If in both
these trades they should succeed, so as to exclude those who trade on
natural and private capitals, then they will have a monopoly in their
hands, which, under the appearance of a monopoly of capital, will, in
reality, be a monopoly of authority, and will ruin whatever it touches.
The agriculture of the kingdom cannot stand before it.
A little place like Geneva, of not more than from twenty-five to thirty
thousand inhabitants,--which has no territory, or next to none,--which
depends for its existence on the good-will of three neighboring powers,
and is of course continually in the state of something like a _siege_,
or in the speculation of it,--might find some resource in state
granaries, and some revenue from the monopoly of what was sold to the
keepers of public-houses. This is a policy for a state too small for
agriculture. It is not (for instance) fit for so great a country as the
Pope possesses,--where, however, it is adopted and pursued in a greater
extent, and with more strictness. Certain of the Pope's territories,
from whence the city of Rome is supplied, being obliged to furnish Rome
and the granaries of his Holiness with corn at a certain price, that
part of the Papal territories is utterly ruined. That ruin may be traced
with certainty to this sole cause; and it appears indubitably by a
comparison of their state and condition with that of the other part of
the ecclesiastical dominions, not subjected to the same regulations,
which are in circumstances highly flourishing.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166