The advance which England has made in manufactures, navigation,and commerce, need therefore not discourage any other nation whichis fitted for manufacturing production, by the possession ofsuitable territory, of national power and intelligence, fromentering into the lists with England's manufacturing supremacy.Afuture is approaching for manufactures, commerce, and navigationwhich will surpass the present as much as the present surpasses thepast.Let us only have the courage to believe in a great nationalfuture, and in that belief to march onward.But above all things wemust have enough national spirit at once to plant and protect thetree, which will yield its first richest fruits only to futuregenerations.We must first gain possession of the home market ofour own nation, at least as respects articles of general necessity,and try to procure the products of tropical countries direct fromthose countries which allow us to pay for them with our ownmanufactured goods.This is especially the task which the Germancommercial union has to solve, if the German nation is not toremain far behind the French and North Americans, nay, far behindeven the Russians.
NOTES:
1.Vide Wealth of Nations, Book IV.chap.ii.(TR.)Chapter 16Popular and State Financial Administration, Political and NationalEconomyThat which has reference to the raising, the expending, and theadministration of the material means of government of a community(the financial economy of the State), must necessarily bedistinguished everywhere from those institutions, regulations,laws, and conditions on which the economy of the individualsubjects of a State is dependent, and by which it is regulated;i.e.from the economy of the people.The necessity for thisdistinction is apparent in reference to all political communities,whether these comprise a whole nation or merely fractions of anation, and whether they are small or large.
In a confederated State, the financial economy of the State isagain divided into the financial economy of the separate states andthe financial economy of the entire union.
The economy of the people becomes identical with nationaleconomy where the State or the confederated State embraces a wholenation fitted for independence by the number of its population, theextent of its territory, by its political institutions,civilisation, wealth, and power, and thus fitted for stability andpolitical influence.The economy of the people and national economyare, under these circumstances, one and the same.They constitutewith the financial economy of the State the political economy ofthe nation.
But, on the other hand, in States whose population andterritory merely consist of the fraction of a nation or of anational territory, which neither by complete and direct union, norby means of a federal union with other fractions, constitutes awhole, we can only take into consideration an 'economy of thepeople' which is directly opposed to 'private economy' or to'financial economy of the State.'
In such an imperfect political condition, the objects andrequirements of a great nationality cannot be taken intoconsideration; especially is it impossible to regulate the economyof the people with reference to the development of a nationcomplete in itself, and with a view to its independence,permanence, and power.Here politics must necessarily remainexcluded from economy, here can one only take account of thenatural laws of social economy, as these would develop and shapethemselves if no large united nationality or national economyexisted anywhere.
It is from this standpoint that that science has beencultivated in Germany which was formerly called 'Stateadministration,' then 'national economy,' then 'political economy,'
then 'popular administration,' without anyone having clearlyapprehended the fundamental error of these systems.
The true conception and real character of national economycould not be recognised because no economically united nation wasin existence, and because for the distinct and definite term'nation' men had everywhere substituted the general and vague term'society', an idea which is as applicable to entire humanity, or toa small country, or to a single town, as to the nation.