It seems quite evident that the Physiocrats would have condemned both the Mercantile and the Colbertian systems. Both of these aimed at securing a favourable balance of trade—an aim which the Physiocrats considered illusory, if not actually immoral. But if they thought all trade was useless it is not easy to understand their enthusiasm for Free Trade. Those economists who nowadays favour Free Trade support it in the belief that it is of immense benefit to every country wherein it is practised, and that the more it is developed the richer will the exchanging countries become. But such was not the Physiocratic doctrine. It is a noteworthy fact that they are to be regarded as the founders of Free Trade, not because of any desire to favour trade as such, but because their attitude towards it was one of disdainful _laissez-faire_. They were not, perhaps, altogether free from the belief that _laissez-faire_ would lead to the disappearance of commerce altogether. They were Free Traders primarily because they desired the freedom of domestic trade, and we must not lose sight of those extraordinary regulations which completely fettered its movements at this time.[67] The “natural order” also implied that each one would be free to buy or sell wherever he chose, within or without the country. It recognised no frontiers,[68] for only through “liberty” could the “good price” be secured. The “good price” meant the highest price and not the lowest, dearth and not cheapness. “Free competition with foreign merchants can alone secure the best possible price, and only the highest price will enable us to increase our stock of wealth and to maintain our population by agriculture.”[69] This is the language of agriculturists rather than of Free Traders. It is the natural result of thinking about agricultural problems, and especially about the question of raising corn; and since Free Trade at this time gave rise to no fears on the score of importation, free exchange meant free exportation. Oncken points out that the commercial _régime_ which the Physiocrats advocated was identical with that in operation in England about this time, where in case of over-abundance exportation was encouraged in order to keep up the price, and in case of dearth importation was permitted in order to ensure a steady supply and to prevent the price rising too much.[70]