can lay his rivals under the lee of his sails, will, caeteris paribus, undoubtedly get before them, and maintain his advantage.

While a trading nation, which has got an established advantage over her rivals, can be kept from declining, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for any other to enter into competition with her: but when the balance begins to vibrate by alternate diminutions; when a decrease of demand operates a failure of supply; when this again is kept low, in order to raise the competition of consumers; and when, instead of restoring the balance by a gentle augmentation, a people are engaged, from the allurements of high profits, to discourage every attempt to bring down the market; then the scissors of foreign rivalship will fairly trim off the superfluity of demand; prices will fall, and a return of the same circumstances will prepare the way for another vibration downwards.

Such operations as these, are just what is requisite for facilitating the competition of rival nations; and are the only means possible to engage those who did not formerly work, to begin and supply themselves.

Did matters stand so, the evil would be supportable; strangers would supply the superfluities only of demand, and the balance would still be found in a kind of equilibrium at home. But, alas ! even this happy state can be of short duration only. The beginnings of trade with the strangers will prove just as favourable to the vibration of their balance, by augmentations, as it was formerly to the home-traders; and now every augmentation to those, must imply a diminution to the others. What will then become of such hands, in the trading nation, as subsist by supplying the foreign market only? Will not this revolution work the same effect, as to these, as if an additional number of hands had been employed to supply the same consumption? And will not this utterly destroy the balance among the traders, by throwing an unsurmountable competition on the side of the supply? It will however have a different effect from what might have happened, if the same number of hands had been thrown into the trading nation; for, in this case, they might destroy the consolidated profits only upon labour, and perhaps restore the balance: the inconvenience would be equally felt by every workman, but profit would result to the public. But in the other case, the old traders will find no foreign sale for their work; these branches of industry will fall below the price of subsistence, and the new beginners will have reasonable profits in supplying their own wants, I say reasonable, because this transition of trade from one nation to another, never can be sudden or easy; and can take place in proportion only to the rise in the intrinsic value of goods in that which is upon the decline, not in proportion to the rise in their profits upon the sale of them: for as long as the most extravagant profits do not become consolidated, as we have said, with the value of the work, a diminution of competition among the consumers, which may be occasioned by a beginning of foreign industry, will quickly make them disappear; and this will prove a fatal blow to the first undertakings of the rival nations. But when once they are fairly so consolidated, that prices can no more come down of themselves, and that the statesman will not lend his helping hand, then the new beginners pluck up courage, and set out by making small profits: because in all new undertakings there is mismanagement and considerable loss; and nothing discourages mankind from new undertakings more than difficult beginnings.

As long, therefore, as a trading state is upon the rising hand, or even not upon the decline, and while the balance is kept right without the expedient of alternate diminutions, work will always be supplied from this quarter, cheaper than it possibly can be furnished from any other, where the same dexterity does not prevail. But when a nation begins to lose ground, then the very columns which supported her grandeur, begin, by their weight, to precipitate her decline. The wealth of her citizens will support and augment the home demand, and encourage that blind fondness for high profits, which it is impossible to preserve. The moment these consolidate to a certain degree, they have the effect of banishing from the market the demand of strangers, who only can enrich her. It is in vain to look for their return after the nation has discovered her mistake, although she should be able to correct it; because, before this can happen, her rivals will have profited of the golden opportunity, and during the infatuation of the traders, will, even by their assistance, have got fairly over the painful struggle against their superior dexterity.

Thus it happens, that so soon as matters begin to go backward in a trading nation, and that by the increase of their riches, luxury and extravagance take place of oeconomy and frugality among the industrious; when the inhabitants themselves foolishly enter into competition with strangers for their own commodities; and when a statesman looks coolly on, with his arms across, or takes it into his head, that it is not his business to interpose, the prices of the dextrous workman will rise above the amount of the mismanagement, loss, and reasonable profits, of the new beginners; and when this comes to be the case, trade will decay where it flourished most, and take root in a new soil. This I call a competition between nations.