Nota bene: Today’s post contains the third installment of my multi-part review of Adam Smith’s 1784 pamphlet Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

We now turn to the shortest selection in Adam Smith’s 79-page pamphlet. In brief (pun intended!), the shortest passage in this work is his third addition/insert (Part #3), which consists of just one sentence and reads as follows:

“The variety of goods of which the importation into Great Britain is prohibited, either absolutely, or under certain circumstances, greatly exceeds what can easily be suspected by those who are not well acquainted with the laws of the customs.” (Smith 1784, p. 2)

Although this particular passage is incredibly short (just 39 words!), it is significant because of its biographical nature, for Smith had been a Commissioner of Scottish Customs and Salt Duties for six years by the time he published this passage in 1784. (Smith became a customs official in February 1778; see here.) Presumably, the Scottish scholar-cum-customs officer knew his country’s trade laws — i.e. was “well acquainted with the laws of the customs” — from his own personal knowledge.

In fact, all of the remaining passages in Smith’s 1784 pamphlet will reflect, in one way or another, his work as a royal customs officer. As a result, this pamphlet is worth studying as a stand-alone work in its own right, for it will provide us a first-hand glimpse into the final chapter of Smith’s life and perhaps solve one of the most enduring yet under-explored “Adam Smith problems” that Salim Rashid and I identify in our forthcoming book Beyond the Adam Smith Problem (Palgrave Macmillan, in press): how can we reconcile Smith’s stirring defense of free trade with his day-to-day duties as a customs commissioner, i.e. as a public official sworn to uphold the very laws he so eloquently condemns in Wealth of Nations? (To be continued.)