An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

any other purpose but the curing of fish. But from the 5th April

1771 to the 5th April 1782, the quantity of foreign salt imported

amounted to 936,974 bushels, at eighty-four pounds the bushel ;

the quantity of Scotch salt delivered from the works to the

fish-curers, to no more than 168,226, at fifty-six pounds the

bushel only. It would appear, therefore, that it is principally

foreign salt that is used in the fisheries. Upon every barrel of

herrings exported, there is, besides, a bounty of 2s:8d. and more

than two-thirds of the buss-caught herrings are exported. Put all

these things together, and you will find that, during these

eleven years, every barrel of buss-caught herrings, cured with

Scotch salt, when exported, has cost government 17s:11�d.; and,

when entered for home consumption, 14s:3�d.; and that every

barrel cured with foreign salt, when exported, has cost

government �1:7:5�d. ; and, when entered for home consumption,

�1:3:9�d. The price of a barrel of good merchantable herrings

runs from seventeen and eighteen to four and five-and-twenty

shillings ; about a guinea at an average. {See the accounts at

the end of this Book.}

Secondly, The bounty to the white-herring fishery is a

tonnage bounty, and is proportioned to the burden of the ship,

not to her diliglence or success in the fishery ; and it has, I

am afraid, been too common for the vessels to fit out for the

sole purpose of catching, not the fish but the bounty. In the

year 1759, when the bounty was at fifty shillings the ton, the

whole buss fishery of Scotland brought in only four barrels of

sea-sticks. In that year, each barrel of sea-sticks cost

government, in bounties alone, �113:15s.; each barrel of

merchantable herrings �159:7:6.

Thirdly, The mode of fishing, for which this tonnage bounty

in the white herring fishery has been given (by busses or decked

vessels from twenry to eighty tons burden ), seems not so well

adapted to the situation of Scotland, as to that of Holland, from

the practice of which country it appears to have been borrowed.

Holland lies at a great distance from the seas to which herrings

are known principally to resort, and can, therefore, carry on

that fishery only in decked vessels, which can carry water and

provisions sufficient for a voyage to a distant sea ; but the

Hebrides, or Western Isdands, the islands of Shetland, and the

northern and north-western coasts of Scotland, the countries in

whose neighbourhood the herring fishery is principally carried

on. are everywhere intersected by arms of the sea, which run up a

considerable way into the land, and which, in the language of the

country, are called sea-lochs. It is to these sea-lochs that the

herrings principally resort during the seasons in which they

visit these seas; for the visits of this, and, I am assured, of

many other sorts of fish, are not quite regular and constant. A

boat-fishery, therefore, seems to be the mode of fishing best

adapted to the peculiar situation of Scotland, the fishers

carrying the herrings on shore as fast as they are taken, to he

either cured or consumed fresh. But the great encouragement which

a bounty of 30s. the ton gives to the buss-fishery, is

necessarily a discouragement to the boat-fishery, which, having

no such bounty, cannot bring its cured fish to market upon the

same terms as the buss-fishery. The boat-fishery; accordingly,

which, before the establishment of the buss-bounty, was very

considerable, and is said to have employed a number of seamen,

not inferior to what the buss-fishery employs at present, is now

gone almost entirely to decay. Of the former extent, however, of

this now ruined and abandoned fishery, I must acknowledge that I

cannot pretend to speak with much precision. As no bounty

was-paid upon the outfit of the boat-fishery, no account was

taken of it by the officers of the customs or salt duties.

Fourthly, In many parts of Scotland, during certain seasons

of the year, herrings make no inconsiderable part of the food of

the common people. A bounty which tended to lower their price in

the home market, might countribute a good deal to the relief of a

great number of our fellow-subjects, whose circumstances are by

no means affuent. But the herring-bus bounty contributes to no

such good purpose. It has ruined the boat fishery, which is by

far the best adapted for the supply of the home market; and the

additional bounty of 2s:8d. the barrel upon exportation, carries

the greater part, more than two-thirds, of the produce of the

buss-fishery abroad. Between thirty and forty years ago, before

the establishment of the buss-bounty, 16s. the barrel, I have

been assured, was the common price of white herrings. Between ten

and fifteen years ago, before the boat-fishery was entirely

ruined, the price was said to have run from seventeen to twenty

shillings the barrel. For these last five years, it has, at an

average, been at twentyfive shillings the barrel. This high

price, however, may have been owing to the real scarcity of the

herrings upon the coast of Scotland. I must observe, too, that

the cask or barrel, which is usually sold with the herrings, and

of which the price is included in all the foregoing prices, has,

since the commencement of the American war, risen to about double

its former price, or from about 3s. to about 6s. I must likewise

observe, that the accounts I have received of the prices of

former times, have been by no means quite uniform and consistent,

and an old man of great accuracy and experience has assured me,

that, more than fifty years ago, a guinea was the usual price of

a barrel of good merchantable herrings; and this, I imagine, may

still be looked upon as the average price. All accounts, however,

I think, agree that the price has not been lowered in the home

market in consequence of the buss-bounty.

When the undertakers of fisheries, after such liberal bounties

have been bestowed upon them, continue to sell their commodity at

the same, or even at a higher price than they were accustomed to

do before, it might be expected that their profits should be very

great ; and it is not improbable that those of some individuals

may have been so. In general, however, I have every reason to

believe they have been quite otherwise. The usual effect of such

bounties is, to encourage rash undertakers to adventure in a

business which they do not understand; and what they lose by

their own negligence and ignorance, more than compensates all

that they can gain by the utmost liberality of government. In

1750, by the same act which first gave the bounty of 30s. the ton

for the encouragement of the white herring fishery (the 23d Geo.

II. chap. 24), a joint stock company was erected, with a capital

of �500,000, to which the subscribers (over and above all other

encouragements, the tonnage bounty just now mentioned, the

exportation bounty of 2s:8d. the barrel, the delivery of both

British and foreign salt duty free) were, during the space of

fourteen years, for every hundred pounds which they subscribed

and paid into the stock of the society, entitled to three pounds

a-year, to be paid by the receiver-general of the customs in

equal halfyearly payments. Besides this great company, the

residence of whose governor and directors was to be in London, it

was declared lawful to erect different fishing chambers in all

the different outports of the kingdom, provided a sum not less

than �10,000 was subscribed into the capital of each, to be

managed at its own risk, and for its own profit and loss. The

same annuity, and the same encouragements of all kinds, were

given to the trade of those inferior chambers as to that of the

great company. The subscription of the great company was soon

filled up, and several different fishing chambers were erected in

the different outports of the kingdom. In spite of all these

encouragements, almost all those different companies, both great

and small, lost either the whole or the greater part of their

capitals; scarce a vestige now remains of any of them, and the

white-herring fishery is now entirely, or almost entirely,

carried on by private adventurers.

If any particular manufacture was necessary, indeed, for the

defence of the society, it might not always be prudent to depend

upon our neighbours for the supply; and if such manufacture could

not otherwise be supported at home, it might not be unreasonable

that all the other branches of industry should be taxed in order

to support it. The bounties upon the exportation of British made

sail-cloth, and British made gunpowder, may, perhaps, both be

vindicated upon this principle.

But though it can very seldom be reasonable to tax the industry

of the great body of the people, in order to support that of some

particular class of manufacturers ; yet, in the wantonness of

great prosperity, when the public enjoys a greater revenue than

it knows well what to do with, to give such bounties to favourite

manufactures, may, perhaps, be as natural as to incur any other

idle expense. In public, as well as in private expenses, great

wealth, may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for

great folly. But there must surely be something more than

ordinary absurdity in continuing such profusion in times of

general difficulty and distress.

What is called a bounty, is sometimes no more than a drawback,

and, consequently, is not liable to the same objections as what

is properly a bounty. The bounty, for example, upon refined sugar

exported, may be considered as a drawback of the duties upon the

brown and Muscovado sugars, from which it is made; the bounty

upon wrought silk exported, a drawback of the duties upon raw and

thrown silk imported; the bounty upon gunpowder exported, a

drawback of the duties upon brimstone and saltpetre imported. In

the language of the customs, those allowances only are called

drawbacks which are given upon goods exported in the same form in

which they are imported. When that form has been so altered by

manufacture of any kind as to come under a new denomination, they

are called bounties.

Premiums given by the public to artists and manufacturers, who

excel in their particular occupations, are not liable to the same

objections as bounties. By encouraging extraordinary dexterity

and ingenuity, they serve to keep up the emulation of the workmen

actually employed in those respective occupations, and are not

considerable enough to turn towards any one of them a greater

share of the capital of the country than what would go to it of

its own accord. Their tendency is not to overturn the natural

balance of employments, but to render the work which is done in

each as perfect and complete as possible. The expense of

premiums, besides, is very trifling, that of bounties very great.

The bounty upon corn alone has sometimes cost the public, in one

year, more than �300,000.

Bounties are sometimes called premiums, as drawbacks are

sometimes called bounties. But we must, in all cases, attend to

the nature of the thing, without paying any regard to the word.

Digression concerning the Corn Trade and Corn Laws.

I cannot conclude this chapter concerning bounties, without

observing, that the praises which have been bestowed upon the law

which establishes the bounty upon the exportation of corn, and

upon that system of regulations which is connected with it, are

altogether unmerited. A particular examination of the nature of

the corn trade, and of the principal British laws which relate to

it, will sufficiently demonstrate the truth of this assertion.

The great importance of this subject must justify the length of

the digression.

The trade of the corn