When he passes from commercial considerations to the larger aspects of freedom and good government, his wisdom is no less manifest. What Ireland most wants, he writes, are order, police, and a regular administration of justice, both to protect and to restrain the inferior ranks of people: “articles more essential to the progress of industry than both coal and wood put together, and which Ireland must continue to want as long as it continues to be divided between two hostile nations, the oppressors and the oppressed, the Protestants and the Papists.” He then points out that what the monopolists dread (the prosperity of another country) is not an evil but a good:—“Should the industry of Ireland, in consequence of freedom and good government, ever equal that of England, so much the better would it be not only for the whole British Empire, but for the particular province of England. As the wealth and industry of Lancashire does not obstruct but promote that of Yorkshire, so the wealth and industry of Ireland would not obstruct but promote that of England.” For exactly the same reasons he wanted free trade with France, and with the whole world. If it is good for one man to trade freely with another, for a town with a town, and for a county with a county, how can it be otherwise than good for countries to trade freely together? An economist who strikes at the last proposition should hail Smith’s humorous project of a tariff which would secure Scotland a vintage as well as a harvest. Much more might be said upon a subject that enters into the politics of every State, and vitally affects the welfare of every struggling toiler in the universe. But the purpose of this chapter will be fulfilled if it restores to Adam Smith his identity as the protagonist in a great contest, as the champion of the right to trade with all the world, against those who stand for privileges, monopolies, and tariffs. According to Bagehot, Smith’s name can no more be dissociated from free trade than Homer’s from the siege of Troy. “So long as the doctrines of protection exist—and they seem likely to do so, as human interests are what they are, and human nature is what it is—Adam Smith will always be quoted as the great authority on Anti-Protectionism, as the man who first told the world the truth, so that the world could learn and believe it.” CHAPTER XI LAST YEARS (1776-1790)