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CHAP. VI.: Some Effects of an extensive Navigation. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. VI.

Some Effects of an extensive Navigation.

IT sometimes happens that a nation, when engaged in an œconomical commerce, having need of the merchandizes of one country, which serve as a capital or stock for procuring the commodities of another, is satisfied with making very little profits, and frequently none at all, in trading with the former, in expectation of gaining greatly by the latter. Thus, when the Dutch were almost the only nation that carried on the trade from the South to the North of Europe; the French wines, which they imported to the North, were in some measure only a capital or stock for conducting their commerce in that part of the world.

It is a known fact, that there are some kinds of merchandize in Holland, which, though imported from afar, sell for very little more than they cost upon the spot. They account for it thus: a captain who has occasion to ballast his ship, will load it with marble; if he wants wood for stowage, he will buy it; and provided he loses nothing by the bargain, he will think himself a gainer. Thus it is that Holland has its quarries and its forests.

Further, it may happen so, that not only a commerce which brings in nothing, shall be useful; but even a losing trade shall be beneficial. I have heard it affirmed in Holland, that the whale-fishery in general does not answer the expence: but it must be observed, that the persons employed in building the ships, as also those who furnish the rigging and provisions, are jointly concerned in the fishery. Should they happen to lose in the voyage, they have had a profit in fitting out the vessel. This commerce, in short, is a kind of lottery, and every one is allured with the hopes of a prize. Mankind are generally fond of gaming; and even the most prudent have no aversion to it, when the disagreeable circumstances attending it, such as dissipation, anxiety, passion, loss of time, and even of life and fortune, are concealed from their view.