St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-09-05

not further their military and political
ends by any other means than increased
taxation, implying augmented wealth OF
tie community.
Industry thus became permanent in
terest of European governments, and
even tended to become the principal OBJ
ject of their policy. In natural har-
mony with this state of facts the mer-
camille system arose and grew. attain
ing, as the writer's say, its highest de-
velopment about the middle of the
seventeenth century: but as itappears
time the genius and spirit of all pres
ent civilized governments. The mer-
camille doctrine makes money and
wealth identical, and regards it as the
great object of community to so con-
duct its dealings with other nations as
to attract to itself the largest possible
share of the precious metals. Each
country must seek to export the largest
possible quantity of its own manufac-
lures. anu to import as little as possible
of those of other countries, receiving
the difference of the two values in gold
and silver. This difference is called
the balance of trade, and the balance is
favorable when more money is received
than is pa/I out.
Governments must resort to all avail
able eXpedients = prohibition of and
high duties on the import of foreign
wares, bounties on the export of home
manufactures, restriction on the export
of the precious metals-for the purpose
of securing such balance. The old
feudal economy founded principally on
dealings in kind had given way before
the new money economy, and the dl-
mansions of the latter were everywhere
expanding. Circulation was becoming
more rapid, distant communication
more frequent, city life and movable
property more important. The mer-
cantilists were impressed by the fact
that money is wealth sui generis, that it
is at all times in universal demand, and
that it puts into the hands of its possess
or the power of acquiring all other COM
modities.
This period again was marked by the
formation of the great states with DOW
erful governments at their head. States
men saw that for their own political
ends industry must flourish. But man
ufactures make possible denser
population and a higher total value of
exports than agriculture; they open a
less limited and more promptly eX-
tensible field to enterprise. Hence,
they became the object of special gov
ernmental favor, whilst agriculture fell
comparatively into the background.
The growth of manufactures reacted
on commerce, TO which new and
mighty arena had been opened by the
establishment of colonies. These were
viewed simply as estates, to be worked
for the advantage of the mother coun-
try, and the aim of statesmen was 10
make the colonial trade a source of
public revenue. Each nation as whole,
working for its own power, and the
greater ones for prominence, they ell
tered into competitive struggle in the
economic no less than in the political
field, success in the former being III
deed. by the rulers, regarded as instru-
mental to pre-eminence in the latter.
A national economic interest came to
exist, of which the government made
itself the representative head. States
became sort of artificial dollhouse for
the rearing of urban industries. This
industrial control was exercised in part
directly by the state, but also largely
through privileged corporations and
trading companies. High duties on i'm
ports were resorted to, at first, perhaps,
mainly for revenue, but afterward in
the interest of national production.
Commercial treaties were principal
object of diplomacy, the end in view be-
ing to exclude the competition of other
nations in foreign markets, whilst in
the home market as little room as pos
Sible was given for the introduction of
anything but raw materials from
abroad. The colonies were prohibited
from trading with any other European
nation than the parent country, to
which they supplied either the precious
metals or raw materials purchased with
home manufactures; and it seems that
nations and governments were led to
this mercantile doctrine not by any
form of scientific thought, but by the
force of outward circumstances and the
observation of facts which lie Oh the
surface.
This mercantile system of political
economy is the practice of nations at this
day and time. 1t is true that its princi-
pies have been proved to be falIacieS by
Adam Smith, of England, and by Cues
nay and Vincent. the French physco-
Gratis. but the civilized nations of the
world still struggle for the balance of
trade. They foster and encourage in
dustrieS, having only the end of national
supremacy in view. The political econ
omy which they enforce is as utterly
neglectful of the individual as was the
policy of slavery before its change to
serfdom by the medieval church. 1t is
as utterly neglectful of the individual
as it was in the days of serfdOm. Gov
ernments still use all their powers to
secure alone the national Importance.