Encountering opposition where I had looked for support, I applied myself to ascertain, if possible, the cause, and, after having spent considerable time in the inquiry, conceived I had detected enough of fallacy in the speculations, even of Adam Smith himself, but more especially of his successors, to warrant the belief that my conclusions might be right, though the practical rules that might be deduced from them, would not coincide with those laid down in what is termed the science of political economy.But, though Ibecame satisfied on this head, it was not my intention to have directly attacked any of the tenets of the school.Setting out from a new point, it seemed to me, that, however far I might advance, it would not be necessary for me directly to oppose, or to attempt to controvert, any received opinions.
During my residence in this country, the field of my inquiries being much contracted, I again recurred to the disquisitions of Adam Smith, and of other European writers of the same school, in order to trace out more fully than I had hitherto done, the connexion between the phenomena attending the increase and diminution of wealth, and those general principles of the nature of man, and of the world, determining, as I conceive, the whole progress of human affairs.Though I was led to this study, simply from my desire to advance, as far as my situation permitted me, in a path of investigation which had, to me, a very lively interest, my prosecution of it had the effect of impressing me more deeply with a conviction of the unsoundness of the system maintained in the Wealth of Nations.
In this stage of my progress I became engaged in a work on the present state of Canada, and oh its relations with the rest of the British Empire.
These relations seem to me to spring from the mutual benefit arising to the colony and the empire from their connexion.The sect of politicians, to whom I allude, deny that any such benefit arises to either party.Were their reasonings correct, it would follow as a necessary consequence, that Canada is, in this respect, of no advantage to Great Britain, and would go far to prove, what, indeed, seems by many to be believed, that the sooner the connexion between them is dissolved the better.
Dissenting as I do, from the opinions of these theorists, it appeared to me, that the work I had undertaken required me to state some of the reasons on which I grounded this dissent, and that, without entering at length into any of the important questions involved in the discussion, I should be able at least to cast a shade of doubt over doctrines asserted with great dogmatism, and acted on with unhesitating confidence.In endeavoring, however, for this purpose, to arrange a series of arguments drawn from a modification of principles that originally suggested themselves to me when engaged in more enlarged inquiries, my work gradually assumed a far more extended and systematic form, than I had at first meditated, and Ibecame engaged in the present attempt, to show that there exist great and radical errors in the whole system, sufficient to vitiate very many of the conclusions drawn from it, and from the fallacies introduced by which, the doctrines of free trade alone derive their plausibility.
In the prosecution of the argument, I have almost entirely confined myself to the consideration of the doctrines to which I am opposed, as they are developed in the Wealth of Nations.I could not have done otherwise, without becoming involved in the discussion of contradictory and conflicting opinions.Neither, as I conceive, is this limitation of essential importance to the determination of the points in debate.If Adam Smith be essentially wrong, none of his followers can be right.The system established by him stands, or falls, with him.
I am not ignorant of the dangers to which this attempt subjects me.
Whoever ventures to attack a system received so generally, and supported by so great a weight of authority, is exposed to various evils.They who have embraced its principles are apt to slight and neglect, or, if that may not he, to conceive it their business to overthrow the heterodox doctrines.
