found in immense quantities by one of our ships in some small and barren
island. In this case it would plainly become the duty of the state to
keep and work the mines for the public benefit, since by doing so, the
gain would be fairly divided among the whole population by decrease of
taxation; whereas by leaving it open to free trade while merely keeping
the government of the island; we should certainly produce enormous evils
during the first struggle for the precious metal, and should ultimately
subside into the monopoly of some wealthy individual or great company,
whose enormous revenue would not equally benefit the community. The
nutmegs of Banda and the tin of Banca are to some extent parallel cases
to this supposititious one, and I believe the Dutch Government will act
most unwisely if they give up their monopoly.
Even the destruction of the nutmeg and clove trees in many islands, in
order to restrict their cultivation to one or two where the monopoly
could be easily guarded, usually made the theme of so much virtuous
indignation against the Dutch, may be defended on similar principles,
and is certainly not nearly so bad as many monopolies we ourselves have
until very recently maintained. Nutmegs and cloves are not necessaries
of life; they are not even used as spices by the natives of the
Moluccas, and no one was materially or permanently injured by the
destruction of the trees, since there are a hundred other products
that can be grown in the same islands, equally valuable and far more
beneficial in a social point of view. It is a case exactly parallel
to our prohibition of the growth of tobacco in England, for fiscal
purposes, and is, morally and economically, neither better nor worse.
The salt monopoly which we so long maintained in India was in much
worse. As long as we keep up a system of excise and customs on articles
of daily use, which requires an elaborate array of officers and
coastguards to carry into effect, and which creates a number of purely
legal crimes, it is the height of absurdity for us to affect indignation
at the conduct of the Dutch, who carried out a much more justifiable,
less hurtful, and more profitable system in their Eastern possessions.
I challenge objectors to point out any physical or moral evils that
have actually resulted from the action of the Dutch Government in this
matter; whereas such evils are the admitted results of every one of our
monopolies and restrictions. The conditions of the two experiments are
totally different. The true "political economy" of a higher race, when
governing a lower race, has never yet been worked out. The application
246