COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE AND PORTUGAL 457 
to these writers that to allow the carrying on of commerce A.D. 1689 
with many lands, while the less desirable branches of trade 
were subjected to high duties, was an easy method of 
increasing the revenue of the Crown? 
The more generous economic policy thus commended 
itself to the Court party, who took the line of favouring a 
large customs revenue, even when it was to the disadvantage 
of the landed interest. Their opponents urged that any but the 
branches of commerce, which seemed to compete with the bi oh 
industry of the country, should be prohibited, and that those Z5ae ;.; 
which affected the manufacturing interests favourably should Sovounably 
be developed as far and as rapidly as possible. The opposition eR 
statesmen had thus reached a point of view from which they ““* " 
were inclined to discard the policy of well-ordered trade 
altogether, and to adopt modern tactics in the branches 
of commerce they approved. They did not limit the supply 
of English goods with the view of keeping up the price 
obtainable in foreign markets; they tried to increase the 
volume of business, even though the prices at which particular 
transactions took place might sometimes be very low. The 
struggle in regard to commercial policy between the Court 
and the Country parties was fought out over the French 
trade, and the Country party won. 
The Whigs were undoubtedly right in attaching a very high and relied 
importance to the influence of trade on industrial progress; 90 Suions 
and the Tories were not in a position to establish their point, Ci 
and make it clear that a real benefit accrued to the country, Te 
indirectly and ultimately, through the existence of branches 
of commerce which seemed to be injurious to certain indus- 
tries. The public had come to see that the prohibition of 
the export of bullion should not be applied mechanically. 
Mun had convinced his readers that, by means of a small 
export of silver, a series of commercial movements might be 
set on foot, which would result in the return of a greatly 
increased mass of bullion to the country. The protectionists 
employed the balance of trade as an index of what was good or 
bad in commercial affairs, as if it might be relied on absolutely, 
and they held the field. Not one of the controversialists of 
1 See below, p. 600.