Title: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Author: Smith, Adam, 1723-1790
Language: English
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AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.


By Adam Smith



INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.


The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies
it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually
consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce
of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other
nations.

According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it,
bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are
to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the
necessaries and conveniencies for which it has occasion.

But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different
circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which
its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion
between the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that
of those who are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate,
or extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or
scantiness of its annual supply must, in that particular situation,
depend upon those two circumstances.

The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more
upon the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among
the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able
to work is more or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to
provide, as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life,
for himself, and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or
too young, or too infirm, to go a-hunting and fishing. Such nations,
however, are so miserably poor, that, from mere want, they are
frequently reduced, or at least think themselves reduced, to the
necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning
their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with lingering
diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts. Among
civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number
of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten
times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part
of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is
so great, that all are often abundantly supplied; and a workman, even of
the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy
a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is
possible for any savage to acquire.

The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and
the order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among
the different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the
subject of the first book of this Inquiry.

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with
which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of
its annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state,
upon the proportion between the number of those who are annually
employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed.
The number of useful and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear,
is everywhere in proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is
employed in setting them to work, and to the particular way in which
it is so employed. The second book, therefore, treats of the nature of
capital stock, of the manner in which it is gradually accumulated,
and of the different quantities of labour which it puts into motion,
according to the different ways in which it is employed.

Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment,
in the application of labour, have followed very different plans in the
general conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been
equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some
nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the
country; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has
dealt equally and impartially with every sort of industry. Since the
down-fall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been more
favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns,
than to agriculture, the Industry of the country. The circumstances
which seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained
in the third book.

Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the
private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without
any regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general
welfare of the society; yet they have given occasion to very different
theories of political economy; of which some magnify the importance
of that industry which is carried on in towns, others of that which
is carried on in the country. Those theories have had a considerable
influence, not only upon the opinions of men of learning, but upon the
public conduct of princes and sovereign states. I have endeavoured,
in the fourth book, to explain as fully and distinctly as I can those
different theories, and the principal effects which they have produced
in different ages and nations.

To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the
people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different
ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object
of these four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue
of the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured
to shew, first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign,
or commonwealth; which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the
general contribution of the whole society, and which of them, by that
of some particular part only, or of some particular members of it:
secondly, what are the different methods in which the whole society may
be made to contribute towards defraying the expenses incumbent on the
whole society, and what are the principal advantages and inconveniencies
of each of those methods; and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons
and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to mortgage
some part of this revenue, or to contract debts; and what have been the
effects of those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the
land and labour of the society.



BOOK I. OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR,
AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED
AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.



CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.

The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the
greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is
anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the
division of labour. The effects of the division of labour, in the
general business of society, will be more easily understood, by
considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures.
It is commonly supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling
ones; not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in
others of more importance: but in those trifling manufactures which are
destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the
whole number of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in
every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same
workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator.

In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to
supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different
branch of the work employs so great a number of workmen, that it is
impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom
see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though
in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a
much greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature,
the division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less
observed.

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one
in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the
trade of a pin-maker: a workman not educated to this business (which the
division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with
the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the
same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce,
perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly
could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now
carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is
divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are
likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire; another straights
it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top
for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct
operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is
another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and
the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into
about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are
all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will
sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory
of this kind, where ten men only were employed, and where some of them
consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they
were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the
necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make
among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound
upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons,
therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins
in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight
thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred
pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently,
and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business,
they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not
one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth,
perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth, part of what they are at
present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and
combination of their different operations.

In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of
labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling one, though,
in many of them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor
reduced to so great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour,
however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art,
a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The
separation of different trades and employments from one another, seems
to have taken place in consequence of this advantage. This separation,
too, is generally carried furthest in those countries which enjoy the
highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one
man, in a rude state of society, being generally that of several in an
improved one. In every improved society, the farmer is generally nothing
but a farmer; the manufacturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The labour,
too, which is necessary to produce any one complete manufacture, is
almost always divided among a great number of hands. How many
different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollen
manufactures, from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the
bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dressers of
the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of so many
subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one business
from another, as manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely
the business of the grazier from that of the corn-farmer, as the trade
of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. The
spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver; but the
ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the
corn, are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts
of labour returning with the different seasons of the year, it is
impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of
them. This impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation
of all the different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is
perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of
labour, in this art, does not always keep pace with their improvement
in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all
their neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are
commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in
the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, and having
more labour and expense bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion
to the extent and natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority
of produce is seldom much more than in proportion to the superiority of
labour and expense. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is
not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it
is never so much more productive, as it commonly is in manufactures. The
corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in the same degree
of goodness, come cheaper to market than that of the poor. The corn of
Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France,
notwithstanding the superior opulence and improvement of the latter
country. The corn of France is, in the corn-provinces, fully as good,
and in most years nearly about the same price with the corn of England,
though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior to
England. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultivated than
those of France, and the corn-lands of France are said to be much
better cultivated than those of Poland. But though the poor country,
notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation, can, in some
measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it
can pretend to no such competition in its manufactures, at least if
those manufactures suit the soil, climate, and situation, of the rich
country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of
England, because the silk manufacture, at least under the present high
duties upon the importation of raw silk, does not so well suit the
climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the coarse
woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of
France, and much cheaper, too, in the same degree of goodness. In Poland
there are said to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those
coarser household manufactures excepted, without which no country can
well subsist.

This great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence
of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of
performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the
increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the
saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species
of work to another; and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of
machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do
the work of many.

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workmen, necessarily
increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of
labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation,
and by making this operation the sole employment of his life,
necessarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common
smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been
used to make nails, if, upon some particular occasion, he is obliged
to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be able to make above two or
three hundred nails in a day, and those, too, very bad ones. A smith who
has been accustomed to make nails, but whose sole or principal business
has not been that of a nailer, can seldom, with his utmost diligence,
make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen
several boys, under twenty years of age, who had never exercised
any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted
themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of two thousand three
hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means
one of the simplest operations. The same person blows the bellows, stirs
or mends the fire as there is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every
part of the nail: in forging the head, too, he is obliged to change his
tools. The different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a
metal button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the
dexterity of the person, of whose life it has been the sole business to
perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which some of
the operations of those manufactures are performed, exceeds what the
human hand could, by those who had never seen them, be supposed capable
of acquiring.

Secondly, The advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost
in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we
should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass
very quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a
different place, and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who
cultivates a small farm, must loose a good deal of time in passing from
his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two
trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is, no
doubt, much less. It is, even in this case, however, very considerable.
A man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of
employment to another. When he first begins the new work, he is seldom
very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for
some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of
sauntering, and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or
rather necessarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to
change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in
twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost
always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application,
even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his
deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce
considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.

Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is
facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is
unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore,
that the invention of all those machines by which labour is so much
facilitated and abridged, seems to have been originally owing to the
division of labour. Men are much more likely to discover easier and
readier methods of attaining any object, when the whole attention of
their minds is directed towards that single object, than when it is
dissipated among a great variety of things. But, in consequence of the
division of labour, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally
to be directed towards some one very simple object. It is naturally to
be expected, therefore, that some one or other of those who are employed
in each particular branch of labour should soon find out easier and
readier methods of performing their own particular work, whenever the
nature of it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines
made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided,
were originally the invention of common workmen, who, being each of them
employed in some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts
towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever
has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures, must frequently
have been shewn very pretty machines, which were the inventions of such
workmen, in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part
of the work. In the first fire engines {this was the current designation
for steam engines}, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut
alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder,
according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of those boys,
who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by tying a string
from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to
another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without
his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his
play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made
upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner the
discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been
the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many
improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the
machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade;
and some by that of those who are called philosophers, or men of
speculation, whose trade it is not to do any thing, but to observe
every thing, and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining
together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects in the
progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other
employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular
class of citizens. Like every other employment, too, it is subdivided
into a great number of different branches, each of which affords
occupation to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this
subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other
business, improve dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes
more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the
whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different
arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a
well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to
the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of
his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and
every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled
to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity
or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of
theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for,
and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a
general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of the
society.

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in
a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number
of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been
employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation.
The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse
and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a
great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the
wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver,
the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different
arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many
merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting
the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a
very distant part of the country? How much commerce and navigation in
particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers,
must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs
made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners
of the world? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to
produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of
such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the
fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what
a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple
machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner,
the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of
the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the
smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend
the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them
join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine,
in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household
furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the
shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the
different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares
his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from
the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and
a long land-carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the
furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter
plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different
hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window
which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the
rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that
beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the
world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together
with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those
different conveniencies; if we examine, I say, all these things, and
consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we
shall be sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many
thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be
provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and
simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed,
with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no
doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps,
that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much
exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation
of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters
of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.



CHAPTER II. OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO THE DIVISION OF
LABOUR.

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived,
is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and
intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the
necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain
propensity in human nature, which has in view no such extensive utility;
the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human
nature, of which no further account can be given, or whether, as seems
more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of
reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It
is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals,
which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two
greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance
of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion,
or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards
himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the
accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that
particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate
exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one
animal, by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is
mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal
wants to obtain something either of a man, or of another animal, it
has no other means of persuasion, but to gain the favour of those
whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel
endeavours, by a thousand attractions, to engage the attention of its
master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes
uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of
engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every
servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not
time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilized society he
stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of
great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the
friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals, each
individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent,
and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other
living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help
of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their
benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest
their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own
advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to
another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which
I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every
such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the
far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is
not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that
we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We
address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and
never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of
his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely.
The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole
fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides
him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it
neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them.
The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner
as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With
the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes
which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other clothes which suit
him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can
buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from one
another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in
need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives
occasion to the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds,
a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more
readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for
cattle or for venison, with his companions; and he finds at last that
he can, in this manner, get more cattle and venison, than if he himself
went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest,
therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief business,
and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels in making the frames
and covers of their little huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed
to be of use in this way to his neighbours, who reward him in the
same manner with cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his
interest to dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become
a sort of house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith
or a brazier; a fourth, a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the
principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus the certainty of
being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own
labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts
of the produce of other men's labour as he may have occasion for,
encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and
to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent of genius he may
possess for that particular species of business.

The difference of natural talents in different men, is, in reality, much
less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears
to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity,
is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of
the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar
characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for
example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom,
and education. When they came in to the world, and for the first six or
eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike,
and neither their parents nor play-fellows could perceive any remarkable
difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in
very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be
taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of
the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance. But
without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must
have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which
he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same
work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment
as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents.

As it is this disposition which forms that difference of talents,
so remarkable among men of different professions, so it is this same
disposition which renders that difference useful. Many tribes of
animals, acknowledged to be all of the same species, derive from nature
a much more remarkable distinction of genius, than what, antecedent
to custom and education, appears to take place among men. By nature a
philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a
street porter, as a mastiff is from a grey-hound, or a grey-hound from
a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd's dog. Those different tribes of
animals, however, though all of the same species are of scarce any
use to one another. The strength of the mastiff is not in the least
supported either by the swiftness of the greyhound, or by the sagacity
of the spaniel, or by the docility of the shepherd's dog. The effects
of those different geniuses and talents, for want of the power or
disposition to barter and exchange, cannot be brought into a common
stock, and do not in the least contribute to the better accommodation
and conveniency of the species. Each animal is still obliged to support
and defend itself, separately and independently, and derives no sort
of advantage from that variety of talents with which nature has
distinguished its fellows. Among men, on the contrary, the most
dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another; the different produces of
their respective talents, by the general disposition to truck, barter,
and exchange, being brought, as it were, into a common stock, where
every man may purchase whatever part of the produce of other men's
talents he has occasion for.



CHAPTER III. THAT THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IS LIMITED BY THE EXTENT OF THE
MARKET.

As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division
of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the
extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market.
When the market is very small, no person can have any encouragement to
dedicate himself entirely to one employment, for want of the power to
exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which
is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of
other men's labour as he has occasion for.

There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind, which can be
carried on nowhere but in a great town. A porter, for example, can find
employment and subsistence in no other place. A village is by much too
narrow a sphere for him; even an ordinary market-town is scarce large
enough to afford him constant occupation. In the lone houses and very
small villages which are scattered about in so desert a country as the
highlands of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher, baker, and brewer,
for his own family. In such situations we can scarce expect to find
even a smith, a carpenter, or a mason, within less than twenty miles of
another of the same trade. The scattered families that live at eight
or ten miles distance from the nearest of them, must learn to perform
themselves a great number of little pieces of work, for which, in more
populous countries, they would call in the assistance of those workmen.
Country workmen are almost everywhere obliged to apply themselves to
all the different branches of industry that have so much affinity to one
another as to be employed about the same sort of materials. A country
carpenter deals in every sort of work that is made of wood; a country
smith in every sort of work that is made of iron. The former is not only
a carpenter, but a joiner, a cabinet-maker, and even a carver in wood,
as well as a wheel-wright, a plough-wright, a cart and waggon-maker. The
employments of the latter are still more various. It is impossible there
should be such a trade as even that of a nailer in the remote and inland
parts of the highlands of Scotland. Such a workman at the rate of a
thousand nails a-day, and three hundred working days in the year, will
make three hundred thousand nails in the year. But in such a situation
it would be impossible to dispose of one thousand, that is, of one day's
work in the year. As by means of water-carriage, a more extensive market
is opened to every sort of industry than what land-carriage alone can
afford it, so it is upon the sea-coast, and along the banks of navigable
rivers, that industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and
improve itself, and it is frequently not till a long time after that
those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country.
A broad-wheeled waggon, attended by two men, and drawn by eight horses,
in about six weeks time, carries and brings back between London and
Edinburgh near four ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship
navigated by six or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London
and Leith, frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight of
goods. Six or eight men, therefore, by the help of water-carriage,
can carry and bring back, in the same time, the same quantity of goods
between London and Edinburgh as fifty broad-wheeled waggons, attended by
a hundred men, and drawn by four hundred horses. Upon two hundred tons
of goods, therefore, carried by the cheapest land-carriage from London
to Edinburgh, there must be charged the maintenance of a hundred men
for three weeks, and both the maintenance and what is nearly equal to
maintenance the wear and tear of four hundred horses, as well as of
fifty great waggons. Whereas, upon the same quantity of goods carried by
water, there is to be charged only the maintenance of six or eight men,
and the wear and tear of a ship of two hundred tons burthen, together
with the value of the superior risk, or the difference of the insurance
between land and water-carriage. Were there no other communication
between those two places, therefore, but by land-carriage, as no goods
could be transported from the one to the other, except such whose price
was very considerable in proportion to their weight, they could carry
on but a small part of that commerce which at present subsists between
them, and consequently could give but a small part of that encouragement
which they at present mutually afford to each other's industry. There
could be little or no commerce of any kind between the distant parts of
the world. What goods could bear the expense of land-carriage between
London and Calcutta? Or if there were any so precious as to be able to
support this expense, with what safety could they be transported through
the territories of so many barbarous nations? Those two cities, however,
at present carry on a very considerable commerce with each other, and by
mutually affording a market, give a good deal of encouragement to each
other's industry.

Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage, it is
natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made
where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce
of every sort of labour, and that they should always be much later in
extending themselves into the inland parts of the country. The inland
parts of the country can for a long time have no other market for the
greater part of their goods, but the country which lies round about
them, and separates them from the sea-coast, and the great navigable
rivers. The extent of the market, therefore, must for a long time be
in proportion to the riches and populousness of that country, and
consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the
improvement of that country. In our North American colonies, the
plantations have constantly followed either the sea-coast or the banks
of the navigable rivers, and have scarce anywhere extended themselves to
any considerable distance from both.

The nations that, according to the best authenticated history, appear to
have been first civilized, were those that dwelt round the coast of the
Mediterranean sea. That sea, by far the greatest inlet that is known in
the world, having no tides, nor consequently any waves, except such as
are caused by the wind only, was, by the smoothness of its surface,
as well as by the multitude of its islands, and the proximity of its
neighbouring shores, extremely favourable to the infant navigation of
the world; when, from their ignorance of the compass, men were afraid
to quit the view of the coast, and from the imperfection of the art
of ship-building, to abandon themselves to the boisterous waves of the
ocean. To pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, that is, to sail out of
the straits of Gibraltar, was, in the ancient world, long considered as
a most wonderful and dangerous exploit of navigation. It was late before
even the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the most skilful navigators and
ship-builders of those old times, attempted it; and they were, for a
long time, the only nations that did attempt it.

Of all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, Egypt seems
to have been the first in which either agriculture or manufactures were
cultivated and improved to any considerable degree. Upper Egypt extends
itself nowhere above a few miles from the Nile; and in Lower Egypt, that
great river breaks itself into many different canals, which, with the
assistance of a little art, seem to have afforded a communication by
water-carriage, not only between all the great towns, but between all
the considerable villages, and even to many farm-houses in the country,
nearly in the same manner as the Rhine and the Maese do in Holland at
present. The extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably
one of the principal causes of the early improvement of Egypt.

The improvements in agriculture and manufactures seem likewise to have
been of very great antiquity in the provinces of Bengal, in the East
Indies, and in some of the eastern provinces of China, though the great
extent of this antiquity is not authenticated by any histories of whose
authority we, in this part of the world, are well assured. In Bengal,
the Ganges, and several other great rivers, form a great number of
navigable canals, in the same manner as the Nile does in Egypt. In the
eastern provinces of China, too, several great rivers form, by their
different branches, a multitude of canals, and, by communicating with
one another, afford an inland navigation much more extensive than that
either of the Nile or the Ganges, or, perhaps, than both of them put
together. It is remarkable, that neither the ancient Egyptians, nor the
Indians, nor the Chinese, encouraged foreign commerce, but seem all to
have derived their great opulence from this inland navigation.

All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies
any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, the ancient
Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem, in all ages of the world,
to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we
find them at present. The sea of Tartary is the frozen ocean, which
admits of no navigation; and though some of the greatest rivers in the
world run through that country, they are at too great a distance from
one another to carry commerce and communication through the greater
part of it. There are in Africa none of those great inlets, such as the
Baltic and Adriatic seas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine seas
in both Europe and Asia, and the gulfs of Arabia, Persia, India, Bengal,
and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of
that great continent; and the great rivers of Africa are at too great
a distance from one another to give occasion to any considerable inland
navigation. The commerce, besides, which any nation can carry on by
means of a river which does not break itself into any great number of
branches or canals, and which runs into another territory before it
reaches the sea, can never be very considerable, because it is always
in the power of the nations who possess that other territory to obstruct
the communication between the upper country and the sea. The navigation
of the Danube is of very little use to the different states of Bavaria,
Austria, and Hungary, in comparison of what it would be, if any of them
possessed the whole of its course, till it falls into the Black sea.



CHAPTER IV. OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY.

When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it
is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his
own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by
exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which
is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce
of other men's labour as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by
exchanging, or becomes, in some measure, a merchant, and the society
itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society.

But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of
exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarrassed
in its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain
commodity than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The
former, consequently, would be glad to dispose of; and the latter to
purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter should chance
to have nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be
made between them. The butcher has more meat in his shop than he himself
can consume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing
to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange,
except the different productions of their respective trades, and the
butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has
immediate occasion for. No exchange can, in this case, be made between
them. He cannot be their merchant, nor they his customers; and they are
all of them thus mutually less serviceable to one another. In order to
avoid the inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every
period of society, after the first establishment of the division of
labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such a
manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce
of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other,
such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange
for the produce of their industry. Many different commodities, it
is probable, were successively both thought of and employed for this
purpose. In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the
common instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been a most
inconvenient one, yet, in old times, we find things were frequently
valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in
exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine
oxen; but that of Glaucus cost a hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the
common instrument of commerce and exchanges in Abyssinia; a species of
shells in some parts of the coast of India; dried cod at Newfoundland;
tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies; hides
or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is at this day a
village in Scotland, where it is not uncommon, I am told, for a workman
to carry nails instead of money to the baker's shop or the ale-house.

In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by
irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to
metals above every other commodity. Metals can not only be kept with
as little loss as any other commodity, scarce any thing being less
perishable than they are, but they can likewise, without any loss, be
divided into any number of parts, as by fusion those parts can easily
be re-united again; a quality which no other equally durable commodities
possess, and which, more than any other quality, renders them fit to be
the instruments of commerce and circulation. The man who wanted to buy
salt, for example, and had nothing but cattle to give in exchange for
it, must have been obliged to buy salt to the value of a whole ox, or a
whole sheep, at a time. He could seldom buy less than this, because what
he was to give for it could seldom be divided without loss; and if he
had a mind to buy more, he must, for the same reasons, have been obliged
to buy double or triple the quantity, the value, to wit, of two or three
oxen, or of two or three sheep. If, on the contrary, instead of sheep
or oxen, he had metals to give in exchange for it, he could easily
proportion the quantity of the metal to the precise quantity of the
commodity which he had immediate occasion for.

Different metals have been made use of by different nations for this
purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce among the ancient
Spartans, copper among the ancient Romans, and gold and silver among all
rich and commercial nations.

Those metals seem originally to have been made use of for this purpose
in rude bars, without any stamp or coinage. Thus we are told by Pliny
(Plin. Hist Nat. lib. 33, cap. 3), upon the authority of Timaeus, an
ancient historian, that, till the time of Servius Tullius, the Romans
had no coined money, but made use of unstamped bars of copper, to
purchase whatever they had occasion for. These rude bars, therefore,
performed at this time the function of money.

The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two very
considerable inconveniences; first, with the trouble of weighing, and
secondly, with that of assaying them. In the precious metals, where a
small difference in the quantity makes a great difference in the value,
even the business of weighing, with proper exactness, requires at least
very accurate weights and scales. The weighing of gold, in particular,
is an operation of some nicety in the coarser metals, indeed, where
a small error would be of little consequence, less accuracy would, no
doubt, be necessary. Yet we should find it excessively troublesome if
every time a poor man had occasion either to buy or sell a farthing's
worth of goods, he was obliged to weigh the farthing. The operation of
assaying is still more difficult, still more tedious; and, unless a part
of the metal is fairly melted in the crucible, with proper dissolvents,
any conclusion that can be drawn from it is extremely uncertain. Before
the institution of coined money, however, unless they went through this
tedious and difficult operation, people must always have been liable to
the grossest frauds and impositions; and instead of a pound weight of
pure silver, or pure copper, might receive, in exchange for their goods,
an adulterated composition of the coarsest and cheapest materials, which
had, however, in their outward appearance, been made to resemble those
metals. To prevent such abuses, to facilitate exchanges, and thereby
to encourage all sorts of industry and commerce, it has been found
necessary, in all countries that have made any considerable advances
towards improvement, to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of
such particular metals, as were in those countries commonly made use of
to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of those public
offices called mints; institutions exactly of the same nature with those
of the aulnagers and stamp-masters of woollen and linen cloth. All of
them are equally meant to ascertain, by means of a public stamp, the
quantity and uniform goodness of those different commodities when
brought to market.

The first public stamps of this kind that were affixed to the current
metals, seem in many cases to have been intended to ascertain, what it
was both most difficult and most important to ascertain, the goodness or
fineness of the metal, and to have resembled the sterling mark which
is at present affixed to plate and bars of silver, or the Spanish mark
which is sometimes affixed to ingots of gold, and which, being struck
only upon one side of the piece, and not covering the whole surface,
ascertains the fineness, but not the weight of the metal. Abraham weighs
to Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay
for the field of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current
money of the merchant, and yet are received by weight, and not by tale,
in the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present.
The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been
paid, not in money, but in kind, that is, in victuals and provisions of
all sorts. William the Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them
in money. This money, however, was for a long time, received at the
exchequer, by weight, and not by tale.

The inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals with
exactness, gave occasion to the institution of coins, of which the
stamp, covering entirely both sides of the piece, and sometimes the
edges too, was supposed to ascertain not only the fineness, but the
weight of the metal. Such coins, therefore, were received by tale, as at
present, without the trouble of weighing.

The denominations of those coins seem originally to have expressed the
weight or quantity of metal contained in them. In the time of Servius
Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the Roman as or pondo contained
a Roman pound of good copper. It was divided, in the same manner as our
Troyes pound, into twelve ounces, each of which contained a real ounce
of good copper. The English pound sterling, in the time of Edward I.
contained a pound, Tower weight, of silver of a known fineness. The
Tower pound seems to have been something more than the Roman pound, and
something less than the Troyes pound. This last was not introduced into
the mint of England till the 18th of Henry the VIII. The French livre
contained, in the time of Charlemagne, a pound, Troyes weight, of silver
of a known fineness. The fair of Troyes in Champaign was at that time
frequented by all the nations of Europe, and the weights and measures
of so famous a market were generally known and esteemed. The Scots money
pound contained, from the time of Alexander the First to that of Robert
Bruce, a pound of silver of the same weight and fineness with the
English pound sterling. English, French, and Scots pennies, too,
contained all of them originally a real penny-weight of silver, the
twentieth part of an ounce, and the two hundred-and-fortieth part of a
pound. The shilling, too, seems originally to have been the denomination
of a weight. "When wheat is at twelve shillings the quarter," says an
ancient statute of Henry III. "then wastel bread of a farthing shall
weigh eleven shillings and fourpence". The proportion, however, between
the shilling, and either the penny on the one hand, or the pound on the
other, seems not to have been so constant and uniform as that between
the penny and the pound. During the first race of the kings of France,
the French sou or shilling appears upon different occasions to have
contained five, twelve, twenty, and forty pennies. Among the ancient
Saxons, a shilling appears at one time to have contained only five
pennies, and it is not improbable that it may have been as variable
among them as among their neighbours, the ancient Franks. From the time
of Charlemagne among the French, and from that of William the Conqueror
among the English, the proportion between the pound, the shilling, and
the penny, seems to have been uniformly the same as at present, though
the value of each has been very different; for in every country of the
world, I believe, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign
states, abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by degrees
diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally
contained in their coins. The Roman as, in the latter ages of the
republic, was reduced to the twenty-fourth part of its original value,
and, instead of weighing a pound, came to weigh only half an ounce. The
English pound and penny contain at present about a third only; the Scots
pound and penny about a thirty-sixth; and the French pound and penny
about a sixty-sixth part of their original value. By means of those
operations, the princes and sovereign states which performed them were
enabled, in appearance, to pay their debts and fulfil their engagements
with a smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have been
requisite. It was indeed in appearance only; for their creditors were
really defrauded of a part of what was due to them. All other debtors in
the state were allowed the same privilege, and might pay with the same
nominal sum of the new and debased coin whatever they had borrowed in
the old. Such operations, therefore, have always proved favourable to
the debtor, and ruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced
a greater and more universal revolution in the fortunes of private
persons, than could have been occasioned by a very great public
calamity.

It is in this manner that money has become, in all civilized nations,
the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention of which goods
of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another.

What are the rules which men naturally observe, in exchanging them
either for money, or for one another, I shall now proceed to examine.
These rules determine what may be called the relative or exchangeable
value of goods.

The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and
sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes
the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object
conveys. The one may be called 'value in use;' the other, 'value
in exchange.' The things which have the greatest value in use have
frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those
which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no
value in use. Nothing is more useful than water; but it will purchase
scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A
diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great
quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

In order to investigate the principles which regulate the exchangeable
value of commodities, I shall endeavour to shew,

First, what is the real measure of this exchangeable value; or wherein
consists the real price of all commodities.

Secondly, what are the different parts of which this real price is
composed or made up.

And, lastly, what are the different circumstances which sometimes raise
some or all of these different parts of price above, and sometimes sink
them below, their natural or ordinary rate; or, what are the causes
which sometimes hinder the market price, that is, the actual price
of commodities, from coinciding exactly with what may be called their
natural price.

I shall endeavour to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, those
three subjects in the three following chapters, for which I must very
earnestly entreat both the patience and attention of the reader: his
patience, in order to examine a detail which may, perhaps, in some
places, appear unnecessarily tedious; and his attention, in order to
understand what may perhaps, after the fullest explication which I am
capable of giving it, appear still in some degree obscure. I am always
willing to run some hazard of being tedious, in order to be sure that
I am perspicuous; and, after taking the utmost pains that I can to be
perspicuous, some obscurity may still appear to remain upon a subject,
in its own nature extremely abstracted.



CHAPTER V. OF THE REAL AND NOMINAL PRICE OF COMMODITIES, OR OF THEIR
PRICE IN LABOUR, AND THEIR PRICE IN MONEY.

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford
to enjoy the necessaries, conveniencies, and amusements of human life.
But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is
but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply
him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of
other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of
that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase.
The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it,
and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for
other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables
him to purchase or command. Labour therefore, is the real measure of the
exchangeable value of all commodities.

The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man
who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What
every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it and who wants
to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and
trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon
other people. What is bought with money, or with goods, is purchased
by labour, as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That
money, or those goods, indeed, save us this toil. They contain the value
of a certain quantity of labour, which we exchange for what is supposed
at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the
first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things.
It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of
the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess
it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely
equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or
command.

Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power. But the person who either acquires,
or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed
to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may,
perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both; but the mere possession
of that fortune does not necessarily convey to him either. The power
which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the
power of purchasing a certain command over all the labour, or over
all the produce of labour which is then in the market. His fortune is
greater or less, precisely in proportion to the extent of this power,
or to the quantity either of other men's labour, or, what is the same
thing, of the produce of other men's labour, which it enables him to
purchase or command. The exchangeable value of every thing must always
be precisely equal to the extent of this power which it conveys to its
owner.

But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all
commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated.
It is often difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different
quantities of labour. The time spent in two different sorts of work will
not always alone determine this proportion. The different degrees of
hardship endured, and of ingenuity exercised, must likewise be taken
into account. There may be more labour in an hour's hard work, than in
two hours easy business; or in an hour's application to a trade which
it cost ten years labour to learn, than in a month's industry, at an
ordinary and obvious employment. But it is not easy to find any accurate
measure either of hardship or ingenuity. In exchanging, indeed, the
different productions of different sorts of labour for one another, some
allowance is commonly made for both. It is adjusted, however, not by
any accurate measure, but by the higgling and bargaining of the market,
according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is
sufficient for carrying on the business of common life.

Every commodity, besides, is more frequently exchanged for, and thereby
compared with, other commodities, than with labour. It is more natural,
therefore, to estimate its exchangeable value by the quantity of some
other commodity, than by that of the labour which it can produce.
The greater part of people, too, understand better what is meant by a
quantity of a particular commodity, than by a quantity of labour. The
one is a plain palpable object; the other an abstract notion, which
though it can be made sufficiently intelligible, is not altogether so
natural and obvious.

But when barter ceases, and money has become the common instrument of
commerce, every particular commodity is more frequently exchanged for
money than for any other commodity. The butcher seldom carries his beef
or his mutton to the baker or the brewer, in order to exchange them for
bread or for beer; but he carries them to the market, where he exchanges
them for money, and afterwards exchanges that money for bread and for
beer. The quantity of money which he gets for them regulates, too, the
quantity of bread and beer which he can afterwards purchase. It is more
natural and obvious to him, therefore, to estimate their value by the
quantity of money, the commodity for which he immediately exchanges
them, than by that of bread and beer, the commodities for which he can
exchange them only by the intervention of another commodity; and
rather to say that his butcher's meat is worth three-pence or fourpence
a-pound, than that it is worth three or four pounds of bread, or
three or four quarts of small beer. Hence it comes to pass, that the
exchangeable value of every commodity is more frequently estimated by
the quantity of money, than by the quantity either of labour or of any
other commodity which can be had in exchange for it.

Gold and silver, however, like every other commodity, vary in their
value; are sometimes cheaper and sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier
and sometimes of more difficult purchase. The quantity of labour which
any particular quantity of them can purchase or command, or the quantity
of other goods which it will exchange for, depends always upon the
fertility or barrenness of the mines which happen to be known about the
time when such exchanges are made. The discovery of the abundant mines
of America, reduced, in the sixteenth century, the value of gold and
silver in Europe to about a third of what it had been before. As it cost
less labour to bring those metals from the mine to the market, so, when
they were brought thither, they could purchase or command less labour;
and this revolution in their value, though perhaps the greatest, is
by no means the only one of which history gives some account. But as a
measure of quantity, such as the natural foot, fathom, or handful, which
is continually varying in its own quantity, can never be an accurate
measure of the quantity of other things; so a commodity which is itself
continually varying in its own value, can never be an accurate measure
of the value of other commodities. Equal quantities of labour, at all
times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In
his ordinary state of health, strength, and spirits; in the ordinary
degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay down the same
portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happiness. The price which
he pays must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods
which he receives in return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes
purchase a greater and sometimes a smaller quantity; but it is their
value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them. At
all times and places, that is dear which it is difficult to come at, or
which it costs much labour to acquire; and that cheap which is to be
had easily, or with very little labour. Labour alone, therefore, never
varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard
by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be
estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal
price only.

But though equal quantities of labour are always of equal value to the
labourer, yet to the person who employs him they appear sometimes to be
of greater, and sometimes of smaller value. He purchases them sometimes
with a greater, and sometimes with a smaller quantity of goods, and to
him the price of labour seems to vary like that of all other things. It
appears to him dear in the one case, and cheap in the other. In reality,
however, it is the goods which are cheap in the one case, and dear in
the other.

In this popular sense, therefore, labour, like commodities, may be
said to have a real and a nominal price. Its real price may be said to
consist in the quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life
which are given for it; its nominal price, in the quantity of money. The
labourer is rich or poor, is well or ill rewarded, in proportion to the
real, not to the nominal price of his labour.

The distinction between the real and the nominal price of commodities
and labour is not a matter of mere speculation, but may sometimes be of
considerable use in practice. The same real price is always of the same
value; but on account of the variations in the value of gold and silver,
the same nominal price is sometimes of very different values. When a
landed estate, therefore, is sold with a reservation of a perpetual
rent, if it is intended that this rent should always be of the same
value, it is of importance to the family in whose favour it is reserved,
that it should not consist in a particular sum of money. Its value would
in this case be liable to variations of two different kinds: first, to
those which arise from the different quantities of gold and silver which
are contained at different times in coin of the same denomination;
and, secondly, to those which arise from the different values of equal
quantities of gold and silver at different times.

Princes and sovereign states have frequently fancied that they had a
temporary interest to diminish the quantity of pure metal contained in
their coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment
it. The quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all
nations, has accordingly been almost continually diminishing, and hardly
ever augmenting. Such variations, therefore, tend almost always to
diminish the value of a money rent.

The discovery of the mines of America diminished the value of gold and
silver in Europe. This diminution, it is commonly supposed, though I
apprehend without any certain proof, is still going on gradually, and
is likely to continue to do so for a long time. Upon this supposition,
therefore, such variations are more likely to diminish than to augment
the value of a money rent, even though it should be stipulated to be
paid, not in such a quantity of coined money of such a denomination (in
so many pounds sterling, for example), but in so many ounces, either of
pure silver, or of silver of a certain standard.

The rents which have been reserved in corn, have preserved their value
much better than those which have been reserved in money, even where the
denomination of the coin has not been altered. By the 18th of Elizabeth,
it was enacted, that a third of the rent of all college leases should be
reserved in corn, to be paid either in kind, or according to the current
prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this corn
rent, though originally but a third of the whole, is, in the present
times, according to Dr. Blackstone, commonly near double of what
arises from the other two-thirds. The old money rents of colleges must,
according to this account, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their
ancient value, or are worth little more than a fourth part of the corn
which they were formerly worth. But since the reign of Philip and
Mary, the denomination of the English coin has undergone little or no
alteration, and the same number of pounds, shillings, and pence,
have contained very nearly the same quantity of pure silver. This
degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents of colleges, has
arisen altogether from the degradation in the price of silver.

When the degradation in the value of silver is combined with the
diminution of the quantity of it contained in the coin of the same
denomination, the loss is frequently still greater. In Scotland, where
the denomination of the coin has undergone much greater alterations
than it ever did in England, and in France, where it has undergone still
greater than it ever did in Scotland, some ancient rents, originally
of considerable value, have, in this manner, been reduced almost to
nothing.

Equal quantities of labour will, at distant times, be purchased more
nearly with equal quantities of corn, the subsistence of the labourer,
than with equal quantities of gold and silver, or, perhaps, of any other
commodity. Equal quantities of corn, therefore, will, at distant times,
be more nearly of the same real value, or enable the possessor to
purchase or command more nearly the same quantity of the labour of other
people. They will do this, I say, more nearly than equal quantities of
almost any other commodity; for even equal quantities of corn will not
do it exactly. The subsistence of the labourer, or the real price of
labour, as I shall endeavour to shew hereafter, is very different upon
different occasions; more liberal in a society advancing to opulence,
than in one that is standing still, and in one that is standing still,
than in one that is going backwards. Every other commodity, however,
will, at any particular time, purchase a greater or smaller quantity
of labour, in proportion to the quantity of subsistence which it can
purchase at that time. A rent, therefore, reserved in corn, is liable
only to the variations in the quantity of labour which a certain
quantity of corn can purchase. But a rent reserved in any other
commodity is liable, not only to the variations in the quantity of
labour which any particular quantity of corn can purchase, but to
the variations in the quantity of corn which can be purchased by any
particular quantity of that commodity.

Though the real value of a corn rent, it is to be observed, however,
varies much less from century to century than that of a money rent,
it varies much more from year to year. The money price of labour, as I
shall endeavour to shew hereafter, does not fluctuate from year to year
with the money price of corn, but seems to be everywhere accommodated,
not to the temporary or occasional, but to the average or ordinary price
of that necessary of life. The average or ordinary price of corn, again
is regulated, as I shall likewise endeavour to shew hereafter, by the
value of silver, by the richness or barrenness of the mines which supply
the market with that metal, or by the quantity of labour which must be
employed, and consequently of corn which must be consumed, in order to
bring any particular quantity of silver from the mine to the market. But
the value of silver, though it sometimes varies greatly from century to
century, seldom varies much from year to year, but frequently continues
the same, or very nearly the same, for half a century or a century
together. The ordinary or average money price of corn, therefore, may,
during so long a period, continue the same, or very nearly the same,
too, and along with it the money price of labour, provided, at least,
the society continues, in other respects, in the same, or nearly in the
same, condition. In the mean time, the temporary and occasional price
of corn may frequently be double one year of what it had been the
year before, or fluctuate, for example, from five-and-twenty to fifty
shillings the quarter. But when corn is at the latter price, not only
the nominal, but the real value of a corn rent, will be double of what
it is when at the former, or will command double the quantity either of
labour, or of the greater part of other commodities; the money price of
labour, and along with it that of most other things, continuing the same
during all these fluctuations.

Labour, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal, as well
as the only accurate, measure of value, or the only standard by which
we can compare the values of different commodities, at all times, and
at all places. We cannot estimate, it is allowed, the real value of
different commodities from century to century by the quantities of
silver which were given for them. We cannot estimate it from year to
year by the quantities of corn. By the quantities of labour, we can,
with the greatest accuracy, estimate it, both from century to century,
and from year to year. From century to century, corn is a better measure
than silver, because, from century to century, equal quantities of
corn will command the same quantity of labour more nearly than equal
quantities of silver. From year to year, on the contrary, silver is
a better measure than corn, because equal quantities of it will more
nearly command the same quantity of labour.

But though, in establishing perpetual rents, or even in letting very
long leases, it may be of use to distinguish between real and nominal
price; it is of none in buying and selling, the more common and ordinary
transactions of human life.

At the same time and place, the real and the nominal price of all
commodities are exactly in proportion to one another. The more or less
money you get for any commodity, in the London market, for example,
the more or less labour it will at that time and place enable you to
purchase or command. At the same time and place, therefore, money is the
exact measure of the real exchangeable value of all commodities. It is
so, however, at the same time and place only.

Though at distant places there is no regular proportion between the real
and the money price of commodities, yet the merchant who carries goods
from the one to the other, has nothing to consider but the money price,
or the difference between the quantity of silver for which he buys them,
and that for which he is likely to sell them. Half an ounce of silver at
Canton in China may command a greater quantity both of labour and of
the necessaries and conveniencies of life, than an ounce at London. A
commodity, therefore, which sells for half an ounce of silver at Canton,
may there be really dearer, of more real importance to the man who
possesses it there, than a commodity which sells for an ounce at London
is to the man who possesses it at London. If a London merchant, however,
can buy at Canton, for half an ounce of silver, a commodity which he can
afterwards sell at London for an ounce, he gains a hundred per cent. by
the bargain, just as much as if an ounce of silver was at London exactly
of the same value as at Canton. It is of no importance to him that half
an ounce of silver at Canton would have given him the command of more
labour, and of a greater quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies
of life than an ounce can do at London. An ounce at London will always
give him the command of double the quantity of all these, which half an
ounce could have done there, and this is precisely what he wants.

As it is the nominal or money price of goods, therefore, which finally
determines the prudence or imprudence of all purchases and sales, and
thereby regulates almost the whole business of common life in which
price is concerned, we cannot wonder that it should have been so much
more attended to than the real price.

In such a work as this, however, it may sometimes be of use to compare
the different real values of a particular commodity at different times
and places, or the different degrees of power over the labour of other
people which it may, upon different occasions, have given to those who
possessed it. We must in this case compare, not so much the different
quantities of silver for which it was commonly sold, as the different
quantities or labour which those different quantities of silver could
have purchased. But the current prices of labour, at distant times and
places, can scarce ever be known with any degree of exactness. Those
of corn, though they have in few places been regularly recorded, are in
general better known, and have been more frequently taken notice of
by historians and other writers. We must generally, therefore, content
ourselves with them, not as being always exactly in the same proportion
as the current prices of labour, but as being the nearest approximation
which can commonly be had to that proportion. I shall hereafter have
occasion to make several comparisons of this kind.

In the progress of industry, commercial nations have found it convenient
to coin several different metals into money; gold for larger payments,
silver for purchases of moderate value, and copper, or some other coarse
metal, for those of still smaller consideration, They have always,
however, considered one of those metals as more peculiarly the measure
of value than any of the other two; and this preference seems generally
to have been given to the metal which they happen first to make use
of as the instrument of commerce. Having once begun to use it as their
standard, which they must have done when they had no other money, they
have generally continued to do so even when the necessity was not the
same.

The Romans are said to have had nothing but copper money till within
five years before the first Punic war (Pliny, lib. xxxiii. cap. 3),
when they first began to coin silver. Copper, therefore, appears to
have continued always the measure of value in that republic. At Rome all
accounts appear to have been kept, and the value of all estates to have
been computed, either in asses or in sestertii. The as was always the
denomination of a copper coin. The word sestertius signifies two asses
and a half. Though the sestertius, therefore, was originally a silver
coin, its value was estimated in copper. At Rome, one who owed a great
deal of money was said to have a great deal of other people's copper.

The northern nations who established themselves upon the ruins of the
Roman empire, seem to have had silver money from the first beginning of
their settlements, and not to have known either gold or copper coins for
several ages thereafter. There were silver coins in England in the time
of the Saxons; but there was little gold coined till the time of Edward
III nor any copper till that of James I. of Great Britain. In England,
therefore, and for the same reason, I believe, in all other modern
nations of Europe, all accounts are kept, and the value of all goods
and of all estates is generally computed, in silver: and when we mean to
express the amount of a person's fortune, we seldom mention the number
of guineas, but the number of pounds sterling which we suppose would be
given for it.

Originally, in all countries, I believe, a legal tender of payment could
be made only in the coin of that metal which was peculiarly considered
as the standard or measure of value. In England, gold was not considered
as a legal tender for a long time after it was coined into money. The
proportion between the values of gold and silver money was not fixed
by any public law or proclamation, but was left to be settled by the
market. If a debtor offered payment in gold, the creditor might either
reject such payment altogether, or accept of it at such a valuation of
the gold as he and his debtor could agree upon. Copper is not at present
a legal tender, except in the change of the smaller silver coins.

In this state of things, the distinction between the metal which was the
standard, and that which was not the standard, was something more than a
nominal distinction.

In process of time, and as people became gradually more familiar
with the use of the different metals in coin, and consequently better
acquainted with the proportion between their respective values, it has,
in most countries, I believe, been found convenient to ascertain this
proportion, and to declare by a public law, that a guinea, for example,
of such a weight and fineness, should exchange for one-and-twenty
shillings, or be a legal tender for a debt of that amount. In this state
of things, and during the continuance of any one regulated proportion of
this kind, the distinction between the metal, which is the standard,
and that which is not the standard, becomes little more than a nominal
distinction.

In consequence of any change, however, in this regulated proportion,
this distinction becomes, or at least seems to become, something more
than nominal again. If the regulated value of a guinea, for example,
was either reduced to twenty, or raised to two-and-twenty shillings,
all accounts being kept, and almost all obligations for debt being
expressed, in silver money, the greater part of payments could in either
case be made with the same quantity of silver money as before; but would
require very different quantities of gold money; a greater in the
one case, and a smaller in the other. Silver would appear to be more
invariable in its value than gold. Silver would appear to measure the
value of gold, and gold would not appear to measure the value of silver.
The value of gold would seem to depend upon the quantity of silver which
it would exchange for, and the value of silver would not seem to depend
upon the quantity of gold which it would exchange for. This difference,
however, would be altogether owing to the custom of keeping accounts,
and of expressing the amount of all great and small sums rather
in silver than in gold money. One of Mr Drummond's notes for
five-and-twenty or fifty guineas would, after an alteration of this
kind, be still payable with five-and-twenty or fifty guineas, in the
same manner as before. It would, after such an alteration, be payable
with the same quantity of gold as before, but with very different
quantities of silver. In the payment of such a note, gold would appear
to be more invariable in its value than silver. Gold would appear to
measure the value of silver, and silver would not appear to measure
the value of gold. If the custom of keeping accounts, and of expressing
promissory-notes and other obligations for money, in this manner should
ever become general, gold, and not silver, would be considered as the
metal which was peculiarly the standard or measure of value.

In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion
between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value
of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve
copper pence contain half a pound avoirdupois of copper, of not the
best quality, which, before it is coined, is seldom worth seven-pence
in silver. But as, by the regulation, twelve such pence are ordered to
exchange for a shilling, they are in the market considered as worth a
shilling, and a shilling can at any time be had for them. Even before
the late reformation of the gold coin of Great Britain, the gold, that
part of it at least which circulated in London and its neighbourhood,
was in general less degraded below its standard weight than the greater
part of the silver. One-and-twenty worn and defaced shillings, however,
were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which, perhaps, indeed, was
worn and defaced too, but seldom so much so. The late regulations have
brought the gold coin as near, perhaps, to its standard weight as it
is possible to bring the current coin of any nation; and the order
to receive no gold at the public offices but by weight, is likely to
preserve it so, as long as that order is enforced. The silver coin still
continues in the same worn and degraded state as before the reformation
of the cold coin. In the market, however, one-and-twenty shillings of
this degraded silver coin are still considered as worth a guinea of this
excellent gold coin.

The reformation of the gold coin has evidently raised the value of the
silver coin which can be exchanged for it.

In the English mint, a pound weight of gold is coined into forty-four
guineas and a half, which at one-and-twenty shillings the guinea, is
equal to forty-six pounds fourteen shillings and sixpence. An ounce of
such gold coin, therefore, is worth £ 3:17:10½ in silver. In England, no
duty or seignorage is paid upon the coinage, and he who carries a pound
weight or an ounce weight of standard gold bullion to the mint, gets
back a pound weight or an ounce weight of gold in coin, without any
deduction. Three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence halfpenny an
ounce, therefore, is said to be the mint price of gold in England, or
the quantity of gold coin which the mint gives in return for standard
gold bullion.

Before the reformation of the gold coin, the price of standard gold
bullion in the market had, for many years, been upwards of £3:18s.
sometimes £ 3:19s, and very frequently £4 an ounce; that sum, it is
probable, in the worn and degraded gold coin, seldom containing more
than an ounce of standard gold. Since the reformation of the gold coin,
the market price of standard gold bullion seldom exceeds £ 3:17:7 an
ounce. Before the reformation of the gold coin, the market price was
always more or less above the mint price. Since that reformation, the
market price has been constantly below the mint price. But that market
price is the same whether it is paid in gold or in silver coin. The late
reformation of the gold coin, therefore, has raised not only the value
of the gold coin, but likewise that of the silver coin in proportion to
gold bullion, and probably, too, in proportion to all other commodities;
though the price of the greater part of other commodities being
influenced by so many other causes, the rise in the value of either
gold or silver coin in proportion to them may not be so distinct and
sensible.

In the English mint, a pound weight of standard silver bullion is coined
into sixty-two shillings, containing, in the same manner, a pound weight
of standard silver. Five shillings and twopence an ounce, therefore,
is said to be the mint price of silver in England, or the quantity of
silver coin which the mint gives in return for standard silver bullion.
Before the reformation of the gold coin, the market price of standard
silver bullion was, upon different occasions, five shillings and
fourpence, five shillings and fivepence, five shillings and sixpence,
five shillings and sevenpence, and very often five shillings and
eightpence an ounce. Five shillings and sevenpence, however, seems to
have been the most common price. Since the reformation of the gold coin,
the market price of standard silver bullion has fallen occasionally to
five shillings and threepence, five shillings and fourpence, and five
shillings and fivepence an ounce, which last price it has scarce
ever exceeded. Though the market price of silver bullion has fallen
considerably since the reformation of the gold coin, it has not fallen
so low as the mint price.

In the proportion between the different metals in the English coin,
as copper is rated very much above its real value, so silver is rated
somewhat below it. In the market of Europe, in the French coin and
in the Dutch coin, an ounce of fine gold exchanges for about fourteen
ounces of fine silver. In the English coin, it exchanges for about
fifteen ounces, that is, for more silver than it is worth, according to
the common estimation of Europe. But as the price of copper in bars
is not, even in England, raised by the high price of copper in English
coin, so the price of silver in bullion is not sunk by the low rate of
silver in English coin. Silver in bullion still preserves its proper
proportion to gold, for the same reason that copper in bars preserves
its proper proportion to silver.

Upon the reformation of the silver coin, in the reign of William III.,
the price of silver bullion still continued to be somewhat above the
mint price. Mr Locke imputed this high price to the permission of
exporting silver bullion, and to the prohibition of exporting silver
coin. This permission of exporting, he said, rendered the demand for
silver bullion greater than the demand for silver coin. But the number
of people who want silver coin for the common uses of buying and selling
at home, is surely much greater than that of those who want silver
bullion either for the use of exportation or for any other use. There
subsists at present a like permission of exporting gold bullion, and
a like prohibition of exporting gold coin; and yet the price of gold
bullion has fallen below the mint price. But in the English coin, silver
was then, in the same manner as now, under-rated in proportion to gold;
and the gold coin (which at that time, too, was not supposed to require
any reformation) regulated then, as well as now, the real value of the
whole coin. As the reformation of the silver coin did not then reduce
the price of silver bullion to the mint price, it is not very probable
that a like reformation will do so now.

Were the silver coin brought back as near to its standard weight as
the gold, a guinea, it is probable, would, according to the present
proportion, exchange for more silver in coin than it would purchase
in bullion. The silver coin containing its full standard weight, there
would in this case, be a profit in melting it down, in order, first to
sell the bullion for gold coin, and afterwards to exchange this gold
coin for silver coin, to be melted down in the same manner. Some
alteration in the present proportion seems to be the only method of
preventing this inconveniency.

The inconveniency, perhaps, would be less, if silver was rated in the
coin as much above its proper proportion to gold as it is at present
rated below it, provided it was at the same time enacted, that silver
should not be a legal tender for more than the change of a guinea, in
the same manner as copper is not a legal tender for more than the
change of a shilling. No creditor could, in this case, be cheated in
consequence of the high valuation of silver in coin; as no creditor can
at present be cheated in consequence of the high valuation of copper.
The bankers only would suffer by this regulation. When a run comes upon
them, they sometimes endeavour to gain time, by paying in sixpences,
and they would be precluded by this regulation from this discreditable
method of evading immediate payment. They would be obliged, in
consequence, to keep at all times in their coffers a greater quantity of
cash than at present; and though this might, no doubt, be a considerable
inconveniency to them, it would, at the same time, be a considerable
security to their creditors.

Three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence halfpenny (the mint price
of gold) certainly does not contain, even in our present excellent
gold coin, more than an ounce of standard gold, and it may be thought,
therefore, should not purchase more standard bullion. But gold in coin
is more convenient than gold in bullion; and though, in England, the
coinage is free, yet the gold which is carried in bullion to the mint,
can seldom be returned in coin to the owner till after a delay of
several weeks. In the present hurry of the mint, it could not be
returned till after a delay of several months. This delay is equivalent
to a small duty, and renders gold in coin somewhat more valuable than an
equal quantity of gold in bullion. If, in the English coin, silver was
rated according to its proper proportion to gold, the price of silver
bullion would probably fall below the mint price, even without any
reformation of the silver coin; the value even of the present worn and
defaced silver coin being regulated by the value of the excellent gold
coin for which it can be changed.

A small seignorage or duty upon the coinage of both gold and silver,
would probably increase still more the superiority of those metals in
coin above an equal quantity of either of them in bullion. The
coinage would, in this case, increase the value of the metal coined in
proportion to the extent of this small duty, for the same reason that
the fashion increases the value of plate in proportion to the price of
that fashion. The superiority of coin above bullion would prevent the
melting down of the coin, and would discourage its exportation. If, upon
any public exigency, it should become necessary to export the coin, the
greater part of it would soon return again, of its own accord. Abroad,
it could sell only for its weight in bullion. At home, it would buy more
than that weight. There would be a profit, therefore, in bringing it
home again. In France, a seignorage of about eight per cent. is imposed
upon the coinage, and the French coin, when exported, is said to return
home again, of its own accord.

The occasional fluctuations in the market price of gold and silver
bullion arise from the same causes as the like fluctuations in that of
all other commodities. The frequent loss of those metals from various
accidents by sea and by land, the continual waste of them in gilding and
plating, in lace and embroidery, in the wear and tear of coin, and in
that of plate, require, in all countries which possess no mines of their
own, a continual importation, in order to repair this loss and this
waste. The merchant importers, like all other merchants, we may believe,
endeavour, as well as they can, to suit their occasional importations
to what they judge is likely to be the immediate demand. With all their
attention, however, they sometimes overdo the business, and sometimes
underdo it. When they import more bullion than is wanted, rather than
incur the risk and trouble of exporting it again, they are sometimes
willing to sell a part of it for something less than the ordinary or
average price. When, on the other hand, they import less than is wanted,
they get something more than this price. But when, under all those
occasional fluctuations, the market price either of gold or silver
bullion continues for several years together steadily and constantly,
either more or less above, or more or less below the mint price, we
may be assured that this steady and constant, either superiority or
inferiority of price, is the effect of something in the state of the
coin, which, at that time, renders a certain quantity of coin either of
more value or of less value than the precise quantity of bullion which
it ought to contain. The constancy and steadiness of the effect supposes
a proportionable constancy and steadiness in the cause.

The money of any particular country is, at any particular time and
place, more or less an accurate measure or value, according as the
current coin is more or less exactly agreeable to its standard, or
contains more or less exactly the precise quantity of pure gold or pure
silver which it ought to contain. If in England, for example, forty-four
guineas and a half contained exactly a pound weight of standard gold,
or eleven ounces of fine gold, and one ounce of alloy, the gold coin of
England would be as accurate a measure of the actual value of goods at
any particular time and place as the nature of the thing would admit.
But if, by rubbing and wearing, forty-four guineas and a half generally
contain less than a pound weight of standard gold, the diminution,
however, being greater in some pieces than in others, the measure of
value comes to be liable to the same sort of uncertainty to which all
other weights and measures are commonly exposed. As it rarely happens
that these are exactly agreeable to their standard, the merchant adjusts
the price of his goods as well as he can, not to what those weights
and measures ought to be, but to what, upon an average, he finds, by
experience, they actually are. In consequence of a like disorder in the
coin, the price of goods comes, in the same manner, to be adjusted, not
to the quantity of pure gold or silver which the coin ought to contain,
but to that which, upon an average, it is found, by experience, it
actually does contain.

By the money price of goods, it is to be observed, I understand always
the quantity of pure gold or silver for which they are sold, without any
regard to the denomination of the coin. Six shillings and eight pence,
for example, in the time of Edward I., I consider as the same money
price with a pound sterling in the present times, because it contained,
as nearly as we can judge, the same quantity of pure silver.



CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMPONENT PART OF THE PRICE OF COMMODITIES.

In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the
accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion
between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different
objects, seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule
for exchanging them for one another. If among a nation of hunters, for
example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it
does to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be
worth two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two
days or two hours labour, should be worth double of what is usually the
produce of one day's or one hour's labour.

If the one species of labour should be more severe than the other, some
allowance will naturally be made for this superior hardship; and the
produce of one hour's labour in the one way may frequently exchange for
that of two hour's labour in the other.

Or if the one species of labour requires an uncommon degree of dexterity
and ingenuity, the esteem which men have for such talents, will
naturally give a value to their produce, superior to what would be due
to the time employed about it. Such talents can seldom be acquired but
in consequence of long application, and the superior value of their
produce may frequently be no more than a reasonable compensation for the
time and labour which must be spent in acquiring them. In the advanced
state of society, allowances of this kind, for superior hardship and
superior skill, are commonly made in the wages of labour; and something
of the same kind must probably have taken place in its earliest and
rudest period.

In this state of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the
labourer; and the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or
producing any commodity, is the only circumstance which can regulate
the quantity of labour which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or
exchange for.

As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons,
some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious
people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order
to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds
to the value of the materials. In exchanging the complete manufacture
either for money, for labour, or for other goods, over and above what
may be sufficient to pay the price of the materials, and the wages of
the workmen, something must be given for the profits of the undertaker
of the work, who hazards his stock in this adventure. The value which
the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this
case into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the
profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages
which he advanced. He could have no interest to employ them, unless
he expected from the sale of their work something more than what was
sufficient to replace his stock to him; and he could have no interest to
employ a great stock rather than a small one, unless his profits were to
bear some proportion to the extent of his stock.

The profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different
name for the wages of a particular sort of labour, the labour of
inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are
regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion to the
quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this supposed labour of
inspection and direction. They are regulated altogether by the value
of the stock employed, and are greater or smaller in proportion to
the extent of this stock. Let us suppose, for example, that in some
particular place, where the common annual profits of manufacturing stock
are ten per cent. there are two different manufactures, in each of which
twenty workmen are employed, at the rate of fifteen pounds a year each,
or at the expense of three hundred a-year in each manufactory. Let us
suppose, too, that the coarse materials annually wrought up in the one
cost only seven hundred pounds, while the finer materials in the other
cost seven thousand. The capital annually employed in the one will, in
this case, amount only to one thousand pounds; whereas that employed
in the other will amount to seven thousand three hundred pounds. At the
rate of ten per cent. therefore, the undertaker of the one will expect a
yearly profit of about one hundred pounds only; while that of the other
will expect about seven hundred and thirty pounds. But though their
profits are so very different, their labour of inspection and direction
may be either altogether or very nearly the same. In many great works,
almost the whole labour of this kind is committed to some principal
clerk. His wages properly express the value of this labour of inspection
and direction. Though in settling them some regard is had commonly, not
only to his labour and skill, but to the trust which is reposed in him,
yet they never bear any regular proportion to the capital of which he
oversees the management; and the owner of this capital, though he is
thus discharged of almost all labour, still expects that his profit
should bear a regular proportion to his capital. In the price of
commodities, therefore, the profits of stock constitute a component part
altogether different from the wages of labour, and regulated by quite
different principles.

In this state of things, the whole produce of labour does not always
belong to the labourer. He must in most cases share it with the owner of
the stock which employs him. Neither is the quantity of labour commonly
employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, the only circumstance
which can regulate the quantity which it ought commonly to purchase,
command or exchange for. An additional quantity, it is evident, must be
due for the profits of the stock which advanced the wages and furnished
the materials of that labour.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the
landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and
demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the
grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which,
when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering
them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them.
He must then pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the
landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This
portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion,
constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of
commodities, makes a third component part.

The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be
observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of
them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value, not only of that
part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which
resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into
profit.

In every society, the price of every commodity finally resolves itself
into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every
improved society, all the three enter, more or less, as component parts,
into the price of the far greater part of commodities.

In the price of corn, for example, one part pays the rent of the
landlord, another pays the wages or maintenance of the labourers and
labouring cattle employed in producing it, and the third pays the profit
of the farmer. These three parts seem either immediately or ultimately
to make up the whole price of corn. A fourth part, it may perhaps be
thought is necessary for replacing the stock of the farmer, or for
compensating the wear and tear of his labouring cattle, and other
instruments of husbandry. But it must be considered, that the price of
any instrument of husbandry, such as a labouring horse, is itself made
up of the same time parts; the rent of the land upon which he is reared,
the labour of tending and rearing him, and the profits of the farmer,
who advances both the rent of this land, and the wages of this labour.
Though the price of the corn, therefore, may pay the price as well as
the maintenance of the horse, the whole price still resolves itself,
either immediately or ultimately, into the same three parts of rent,
labour, and profit.

In the price of flour or meal, we must add to the price of the corn, the
profits of the miller, and the wages of his servants; in the price of
bread, the profits of the baker, and the wages of his servants; and in
the price of both, the labour of transporting the corn from the house of
the farmer to that of the miller, and from that of the miller to that of
the baker, together with the profits of those who advance the wages of
that labour.

The price of flax resolves itself into the same three parts as that of
corn. In the price of linen we must add to this price the wages of
the flax-dresser, of the spinner, of the weaver, of the bleacher, etc.
together with the profits of their respective employers.

As any particular commodity comes to be more manufactured, that part
of the price which resolves itself into wages and profit, comes to be
greater in proportion to that which resolves itself into rent. In the
progress of the manufacture, not only the number of profits increase,
but every subsequent profit is greater than the foregoing; because the
capital from which it is derived must always be greater. The capital
which employs the weavers, for example, must be greater than that which
employs the spinners; because it not only replaces that capital with its
profits, but pays, besides, the wages of the weavers: and the profits
must always bear some proportion to the capital.

In the most improved societies, however, there are always a few
commodities of which the price resolves itself into two parts only the
wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and a still smaller number,
in which it consists altogether in the wages of labour. In the price of
sea-fish, for example, one part pays the labour of the fisherman, and
the other the profits of the capital employed in the fishery. Rent very
seldom makes any part of it, though it does sometimes, as I shall shew
hereafter. It is otherwise, at least through the greater part of Europe,
in river fisheries. A salmon fishery pays a rent; and rent, though it
cannot well be called the rent of land, makes a part of the price of a
salmon, as well as wares and profit. In some parts of Scotland, a few
poor people make a trade of gathering, along the sea-shore, those little
variegated stones commonly known by the name of Scotch pebbles. The
price which is paid to them by the stone-cutter, is altogether the wages
of their labour; neither rent nor profit makes an part of it.

But the whole price of any commodity must still finally resolve itself
into some one or other or all of those three parts; as whatever part of
it remains after paying the rent of the land, and the price of the whole
labour employed in raising, manufacturing, and bringing it to market,
must necessarily be profit to somebody.

As the price or exchangeable value of every particular commodity, taken
separately, resolves itself into some one or other, or all of those
three parts; so that of all the commodities which compose the whole
annual produce of the labour of every country, taken complexly, must
resolve itself into the same three parts, and be parcelled out among
different inhabitants of the country, either as the wages of their
labour, the profits of their stock, or the rent of their land. The whole
of what is annually either collected or produced by the labour of every
society, or, what comes to the same thing, the whole price of it, is in
this manner originally distributed among some of its different members.
Wages, profit, and rent, are the three original sources of all revenue,
as well as of all exchangeable value. All other revenue is ultimately
derived from some one or other of these.

Whoever derives his revenue from a fund which is his own, must draw it
either from his labour, from his stock, or from his land. The revenue
derived from labour is called wages; that derived from stock, by the
person who manages or employs it, is called profit; that derived from it
by the person who does not employ it himself, but lends it to another,
is called the interest or the use of money. It is the compensation
which the borrower pays to the lender, for the profit which he has
an opportunity of making by the use of the money. Part of that profit
naturally belongs to the borrower, who runs the risk and takes the
trouble of employing it, and part to the lender, who affords him the
opportunity of making this profit. The interest of money is always a
derivative revenue, which, if it is not paid from the profit which is
made by the use of the money, must be paid from some other source of
revenue, unless perhaps the borrower is a spendthrift, who contracts a
second debt in order to pay the interest of the first. The revenue
which proceeds altogether from land, is called rent, and belongs to the
landlord. The revenue of the farmer is derived partly from his labour,
and partly from his stock. To him, land is only the instrument which
enables him to earn the wages of this labour, and to make the profits of
this stock. All taxes, and all the revenue which is founded upon them,
all salaries, pensions, and annuities of every kind, are ultimately
derived from some one or other of those three original sources of
revenue, and are paid either immediately or mediately from the wages of
labour, the profits of stock, or the rent of land.

When those three different sorts of revenue belong to different persons,
they are readily distinguished; but when they belong to the same, they
are sometimes confounded with one another, at least in common language.

A gentleman who farms a part of his own estate, after paying the expense
of cultivation, should gain both the rent of the landlord and the profit
of the farmer. He is apt to denominate, however, his whole gain, profit,
and thus confounds rent with profit, at least in common language. The
greater part of our North American and West Indian planters are in this
situation. They farm, the greater part of them, their own estates: and
accordingly we seldom hear of the rent of a plantation, but frequently
of its profit.

Common farmers seldom employ any overseer to direct the general
operations of the farm. They generally, too, work a good deal with their
own hands, as ploughmen, harrowers, etc. What remains of the crop, after
paying the rent, therefore, should not only replace to them their stock
employed in cultivation, together with its ordinary profits, but pay
them the wages which are due to them, both as labourers and overseers.
Whatever remains, however, after paying the rent and keeping up the
stock, is called profit. But wages evidently make a part of it. The
farmer, by saving these wages, must necessarily gain them. Wages,
therefore, are in this case confounded with profit.

An independent manufacturer, who has stock enough both to purchase
materials, and to maintain himself till he can carry his work to market,
should gain both the wages of a journeyman who works under a master,
and the profit which that master makes by the sale of that journeyman's
work. His whole gains, however, are commonly called profit, and wages
are, in this case, too, confounded with profit.

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in
his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and
labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the
first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third. The whole,
however, is commonly considered as the earnings of his labour. Both rent
and profit are, in this case, confounded with wages.

As in a civilized country there are but few commodities of which the
exchangeable value arises from labour only, rent and profit contributing
largely to that of the far greater part of them, so the annual produce
of its labour will always be sufficient to purchase or command a much
greater quantity of labour than what was employed in raising, preparing,
and bringing that produce to market. If the society were annually to
employ all the labour which it can annually purchase, as the quantity
of labour would increase greatly every year, so the produce of every
succeeding year would be of vastly greater value than that of the
foregoing. But there is no country in which the whole annual produce is
employed in maintaining the industrious. The idle everywhere consume a
great part of it; and, according to the different proportions in which
it is annually divided between those two different orders of people, its
ordinary or average value must either annually increase or diminish, or
continue the same from one year to another.



CHAPTER VII. OF THE NATURAL AND MARKET PRICE OF COMMODITIES.

There is in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary or average rate,
both of wages and profit, in every different employment of labour and
stock. This rate is naturally regulated, as I shall shew hereafter,
partly by the general circumstances of the society, their riches or
poverty, their advancing, stationary, or declining condition, and partly
by the particular nature of each employment.

There is likewise in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary
or average rate of rent, which is regulated, too, as I shall shew
hereafter, partly by the general circumstances of the society or
neighbourhood in which the land is situated, and partly by the natural
or improved fertility of the land.

These ordinary or average rates may be called the natural rates of
wages, profit and rent, at the time and place in which they commonly
prevail.

When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is
sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labour, and the
profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to
market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for
what may be called its natural price.

The commodity is then sold precisely for what it is worth, or for what
it really costs the person who brings it to market; for though, in
common language, what is called the prime cost of any commodity does not
comprehend the profit of the person who is to sell it again, yet, if he
sells it at a price which does not allow him the ordinary rate of profit
in his neighbourhood, he is evidently a loser by the trade; since, by
employing his stock in some other way, he might have made that profit.
His profit, besides, is his revenue, the proper fund of his subsistence.
As, while he is preparing and bringing the goods to market, he advances
to his workmen their wages, or their subsistence; so he advances to
himself, in the same manner, his own subsistence, which is generally
suitable to the profit which he may reasonably expect from the sale of
his goods. Unless they yield him this profit, therefore, they do not
repay him what they may very properly be said to have really cost him.

Though the price, therefore, which leaves him this profit, is not always
the lowest at which a dealer may sometimes sell his goods, it is the
lowest at which he is likely to sell them for any considerable time; at
least where there is perfect liberty, or where he may change his trade
as often as he pleases.

The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold, is called its
market price. It may either be above, or below, or exactly the same with
its natural price.

The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the
proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market,
and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the
commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which
must be paid in order to bring it thither. Such people may be called
the effectual demanders, and their demand the effectual demand; since it
maybe sufficient to effectuate the bringing of the commodity to market.
It is different from the absolute demand. A very poor man may be said,
in some sense, to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to
have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can
never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.

When the quantity of any commodity which is brought to market falls
short of the effectual demand, all those who are willing to pay the
whole value of the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order
to bring it thither, cannot be supplied with the quantity which they
want. Rather than want it altogether, some of them will be willing to
give more. A competition will immediately begin among them, and the
market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according
as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton
luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness
of the competition. Among competitors of equal wealth and luxury,
the same deficiency will generally occasion a more or less eager
competition, according as the acquisition of the commodity happens to
be of more or less importance to them. Hence the exorbitant price of the
necessaries of life during the blockade of a town, or in a famine.

When the quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual demand, it
cannot be all sold to those who are willing to pay the whole value of
the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it
thither. Some part must be sold to those who are willing to pay less,
and the low price which they give for it must reduce the price of the
whole. The market price will sink more or less below the natural price,
according as the greatness of the excess increases more or less the
competition of the sellers, or according as it happens to be more or
less important to them to get immediately rid of the commodity. The same
excess in the importation of perishable, will occasion a much greater
competition than in that of durable commodities; in the importation of
oranges, for example, than in that of old iron.

When the quantity brought to market is just sufficient to supply the
effectual demand, and no more, the market price naturally comes to be
either exactly, or as nearly as can be judged of, the same with the
natural price. The whole quantity upon hand can be disposed of for
this price, and can not be disposed of for more. The competition of the
different dealers obliges them all to accept of this price, but does not
oblige them to accept of less.

The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally suits itself
to the effectual demand. It is the interest of all those who employ
their land, labour, or stock, in bringing any commodity to market, that
the quantity never should exceed the effectual demand; and it is the
interest of all other people that it never should fall short of that
demand.

If at any time it exceeds the effectual demand, some of the component
parts of its price must be paid below their natural rate. If it is rent,
the interest of the landlords will immediately prompt them to withdraw
a part of their land; and if it is wages or profit, the interest of the
labourers in the one case, and of their employers in the other, will
prompt them to withdraw a part of their labour or stock, from this
employment. The quantity brought to market will soon be no more than
sufficient to supply the effectual demand. All the different parts of
its price will rise to their natural rate, and the whole price to its
natural price.

If, on the contrary, the quantity brought to market should at any time
fall short of the effectual demand, some of the component parts of its
price must rise above their natural rate. If it is rent, the interest of
all other landlords will naturally prompt them to prepare more land for
the raising of this commodity; if it is wages or profit, the interest
of all other labourers and dealers will soon prompt them to employ more
labour and stock in preparing and bringing it to market. The quantity
brought thither will soon be sufficient to supply the effectual demand.
All the different parts of its price will soon sink to their natural
rate, and the whole price to its natural price.

The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price,
to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above
it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever
may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this centre of
repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.

The whole quantity of industry annually employed in order to bring
any commodity to market, naturally suits itself in this manner to the
effectual demand. It naturally aims at bringing always that precise
quantity thither which may be sufficient to supply, and no more than
supply, that demand.

But, in some employments, the same quantity of industry will, in
different years, produce very different quantities of commodities;
while, in others, it will produce always the same, or very nearly the
same. The same number of labourers in husbandry will, in different
years, produce very different quantities of corn, wine, oil, hops, etc.
But the same number of spinners or weavers will every year produce the
same, or very nearly the same, quantity of linen and woollen cloth. It
is only the average produce of the one species of industry which can
be suited, in any respect, to the effectual demand; and as its actual
produce is frequently much greater, and frequently much less, than its
average produce, the quantity of the commodities brought to market will
sometimes exceed a good deal, and sometimes fall short a good deal,
of the effectual demand. Even though that demand, therefore, should
continue always the same, their market price will be liable to great
fluctuations, will sometimes fall a good deal below, and sometimes
rise a good deal above, their natural price. In the other species of
industry, the produce of equal quantities of labour being always the
same, or very nearly the same, it can be more exactly suited to the
effectual demand. While that demand continues the same, therefore, the
market price of the commodities is likely to do so too, and to be either
altogether, or as nearly as can be judged of, the same with the natural
price. That the price of linen and woollen cloth is liable neither to
such frequent, nor to such great variations, as the price of corn,
every man's experience will inform him. The price of the one species of
commodities varies only with the variations in the demand; that of the
other varies not only with the variations in the demand, but with the
much greater, and more frequent, variations in the quantity of what is
brought to market, in order to supply that demand.

The occasional and temporary fluctuations in the market price of any
commodity fall chiefly upon those parts of its price which resolve
themselves into wages and profit. That part which resolves itself into
rent is less affected by them. A rent certain in money is not in the
least affected by them, either in its rate or in its value. A rent which
consists either in a certain proportion, or in a certain quantity, of
the rude produce, is no doubt affected in its yearly value by all the
occasional and temporary fluctuations in the market price of that
rude produce; but it is seldom affected by them in its yearly rate.
In settling the terms of the lease, the landlord and farmer endeavour,
according to their best judgment, to adjust that rate, not to the
temporary and occasional, but to the average and ordinary price of the
produce.

Such fluctuations affect both the value and the rate, either of wages or
of profit, according as the market happens to be either overstocked or
understocked with commodities or with labour, with work done, or with
work to be done. A public mourning raises the price of black cloth
( with which the market is almost always understocked upon such
occasions), and augments the profits of the merchants who possess any
considerable quantity of it. It has no effect upon the wages of the
weavers. The market is understocked with commodities, not with labour,
with work done, not with work to be done. It raises the wages of
journeymen tailors. The market is here understocked with labour. There
is an effectual demand for more labour, for more work to be done, than
can be had. It sinks the price of coloured silks and cloths, and thereby
reduces the profits of the merchants who have any considerable quantity
of them upon hand. It sinks, too, the wages of the workmen employed
in preparing such commodities, for which all demand is stopped for six
months, perhaps for a twelvemonth. The market is here overstocked both
with commodities and with labour.

But though the market price of every particular commodity is in this
manner continually gravitating, if one may say so, towards the natural
price; yet sometimes particular accidents, sometimes natural causes, and
sometimes particular regulations of policy, may, in many commodities,
keep up the market price, for a long time together, a good deal above
the natural price.

When, by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some
particular commodity happens to rise a good deal above the natural
price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market, are
generally careful to conceal this change. If it was commonly known,
their great profit would tempt so many new rivals to employ their stocks
in the same way, that, the effectual demand being fully supplied, the
market price would soon be reduced to the natural price, and, perhaps,
for some time even below it. If the market is at a great distance from
the residence of those who supply it, they may sometimes be able to
keep the secret for several years together, and may so long enjoy their
extraordinary profits without any new rivals. Secrets of this kind,
however, it must be acknowledged, can seldom be long kept; and the
extraordinary profit can last very little longer than they are kept.

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in
trade. A dyer who has found the means of producing a particular colour
with materials which cost only half the price of those commonly made use
of, may, with good management, enjoy the advantage of his discovery as
long as he lives, and even leave it as a legacy to his posterity. His
extraordinary gains arise from the high price which is paid for his
private labour. They properly consist in the high wages of that labour.
But as they are repeated upon every part of his stock, and as their
whole amount bears, upon that account, a regular proportion to it, they
are commonly considered as extraordinary profits of stock.

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effects of
particular accidents, of which, however, the operation may sometimes
last for many years together.

Some natural productions require such a singularity of soil and
situation, that all the land in a great country, which is fit for
producing them, may not be sufficient to supply the effectual demand.
The whole quantity brought to market, therefore, may be disposed of to
those who are willing to give more than what is sufficient to pay the
rent of the land which produced them, together with the wages of the
labour and the profits of the stock which were employed in preparing
and bringing them to market, according to their natural rates. Such
commodities may continue for whole centuries together to be sold at this
high price; and that part of it which resolves itself into the rent of
land, is in this case the part which is generally paid above its natural
rate. The rent of the land which affords such singular and esteemed
productions, like the rent of some vineyards in France of a peculiarly
happy soil and situation, bears no regular proportion to the rent
of other equally fertile and equally well cultivated land in its
neighbourhood. The wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock
employed in bringing such commodities to market, on the contrary, are
seldom out of their natural proportion to those of the other employments
of labour and stock in their neighbourhood.

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effect of
natural causes, which may hinder the effectual demand from ever being
fully supplied, and which may continue, therefore, to operate for ever.

A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company, has
the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists,
by keeping the market constantly understocked by never fully supplying
the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural
price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or
profit, greatly above their natural rate.

The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can
be got. The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the
contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion
indeed, but for any considerable time together. The one is upon every
occasion the highest which can be squeezed out of the buyers, or which
it is supposed they will consent to give; the other is the lowest which
the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at the same time continue
their business.

The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship,
and all those laws which restrain in particular employments, the
competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have
the same tendency, though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged
monopolies, and may frequently, for ages together, and in whole classes
of employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities above
the natural price, and maintain both the wages of the labour and the
profits of the stock employed about them somewhat above their natural
rate.

Such enhancements of the market price may last as long as the
regulations of policy which give occasion to them.

The market price of any particular commodity, though it may continue
long above, can seldom continue long below, its natural price. Whatever
part of it was paid below the natural rate, the persons whose interest
it affected would immediately feel the loss, and would immediately
withdraw either so much land or no much labour, or so much stock, from
being employed about it, that the quantity brought to market would soon
be no more than sufficient to supply the effectual demand. Its market
price, therefore, would soon rise to the natural price; this at least
would be the case where there was perfect liberty.

The same statutes of apprenticeship and other corporation laws, indeed,
which, when a manufacture is in prosperity, enable the workman to raise
his wages a good deal above their natural rate, sometimes oblige him,
when it decays, to let them down a good deal below it. As in the one
case they exclude many people from his employment, so in the other
they exclude him from many employments. The effect of such regulations,
however, is not near so durable in sinking the workman's wages below, as
in raising them above their natural rate. Their operation in the one way
may endure for many centuries, but in the other it can last no longer
than the lives of some of the workmen who were bred to the business in
the time of its prosperity. When they are gone, the number of those who
are afterwards educated to the trade will naturally suit itself to the
effectual demand. The policy must be as violent as that of Indostan or
ancient Egypt (where every man was bound by a principle of religion to
follow the occupation of his father, and was supposed to commit the
most horrid sacrilege if he changed it for another), which can in any
particular employment, and for several generations together, sink either
the wages of labour or the profits of stock below their natural rate.

This is all that I think necessary to be observed at present concerning
the deviations, whether occasional or permanent, of the market price of
commodities from the natural price.

The natural price itself varies with the natural rate of each of its
component parts, of wages, profit, and rent; and in every society this
rate varies according to their circumstances, according to their riches
or poverty, their advancing, stationary, or declining condition. I
shall, in the four following chapters, endeavour to explain, as fully
and distinctly as I can, the causes of those different variations.

First, I shall endeavour to explain what are the circumstances which
naturally determine the rate of wages, and in what manner those
circumstances are affected by the riches or poverty, by the advancing,
stationary, or declining state of the society.

Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew what are the circumstances which
naturally determine the rate of profit; and in what manner, too, those
circumstances are affected by the like variations in the state of the
society.

Though pecuniary wages and profit are very different in the different
employments of labour and stock; yet a certain proportion seems commonly
to take place between both the pecuniary wages in all the different
employments of labour, and the pecuniary profits in all the different
employments of stock. This proportion, it will appear hereafter, depends
partly upon the nature of the different employments, and partly upon the
different laws and policy of the society in which they are carried on.
But though in many respects dependent upon the laws and policy, this
proportion seems to be little affected by the riches or poverty of that
society, by its advancing, stationary, or declining condition, but to
remain the same, or very nearly the same, in all those different states.
I shall, in the third place, endeavour to explain all the different
circumstances which regulate this proportion.

In the fourth and last place, I shall endeavour to shew what are the
circumstances which regulate the rent of land, and which either raise or
lower the real price of all the different substances which it produces.



CHAPTER VIII. OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.

The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompence or wages of
labour.

In that original state of things which precedes both the appropriation
of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour
belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share
with him.

Had this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with
all those improvements in its productive powers, to which the division
of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have become
cheaper. They would have been produced by a smaller quantity of labour;
and as the commodities produced by equal quantities of labour would
naturally in this state of things be exchanged for one another, they
would have been purchased likewise with the produce of a smaller
quantity.

But though all things would have become cheaper in reality, in
appearance many things might have become dearer, than before, or have
been exchanged for a greater quantity of other goods. Let us suppose,
for example, that in the greater part of employments the productive
powers of labour had been improved to tenfold, or that a day's
labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had done
originally; but that in a particular employment they had been improved
only to double, or that a day's labour could produce only twice the
quantity of work which it had done before. In exchanging the produce of
a day's labour in the greater part of employments for that of a day's
labour in this particular one, ten times the original quantity of work
in them would purchase only twice the original quantity in it. Any
particular quantity in it, therefore, a pound weight, for example, would
appear to be five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it
would be twice as cheap. Though it required five times the quantity of
other goods to purchase it, it would require only half the quantity of
labour either to purchase or to produce it. The acquisition, therefore,
would be twice as easy as before.

But this original state of things, in which the labourer enjoyed
the whole produce of his own labour, could not last beyond the first
introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of
stock. It was at an end, therefore, long before the most considerable
improvements were made in the productive powers of labour; and it would
be to no purpose to trace further what might have been its effects upon
the recompence or wages of labour.

As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share
of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect
from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the
labour which is employed upon land.

It seldom happens that the person who tills the ground has wherewithal
to maintain himself till he reaps the harvest. His maintenance is
generally advanced to him from the stock of a master, the farmer who
employs him, and who would have no interest to employ him, unless he
was to share in the produce of his labour, or unless his stock was to be
replaced to him with a profit. This profit makes a second deduction from
the produce of the labour which is employed upon land.

The produce of almost all other labour is liable to the like deduction
of profit. In all arts and manufactures, the greater part of the workmen
stand in need of a master, to advance them the materials of their work,
and their wages and maintenance, till it be completed. He shares in the
produce of their labour, or in the value which it adds to the materials
upon which it is bestowed; and in this share consists his profit.

It sometimes happens, indeed, that a single independent workman has
stock sufficient both to purchase the materials of his work, and to
maintain himself till it be completed. He is both master and workman,
and enjoys the whole produce of his own labour, or the whole value which
it adds to the materials upon which it is bestowed. It includes what are
usually two distinct revenues, belonging to two distinct persons, the
profits of stock, and the wages of labour.

Such cases, however, are not very frequent; and in every part of Europe
twenty workmen serve under a master for one that is independent, and the
wages of labour are everywhere understood to be, what they usually
are, when the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which
employs him another.

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the
contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are
by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to
give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order
to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must,
upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and
force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being
fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides,
authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it
prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against
combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to
raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A
landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did
not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the
stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist
a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without
employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his
master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though
frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account,
that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the
subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but
constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour
above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a
most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his
neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination,
because it is the usual, and, one may say, the natural state of
things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into
particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this
rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy
till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they
sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they
are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are
frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen,
who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, combine,
of their own accord, to raise the price of their labour. Their usual
pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions, sometimes the
great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their
combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard
of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always
recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking
violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and
extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their
masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters,
upon these occasions, are just as clamorous upon the other side, and
never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate,
and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with
so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and
journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage
from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from
the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the superior
steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater
part of the workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present
subsistence, generally end in nothing but the punishment or ruin of the
ringleaders.

But though, in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have
the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate, below which it seems
impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even
of the lowest species of labour.

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be
sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be
somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a
family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first
generation. Mr Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the
lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double
their own maintenance, in order that, one with another, they may be
enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of
her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than
sufficient to provide for herself: But one half the children born, it
is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest labourers,
therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to
rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance
of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children,
it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an
able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double
his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be
worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems
certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband
and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be
able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for
their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that
above-mentioned, or many other, I shall not take upon me to determine.

There are certain circumstances, however, which sometimes give
the labourers an advantage, and enable them to raise their wages
considerably above this rate, evidently the lowest which is consistent
with common humanity.

When in any country the demand for those who live by wages, labourers,
journeymen, servants of every kind, is continually increasing; when
every year furnishes employment for a greater number than had been
employed the year before, the workmen have no occasion to combine
in order to raise their wages. The scarcity of hands occasions a
competition among masters, who bid against one another in order to get
workmen, and thus voluntarily break through the natural combination of
masters not to raise wages. The demand for those who live by wages, it
is evident, cannot increase but in proportion to the increase of the
funds which are destined to the payment of wages. These funds are of two
kinds, first, the revenue which is over and above what is necessary for
the maintenance; and, secondly, the stock which is over and above what
is necessary for the employment of their masters.

When the landlord, annuitant, or monied man, has a greater revenue than
what he judges sufficient to maintain his own family, he employs either
the whole or a part of the surplus in maintaining one or more menial
servants. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the
number of those servants.

When an independent workman, such as a weaver or shoemaker, has got more
stock than what is sufficient to purchase the materials of his own work,
and to maintain himself till he can dispose of it, he naturally employs
one or more journeymen with the surplus, in order to make a profit by
their work. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the
number of his journeymen.

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases
with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot
possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the
increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages,
therefore, naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and
cannot possibly increase without it.

It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual
increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not,
accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in
those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour
are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer
country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however,
are much higher in North America than in any part of England. In the
province of New York, common labourers earned in 1773, before the
commencement of the late disturbances, three shillings and sixpence
currency, equal to two shillings sterling, a-day; ship-carpenters, ten
shillings and sixpence currency, with a pint of rum, worth sixpence
sterling, equal in all to six shillings and sixpence sterling;
house-carpenters and bricklayers, eight shillings currency, equal to
four shillings and sixpence sterling; journeymen tailors, five shillings
currency, equal to about two shillings and tenpence sterling. These
prices are all above the London price; and wages are said to be as
high in the other colonies as in New York. The price of provisions is
everywhere in North America much lower than in England. A dearth has
never been known there. In the worst seasons they have always had a
sufficiency for themselves, though less for exportation. If the money
price of labour, therefore, be higher than it is anywhere in the
mother-country, its real price, the real command of the necessaries and
conveniencies of life which it conveys to the labourer, must be higher
in a still greater proportion.

But though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is much
more thriving, and advancing with much greater rapidity to the further
acquisition of riches. The most decisive mark of the prosperity of
any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants. In Great
Britain, and most other European countries, they are not supposed to
double in less than five hundred years. In the British colonies in North
America, it has been found that they double in twenty or five-and-twenty
years. Nor in the present times is this increase principally owing
to the continual importation of new inhabitants, but to the great
multiplication of the species. Those who live to old age, it is said,
frequently see there from fifty to a hundred, and sometimes many more,
descendants from their own body. Labour is there so well rewarded, that
a numerous family of children, instead of being a burden, is a source of
opulence and prosperity to the parents. The labour of each child, before
it can leave their house, is computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear
gain to them. A young widow with four or five young children, who, among
the middling or inferior ranks of people in Europe, would have so little
chance for a second husband, is there frequently courted as a sort of
fortune. The value of children is the greatest of all encouragements to
marriage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the people in North America
should generally marry very young. Notwithstanding the great increase
occasioned by such early marriages, there is a continual complaint of
the scarcity of hands in North America. The demand for labourers, the
funds destined for maintaining them increase, it seems, still faster
than they can find labourers to employ.

Though the wealth of a country should be very great, yet if it has been
long stationary, we must not expect to find the wages of labour very
high in it. The funds destined for the payment of wages, the revenue
and stock of its inhabitants, may be of the greatest extent; but if they
have continued for several centuries of the same, or very nearly of the
same extent, the number of labourers employed every year could easily
supply, and even more than supply, the number wanted the following year.
There could seldom be any scarcity of hands, nor could the masters be
obliged to bid against one another in order to get them. The hands,
on the contrary, would, in this case, naturally multiply beyond their
employment. There would be a constant scarcity of employment, and the
labourers would be obliged to bid against one another in order to get
it. If in such a country the wages off labour had ever been more than
sufficient to maintain the labourer, and to enable him to bring up a
family, the competition of the labourers and the interest of the masters
would soon reduce them to the lowest rate which is consistent with
common humanity. China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of
the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous,
countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary.
Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes
its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms
in which they are described by travellers in the present times. It had,
perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of
riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits it to
acquire. The accounts of all travellers, inconsistent in many other
respects, agree in the low wages of labour, and in the difficulty which
a labourer finds in bringing up a family in China. If by digging the
ground a whole day he can get what will purchase a small quantity of
rice in the evening, he is contented. The condition of artificers is,
if possible, still worse. Instead of waiting indolently in their
work-houses for the calls of their customers, as in Europe, they are
continually running about the streets with the tools of their respective
trades, offering their services, and, as it were, begging employment.
The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that
of the most beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton,
many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no
habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing-boats
upon the rivers and canals. The subsistence which they find there is
so scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown
overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog
or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome
to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.
Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children,
but by the liberty of destroying them. In all great towns, several are
every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water.
The performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed
business by which some people earn their subsistence.

China, however, though it may, perhaps, stand still, does not seem to
go backwards. Its towns are nowhere deserted by their inhabitants. The
lands which had once been cultivated, are nowhere neglected. The same,
or very nearly the same, annual labour, must, therefore, continue to
be performed, and the funds destined for maintaining it must not,
consequently, be sensibly diminished. The lowest class of labourers,
therefore, notwithstanding their scanty subsistence, must some way or
another make shift to continue their race so far as to keep up their
usual numbers.

But it would be otherwise in a country where the funds destined for the
maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying. Every year the demand
for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of
employments, be less than it had been the year before. Many who had been
bred in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their
own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest
class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the
overflowings of all the other classes, the competition for employment
would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most
miserable and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able
to find employment even upon these hard terms, but would either starve,
or be driven to seek a subsistence, either by begging, or by the
perpetration perhaps, of the greatest enormities. Want, famine, and
mortality, would immediately prevail in that class, and from thence
extend themselves to all the superior classes, till the number
of inhabitants in the country was reduced to what could easily be
maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had
escaped either the tyranny or calamity which had destroyed the rest.
This, perhaps, is nearly the present state of Bengal, and of some other
of the English settlements in the East Indies. In a fertile country,
which had before been much depopulated, where subsistence, consequently,
should not be very difficult, and where, notwithstanding, three or four
hundred thousand people die of hunger in one year, we maybe assured that
the funds destined for the maintenance of the labouring poor are fast
decaying. The difference between the genius of the British constitution,
which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile
company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot,
perhaps, be better illustrated than by the different state of those
countries.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary effect,
so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty
maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural
symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition, that
they are going fast backwards.

In Great Britain, the wages of labour seem, in the present times, to be
evidently more than what is precisely necessary to enable the labourer
to bring up a family. In order to satisfy ourselves upon this point, it
will not be necessary to enter into any tedious or doubtful calculation
of what may be the lowest sum upon winch it is possible to do this.
There are many plain symptoms, that the wages of labour are nowhere in
this country regulated by this lowest rate, which is consistent with
common humanity.

First, in almost every part of Great Britain there is a distinction,
even in the lowest species of labour, between summer and winter wages.
Summer wages are always highest. But, on account of the extraordinary
expense of fuel, the maintenance of a family is most expensive in
winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when this expense is lowest, it
seems evident that they are not regulated by what is necessary for this
expense, but by the quantity and supposed value of the work. A labourer,
it may be said, indeed, ought to save part of his summer wages, in order
to defray his winter expense; and that, through the whole year, they do
not exceed what is necessary to maintain his family through the whole
year. A slave, however, or one absolutely dependent on us for immediate
subsistence, would not be treated in this manner. His daily subsistence
would be proportioned to his daily necessities.

Secondly, the wages of labour do not, in Great Britain, fluctuate
with the price of provisions. These vary everywhere from year to year,
frequently from month to month. But in many places, the money price
of labour remains uniformly the same, sometimes for half a century
together. If, in these places, therefore, the labouring poor can
maintain their families in dear years, they must be at their ease in
times of moderate plenty, and in affluence in those of extraordinary
cheapness. The high price of provisions during these ten years past, has
not, in many parts of the kingdom, been accompanied with any sensible
rise in the money price of labour. It has, indeed, in some; owing,
probably, more to the increase of the demand for labour, than to that of
the price of provisions.

Thirdly, as the price of provisions varies more from year to year than
the wages of labour, so, on the other hand, the wages of labour vary
more from place to place than the price of provisions. The prices of
bread and butchers' meat are generally the same, or very nearly the
same, through the greater part of the united kingdom. These, and most
other things which are sold by retail, the way in which the labouring
poor buy all things, are generally fully as cheap, or cheaper, in great
towns than in the remoter parts of the country, for reasons which I
shall have occasion to explain hereafter. But the wages of labour in
a great town and its neighbourhood, are frequently a fourth or a fifth
part, twenty or five-and--twenty per cent. higher than at a few miles
distance. Eighteen pence a day may be reckoned the common price of
labour in London and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it
falls to fourteen and fifteen pence. Tenpence may be reckoned its price
in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance, it falls to
eightpence, the usual price of common labour through the greater part
of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than
in England. Such a difference of prices, which, it seems, is not
always sufficient to transport a man from one parish to another,
would necessarily occasion so great a transportation of the most bulky
commodities, not only from one parish to another, but from one end of
the kingdom, almost from one end of the world to the other, as would
soon reduce them more nearly to a level. After all that has been said
of the levity and inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidently from
experience, that man is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult
to be transported. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their
families in those parts of the kingdom where the price of labour is
lowest, they must be in affluence where it is highest.

Fourthly, the variations in the price of labour not only do not
correspond, either in place or time, with those in the price of
provisions, but they are frequently quite opposite.

Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland than in
England, whence Scotland receives almost every year very large supplies.
But English corn must be sold dearer in Scotland, the country to which
it is brought, than in England, the country from which it comes; and in
proportion to its quality it cannot be sold dearer in Scotland than the
Scotch corn that comes to the same market in competition with it. The
quality of grain depends chiefly upon the quantity of flour or meal
which it yields at the mill; and, in this respect, English grain is so
much superior to the Scotch, that though often dearer in appearance,
or in proportion to the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in
reality, or in proportion to its quality, or even to the measure of its
weight. The price of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in England
than in Scotland. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain
their families in the one part of the united kingdom, they must be in
affluence in the other. Oatmeal, indeed, supplies the common people in
Scotland with the greatest and the best part of their food, which is, in
general, much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in
England. This difference, however, in the mode of their subsistence, is
not the cause, but the effect, of the difference in their wages; though,
by a strange misapprehension, I have frequently heard it represented as
the cause. It is not because one man keeps a coach, while his neighbour
walks a-foot, that the one is rich, and the other poor; but because the
one is rich, he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor, he walks
a-foot.

During the course of the last century, taking one year with another,
grain was dearer in both parts of the united kingdom than during that
of the present. This is a matter of fact which cannot now admit of
any reasonable doubt; and the proof of it is, if possible, still more
decisive with regard to Scotland than with regard to England. It is
in Scotland supported by the evidence of the public fiars, annual
valuations made upon oath, according to the actual state of the markets,
of all the different sorts of grain in every different county of
Scotland. If such direct proof could require any collateral evidence
to confirm it, I would observe, that this has likewise been the case
in France, and probably in most other parts of Europe. With regard to
France, there is the clearest proof. But though it is certain, that in
both parts of the united kingdom grain was somewhat dearer in the last
century than in the present, it is equally certain that labour was much
cheaper. If the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their families
then, they must be much more at their ease now. In the last century,
the most usual day-wages of common labour through the greater part
of Scotland were sixpence in summer, and fivepence in winter. Three
shillings a-week, the same price, very nearly still continues to be paid
in some parts of the Highlands and Western islands. Through the greater
part of the Low country, the most usual wages of common labour are now
eight pence a-day; tenpence, sometimes a shilling, about Edinburgh,
in the counties which border upon England, probably on account of that
neighbourhood, and in a few other places where there has lately been
a considerable rise in the demand for labour, about Glasgow,
Carron, Ayrshire, etc. In England, the improvements of agriculture,
manufactures, and commerce, began much earlier than in Scotland. The
demand for labour, and consequently its price, must necessarily have
increased with those improvements. In the last century, accordingly, as
well as in the present, the wages of labour were higher in England than
in Scotland. They have risen, too, considerably since that time, though,
on account of the greater variety of wages paid there in different
places, it is more difficult to ascertain how much. In 1614, the pay of
a foot soldier was the same as in the present times, eightpence a-day.
When it was first established, it would naturally be regulated by the
usual wages of common labourers, the rank of people from which foot
soldiers are commonly drawn. Lord-chief-justice Hales, who wrote in
the time of Charles II. computes the necessary expense of a labourer's
family, consisting of six persons, the father and mother, two children
able to do something, and two not able, at ten shillings a-week, or
twenty-six pounds a-year. If they cannot earn this by their labour, they
must make it up, he supposes, either by begging or stealing. He appears
to have enquired very carefully into this subject {See his scheme for
the maintenance of the poor, in Burn's History of the Poor Laws.}. In
1688, Mr Gregory King, whose skill in political arithmetic is so much
extolled by Dr Davenant, computed the ordinary income of labourers and
out-servants to be fifteen pounds a-year to a family, which he
supposed to consist, one with another, of three and a half persons. His
calculation, therefore, though different in appearance, corresponds
very nearly at bottom with that of Judge Hales. Both suppose the weekly
expense of such families to be about twenty-pence a-head. Both
the pecuniary income and expense of such families have increased
considerably since that time through the greater part of the kingdom,
in some places more, and in some less, though perhaps scarce anywhere
so much as some exaggerated accounts of the present wages of labour have
lately represented them to the public. The price of labour, it must
be observed, cannot be ascertained very accurately anywhere, different
prices being often paid at the same place and for the same sort of
labour, not only according to the different abilities of the workman,
but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters. Where wages
are not regulated by law, all that we can pretend to determine is, what
are the most usual; and experience seems to shew that law can never
regulate them properly, though it has often pretended to do so.

The real recompence of labour, the real quantity of the necessaries and
conveniencies of life which it can procure to the labourer, has, during
the course of the present century, increased perhaps in a still greater
proportion than its money price. Not only grain has become somewhat
cheaper, but many other things, from which the industrious poor derive
an agreeable and wholesome variety of food, have become a great deal
cheaper. Potatoes, for example, do not at present, through the greater
part of the kingdom, cost half the price which they used to do thirty
or forty years ago. The same thing may be said of turnips, carrots,
cabbages; things which were formerly never raised but by the spade, but
which are now commonly raised by the plough. All sort of garden stuff,
too, has become cheaper. The greater part of the apples, and even of the
onions, consumed in Great Britain, were, in the last century, imported
from Flanders. The great improvements in the coarser manufactories of
both linen and woollen cloth furnish the labourers with cheaper and
better clothing; and those in the manufactories of the coarser metals,
with cheaper and better instruments of trade, as well as with many
agreeable and convenient pieces of household furniture. Soap, salt,
candles, leather, and fermented liquors, have, indeed, become a good
deal dearer, chiefly from the taxes which have been laid upon them.
The quantity of these, however, which the labouring poor an under any
necessity of consuming, is so very small, that the increase in their
price does not compensate the diminution in that of so many other
things. The common complaint, that luxury extends itself even to the
lowest ranks of the people, and that the labouring poor will not now
be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging, which satisfied
them in former times, may convince us that it is not the money price of
labour only, but its real recompence, which has augmented.

Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the
people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to
the society? The answer seems at first abundantly plain. Servants,
labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part
of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances
of the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the
whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far
greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity,
besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the
people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as
to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent,
marriage. It seems even to be favourable to generation. A half-starved
Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a
pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally
exhausted by two or three. Barrenness, so frequent among women of
fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station. Luxury, in the
fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems
always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of
generation.

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely
unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced;
but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.
It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of
Scotland, for a mother who has born twenty children not to have two
alive. Several officers of great experience have assured me, that, so
far from recruiting their regiment, they have never been able to supply
it with drums and fifes, from all the soldiers' children that were
born in it. A greater number of fine children, however, is seldom seen
anywhere than about a barrack of soldiers. Very few of them, it seems,
arrive at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In some places, one half the
children die before they are four years of age, in many places before
they are seven, and in almost all places before they are nine or ten.
This great mortality, however will everywhere be found chiefly among the
children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with
the same care as those of better station. Though their marriages are
generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller
proportion of their children arrive at maturity. In foundling hospitals,
and among the children brought up by parish charities, the mortality is
still greater than among those of the common people.

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means
of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply be yond it. But
in civilized society, it is only among the inferior ranks of people
that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further
multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way
than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful
marriages produce.

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for
their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally
tends to widen and extend those limits. It deserves to be remarked, too,
that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion
which the demand for labour requires. If this demand is continually
increasing, the reward of labour must necessarily encourage in such a
manner the marriage and multiplication of labourers, as may enable them
to supply that continually increasing demand by a continually increasing
population. If the reward should at any time be less than what was
requisite for this purpose, the deficiency of hands would soon raise
it; and if it should at any time be more, their excessive multiplication
would soon lower it to this necessary rate. The market would be so much
understocked with labour in the one case, and so much overstocked in the
other, as would soon force back its price to that proper rate which the
circumstances of the society required. It is in this manner that the
demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates
the production of men, quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops
it when it advances too fast. It is this demand which regulates and
determines the state of propagation in all the different countries of
the world; in North America, in Europe, and in China; which renders it
rapidly progressive in the first, slow and gradual in the second, and
altogether stationary in the last.

The wear and tear of a slave, it has been said, is at the expense of his
master; but that of a free servant is at his own expense. The wear and
tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense
of his master as that of the former. The wages paid to journeymen and
servants of every kind must be such as may enable them, one with another
to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the
increasing, diminishing, or stationary demand of the society, may happen
to require. But though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at
the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of
a slave. The fund destined for replacing or repairing, if I may say
so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed by a negligent
master or careless overseer. That destined for performing the same
office with regard to the freeman is managed by the freeman himself. The
disorders which generally prevail in the economy of the rich, naturally
introduce themselves into the management of the former; the strict
frugality and parsimonious attention of the poor as naturally establish
themselves in that of the latter. Under such different management, the
same purpose must require very different degrees of expense to execute
it. It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and
nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the
end than that performed by slaves. It is found to do so even at Boston,
New-York, and Philadelphia, where the wages of common labour are so very
high.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of
increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To
complain of it, is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the
greatest public prosperity.

It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive
state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition,
rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the
condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people,
seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the
stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state
is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different
orders of the society; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy.

The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it
increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are
the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality,
improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful
subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the
comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days,
perhaps, in ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to
the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the
workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, than where they are low;
in England, for example, than in Scotland; in the neighbourhood of great
towns, than in remote country places. Some workmen, indeed, when they
can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be
idle the other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the
greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they are liberally paid by
the piece, are very apt to overwork themselves, and to ruin their health
and constitution in a few years. A carpenter in London, and in some
other places, is not supposed to last in his utmost vigour above eight
years. Something of the same kind happens in many other trades, in
which the workmen are paid by the piece; as they generally are in
manufactures, and even in country labour, wherever wages are higher than
ordinary. Almost every class of artificers is subject to some peculiar
infirmity occasioned by excessive application to their peculiar
species of work. Ramuzzini, an eminent Italian physician, has written a
particular book concerning such diseases. We do not reckon our soldiers
the most industrious set of people among us; yet when soldiers have been
employed in some particular sorts of work, and liberally paid by the
piece, their officers have frequently been obliged to stipulate with the
undertaker, that they should not be allowed to earn above a certain
sum every day, according to the rate at which they were paid. Till this
stipulation was made, mutual emulation, and the desire of greater gain,
frequently prompted them to overwork themselves, and to hurt their
health by excessive labour. Excessive application, during four days
of the week, is frequently the real cause of the idleness of the other
three, so much and so loudly complained of. Great labour, either of mind
or body, continued for several days together is, in most men, naturally
followed by a great desire of relaxation, which, if not restrained by
force, or by some strong necessity, is almost irresistible. It is
the call of nature, which requires to be relieved by some indulgence,
sometimes of ease only, but sometimes too of dissipation and diversion.
If it is not complied with, the consequences are often dangerous and
sometimes fatal, and such as almost always, sooner or later, bring on
the peculiar infirmity of the trade. If masters would always listen
to the dictates of reason and humanity, they have frequently occasion
rather to moderate, than to animate the application of many of their
workmen. It will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the
man who works so moderately, as to be able to work constantly, not
only preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of the year,
executes the greatest quantity of work.

In cheap years it is pretended, workmen are generally more idle, and
in dear times more industrious than ordinary. A plentiful subsistence,
therefore, it has been concluded, relaxes, and a scanty one quickens
their industry. That a little more plenty than ordinary may render
some workmen idle, cannot be well doubted; but that it should have this
effect upon the greater part, or that men in general should work better
when they are ill fed, than when they are well fed, when they are
disheartened than when they are in good spirits, when they are
frequently sick than when they are generally in good health, seems not
very probable. Years of dearth, it is to be observed, are generally
among the common people years of sickness and mortality, which cannot
fail to diminish the produce of their industry.

In years of plenty, servants frequently leave their masters, and trust
their subsistence to what they can make by their own industry. But the
same cheapness of provisions, by increasing the fund which is destined
for the maintenance of servants, encourages masters, farmers especially,
to employ a greater number. Farmers, upon such occasions, expect more
profit from their corn by maintaining a few more labouring servants,
than by selling it at a low price in the market. The demand for servants
increases, while the number of those who offer to supply that demand
diminishes. The price of labour, therefore, frequently rises in cheap
years.

In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of subsistence
make all such people eager to return to service. But the high price of
provisions, by diminishing the funds destined for the maintenance of
servants, disposes masters rather to diminish than to increase the
number of those they have. In dear years, too, poor independent workmen
frequently consume the little stock with which they had used to supply
themselves with the materials of their work, and are obliged to become
journeymen for subsistence. More people want employment than easily get
it; many are willing to take it upon lower terms than ordinary; and the
wages of both servants and journeymen frequently sink in dear years.

Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains with
their servants in dear than in cheap years, and find them more humble
and dependent in the former than in the latter. They naturally,
therefore, commend the former as more favourable to industry. Landlords
and farmers, besides, two of the largest classes of masters, have
another reason for being pleased with dear years. The rents of the
one, and the profits of the other, depend very much upon the price of
provisions. Nothing can be more absurd, however, than to imagine that
men in general should work less when they work for themselves, than when
they work for other people. A poor independent workman will generally be
more industrious than even a journeyman who works by the piece. The one
enjoys the whole produce of his own industry, the other shares it with
his master. The one, in his separate independent state, is less liable
to the temptations of bad company, which, in large manufactories,
so frequently ruin the morals of the other. The superiority of the
independent workman over those servants who are hired by the month or by
the year, and whose wages and maintenance are the same, whether they do
much or do little, is likely to be still greater. Cheap years tend
to increase the proportion of independent workmen to journeymen and
servants of all kinds, and dear years to diminish it.

A French author of great knowledge and ingenuity, Mr Messance, receiver
of the taillies in the election of St Etienne, endeavours to shew that
the poor do more work in cheap than in dear years, by comparing the
quantity and value of the goods made upon those different occasions
in three different manufactures; one of coarse woollens, carried on at
Elbeuf; one of linen, and another of silk, both which extend through the
whole generality of Rouen. It appears from his account, which is copied
from the registers of the public offices, that the quantity and value
of the goods made in all those three manufactories has generally been
greater in cheap than in dear years, and that it has always been;
greatest in the cheapest, and least in the dearest years. All the three
seem to be stationary manufactures, or which, though their produce may
vary somewhat from year to year, are, upon the whole, neither going
backwards nor forwards.

The manufacture of linen in Scotland, and that of coarse woollens in the
West Riding of Yorkshire, are growing manufactures, of which the produce
is generally, though with some variations, increasing both in quantity
and value. Upon examining, however, the accounts which have been
published of their annual produce, I have not been able to observe that
its variations have had any sensible connection with the dearness
or cheapness of the seasons. In 1740, a year of great scarcity, both
manufactures, indeed, appear to have declined very considerably. But in
1756, another year or great scarcity, the Scotch manufactures made more
than ordinary advances. The Yorkshire manufacture, indeed, declined, and
its produce did not rise to what it had been in 1755, till 1766, after
the repeal of the American stamp act. In that and the following year, it
greatly exceeded what it had ever been before, and it has continued to
advance ever since.

The produce of all great manufactures for distant sale must necessarily
depend, not so much upon the dearness or cheapness of the seasons in
the countries where they are carried on, as upon the circumstances which
affect the demand in the countries where they are consumed; upon peace
or war, upon the prosperity or declension of other rival manufactures
and upon the good or bad humour of their principal customers. A great
part of the extraordinary work, besides, which is probably done in
cheap years, never enters the public registers of manufactures. The
men-servants, who leave their masters, become independent labourers.
The women return to their parents, and commonly spin, in order to make
clothes for themselves and their families. Even the independent workmen
do not always, work for public sale, but are employed by some of their
neighbours in manufactures for family use. The produce of their labour,
therefore, frequently makes no figure in those public registers, of
which the records are sometimes published with so much parade, and from
which our merchants and manufacturers would often vainly pretend to
announce the prosperity or declension of the greatest empires.

Through the variations in the price of labour not only do not always
correspond with those in the price of provisions, but are frequently
quite opposite, we must not, upon this account, imagine that the price
of provisions has no influence upon that of labour. The money price of
labour is necessarily regulated by two circumstances; the demand for
labour, and the price of the necessaries and conveniencies of life. The
demand for labour, according as it happens to be increasing, stationary,
or declining, or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining
population, determines the quantities of the necessaries and
conveniencies of life which must be given to the labourer; and the money
price of labour is determined by what is requisite for purchasing this
quantity. Though the money price of labour, therefore, is sometimes
high where the price of provisions is low, it would be still higher, the
demand continuing the same, if the price of provisions was high.

It is because the demand for labour increases in years of sudden
and extraordinary plenty, and diminishes in those of sudden and
extraordinary scarcity, that the money price of labour sometimes rises
in the one, and sinks in the other.

In a year of sudden and extraordinary plenty, there are funds in the
hands of many of the employers of industry, sufficient to maintain and
employ a greater number of industrious people than had been employed the
year before; and this extraordinary number cannot always be had. Those
masters, therefore, who want more workmen, bid against one another, in
order to get them, which sometimes raises both the real and the money
price of their labour.

The contrary of this happens in a year of sudden and extraordinary
scarcity. The funds destined for employing industry are less than they
had been the year before. A considerable number of people are thrown out
of employment, who bid one against another, in order to get it, which
sometimes lowers both the real and the money price of labour. In 1740,
a year of extraordinary scarcity, many people were willing to work
for bare subsistence. In the succeeding years of plenty, it was more
difficult to get labourers and servants. The scarcity of a dear year, by
diminishing the demand for labour, tends to lower its price, as the high
price of provisions tends to raise it. The plenty of a cheap year, on
the contrary, by increasing the demand, tends to raise the price
of labour, as the cheapness of provisions tends to lower it. In the
ordinary variations of the prices of provisions, those two opposite
causes seem to counterbalance one another, which is probably, in part,
the reason why the wages of labour are everywhere so much more steady
and permanent than the price of provisions.

The increase in the wages of labour necessarily increases the price of
many commodities, by increasing that part of it which resolves itself
into wages, and so far tends to diminish their consumption, both at home
and abroad. The same cause, however, which raises the wages of labour,
the increase of stock, tends to increase its productive powers, and to
make a smaller quantity of labour produce a greater quantity of work.
The owner of the stock which employs a great number of labourers
necessarily endeavours, for his own advantage, to make such a proper
division and distribution of employment, that they may be enabled to
produce the greatest quantity of work possible. For the same reason,
he endeavours to supply them with the best machinery which either he or
they can think of. What takes place among the labourers in a particular
workhouse, takes place, for the same reason, among those of a great
society. The greater their number, the more they naturally divide
themselves into different classes and subdivisions of employments. More
heads are occupied in inventing the most proper machinery for executing
the work of each, and it is, therefore, more likely to be invented.
There me many commodities, therefore, which, in consequence of these
improvements, come to be produced by so much less labour than before,
that the increase of its price is more than compensated by the
diminution of its quantity.



CHAPTER IX. OF THE PROFITS OF STOCK.

The rise and fall in the profits of stock depend upon the same causes
with the rise and fall in the wages of labour, the increasing or
declining state of the wealth of the society; but those causes affect
the one and the other very differently.

The increase of stock, which raises wages, tends to lower profit. When
the stocks of many rich merchants are turned into the same trade, their
mutual competition naturally tends to lower its profit; and when there
is a like increase of stock in all the different trades carried on in
the same society, the same competition must produce the same effect in
them all.

It is not easy, it has already been observed, to ascertain what are the
average wages of labour, even in a particular place, and at a particular
time. We can, even in this case, seldom determine more than what are the
most usual wages. But even this can seldom be done with regard to the
profits of stock. Profit is so very fluctuating, that the person who
carries on a particular trade, cannot always tell you himself what is
the average of his annual profit. It is affected, not only by every
variation of price in the commodities which he deals in, but by the
good or bad fortune both of his rivals and of his customers, and by a
thousand other accidents, to which goods, when carried either by sea
or by land, or even when stored in a warehouse, are liable. It varies,
therefore, not only from year to year, but from day to day, and almost
from hour to hour. To ascertain what is the average profit of all
the different trades carried on in a great kingdom, must be much more
difficult; and to judge of what it may have been formerly, or in remote
periods of time, with any degree of precision, must be altogether
impossible.

But though it may be impossible to determine, with any degree of
precision, what are or were the average profits of stock, either in the
present or in ancient times, some notion may be formed of them from the
interest of money. It may be laid down as a maxim, that wherever a great
deal can be made by the use of money, a great deal will commonly be
given for the use of it; and that, wherever little can be made by it,
less will commonly he given for it. Accordingly, therefore, as the usual
market rate of interest varies in any country, we may be assured that
the ordinary profits of stock must vary with it, must sink as it sinks,
and rise as it rises. The progress of interest, therefore, may lead us
to form some notion of the progress of profit.

By the 37th of Henry VIII. all interest above ten per cent. was declared
unlawful. More, it seems, had sometimes been taken before that. In
the reign of Edward VI. religious zeal prohibited all interest. This
prohibition, however, like all others of the same kind, is said to have
produced no effect, and probably rather increased than diminished the
evil of usury. The statute of Henry VIII. was revived by the 13th of
Elizabeth, cap. 8. and ten per cent. continued to be the legal rate of
interest till the 21st of James I. when it was restricted to eight per
cent. It was reduced to six per cent. soon after the Restoration, and by
the 12th of Queen Anne, to five per cent. All these different statutory
regulations seem to have been made with great propriety. They seem to
have followed, and not to have gone before, the market rate of interest,
or the rate at which people of good credit usually borrowed. Since the
time of Queen Anne, five per cent. seems to have been rather above than
below the market rate. Before the late war, the government borrowed at
three per cent.; and people of good credit in the capital, and in many
other parts of the kingdom, at three and a-half, four, and four and
a-half per cent.

Since the time of Henry VIII. the wealth and revenue of the country have
been continually advancing, and in the course of their progress, their
pace seems rather to have been gradually accelerated than retarded. They
seem not only to have been going on, but to have been going on faster
and faster. The wages of labour have been continually increasing during
the same period, and, in the greater part of the different branches of
trade and manufactures, the profits of stock have been diminishing.

It generally requires a greater stock to carry on any sort of trade in a
great town than in a country village. The great stocks employed in every
branch of trade, and the number of rich competitors, generally reduce
the rate of profit in the former below what it is in the latter. But the
wages of labour are generally higher in a great town than in a country
village. In a thriving town, the people who have great stocks to employ,
frequently cannot get the number of workmen they want, and therefore bid
against one another, in order to get as many as they can, which raises
the wages of labour, and lowers the profits of stock. In the remote
parts of the country, there is frequently not stock sufficient to employ
all the people, who therefore bid against one another, in order to get
employment, which lowers the wages of labour, and raises the profits of
stock.

In Scotland, though the legal rate of interest is the same as in
England, the market rate is rather higher. People of the best credit
there seldom borrow under five per cent. Even private bankers in
Edinburgh give four per cent. upon their promissory-notes, of which
payment, either in whole or in part may be demanded at pleasure. Private
bankers in London give no interest for the money which is deposited with
them. There are few trades which cannot be carried on with a smaller
stock in Scotland than in England. The common rate of profit, therefore,
must be somewhat greater. The wages of labour, it has already been
observed, are lower in Scotland than in England. The country, too, is
not only much poorer, but the steps by which it advances to a better
condition, for it is evidently advancing, seem to be much slower and
more tardy. The legal rate of interest in France has not during the
course of the present century, been always regulated by the market rate
{See Denisart, Article Taux des Interests, tom. iii, p.13}. In 1720,
interest was reduced from the twentieth to the fiftieth penny, or from
five to two per cent. In 1724, it was raised to the thirtieth penny,
or to three and a third per cent. In 1725, it was again raised to the
twentieth penny, or to five per cent. In 1766, during the administration
of Mr Laverdy, it was reduced to the twenty-fifth penny, or to four per
cent. The Abbé Terray raised it afterwards to the old rate of five
per cent. The supposed purpose of many of those violent reductions of
interest was to prepare the way for reducing that of the public debts;
a purpose which has sometimes been executed. France is, perhaps, in the
present times, not so rich a country as England; and though the legal
rate of interest has in France frequently been lower than in England,
the market rate has generally been higher; for there, as in other
countries, they have several very safe and easy methods of evading the
law. The profits of trade, I have been assured by British merchants who
had traded in both countries, are higher in France than in England;
and it is no doubt upon this account, that many British subjects chuse
rather to employ their capitals in a country where trade is in disgrace,
than in one where it is highly respected. The wages of labour are lower
in France than in England. When you go from Scotland to England, the
difference which you may remark between the dress and countenance of
the common people in the one country and in the other, sufficiently
indicates the difference in their condition. The contrast is still
greater when you return from France. France, though no doubt a richer
country than Scotland, seems not to be going forward so fast. It is
a common and even a popular opinion in the country, that it is going
backwards; an opinion which I apprehend, is ill-founded, even with
regard to France, but which nobody can possibly entertain with regard
to Scotland, who sees the country now, and who saw it twenty or thirty
years ago.

The province of Holland, on the other hand, in proportion to the extent
of its territory and the number of its people, is a richer country than
England. The government there borrow at two per cent. and private people
of good credit at three. The wages of labour are said to be higher in
Holland than in England, and the Dutch, it is well known, trade upon
lower profits than any people in Europe. The trade of Holland, it has
been pretended by some people, is decaying, and it may perhaps be true
that some particular branches of it are so; but these symptoms seem
to indicate sufficiently that there is no general decay. When profit
diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays, though
the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of
a greater stock being employed in it than before. During the late war,
the Dutch gained the whole carrying trade of France, of which they still
retain a very large share. The great property which they possess both in
French and English funds, about forty millions, it is said in the latter
(in which, I suspect, however, there is a considerable exaggeration ),
the great sums which they lend to private people, in countries where the
rate of interest is higher than in their own, are circumstances which
no doubt demonstrate the redundancy of their stock, or that it has
increased beyond what they can employ with tolerable profit in the
proper business of their own country; but they do not demonstrate that
that business has decreased. As the capital of a private man, though
acquired by a particular trade, may increase beyond what he can employ
in it, and yet that trade continue to increase too, so may likewise the
capital of a great nation.

In our North American and West Indian colonies, not only the wages
of labour, but the interest of money, and consequently the profits of
stock, are higher than in England. In the different colonies, both the
legal and the market rate of interest run from six to eight percent.
High wages of labour and high profits of stock, however, are things,
perhaps, which scarce ever go together, except in the peculiar
circumstances of new colonies. A new colony must always, for some time,
be more understocked in proportion to the extent of its territory, and
more underpeopled in proportion to the extent of its stock, than the
greater part of other countries. They have more land than they have
stock to cultivate. What they have, therefore, is applied to the
cultivation only of what is most fertile and most favourably situated,
the land near the sea-shore, and along the banks of navigable rivers.
Such land, too, is frequently purchased at a price below the value even
of its natural produce. Stock employed in the purchase and improvement
of such lands, must yield a very large profit, and, consequently, afford
to pay a very large interest. Its rapid accumulation in so profitable
an employment enables the planter to increase the number of his hands
faster than he can find them in a new settlement. Those whom he can
find, therefore, are very liberally rewarded. As the colony increases,
the profits of stock gradually diminish. When the most fertile and best
situated lands have been all occupied, less profit can be made by the
cultivation of what is inferior both in soil and situation, and less
interest can be afforded for the stock which is so employed. In the
greater part of our colonies, accordingly, both the legal and the market
rate of interest have been considerably reduced during the course of the
present century. As riches, improvement, and population, have increased,
interest has declined. The wages of labour do not sink with the profits
of stock. The demand for labour increases with the increase of stock,
whatever be its profits; and after these are diminished, stock may not
only continue to increase, but to increase much faster than before. It
is with industrious nations, who are advancing in the acquisition of
riches, as with industrious individuals. A great stock, though with
small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great
profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a
little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get
that little. The connection between the increase of stock and that of
industry, or of the demand for useful labour, has partly been explained
already, but will be explained more fully hereafter, in treating of the
accumulation of stock.

The acquisition of new territory, or of new branches of trade, may
sometimes raise the profits of stock, and with them the interest of
money, even in a country which is fast advancing in the acquisition of
riches. The stock of the country, not being sufficient for the whole
accession of business which such acquisitions present to the different
people among whom it is divided, is applied to those particular branches
only which afford the greatest profit. Part of what had before been
employed in other trades, is necessarily withdrawn from them, and turned
into some of the new and more profitable ones. In all those old trades,
therefore, the competition comes to be Jess than before. The market
comes to be less fully supplied with many different sorts of goods.
Their price necessarily rises more or less, and yields a greater profit
to those who deal in them, who can, therefore, afford to borrow at a
higher interest. For some time after the conclusion of the late war,
not only private people of the best credit, but some of the greatest
companies in London, commonly borrowed at five per cent. who, before
that, had not been used to pay more than four, and four and a half
per cent. The great accession both of territory and trade by our
acquisitions in North America and the West Indies, will sufficiently
account for this, without supposing any diminution in the capital stock
of the society. So great an accession of new business to be carried on
by the old stock, must necessarily have diminished the quantity employed
in a great number of particular branches, in which the competition
being less, the profits must have been greater. I shall hereafter have
occasion to mention the reasons which dispose me to believe that the
capital stock of Great Britain was not diminished, even by the enormous
expense of the late war.

The diminution of the capital stock of the society, or of the funds
destined for the maintenance of industry, however, as it lowers the
wages of labour, so it raises the profits of stock, and consequently the
interest of money. By the wages of labour being lowered, the owners of
what stock remains in the society can bring their goods at less expense
to market than before; and less stock being employed in supplying the
market than before, they can sell them dearer. Their goods cost them
less, and they get more for them. Their profits, therefore, being
augmented at both ends, can well afford a large interest. The great
fortunes so suddenly and so easily acquired in Bengal and the other
British settlements in the East Indies, may satisfy us, that as the
wages of labour are very low, so the profits of stock are very high in
those ruined countries. The interest of money is proportionably so. In
Bengal, money is frequently lent to the farmers at forty, fifty, and
sixty per cent. and the succeeding crop is mortgaged for the payment.
As the profits which can afford such an interest must eat up almost the
whole rent of the landlord, so such enormous usury must in its turn
eat up the greater part of those profits. Before the fall of the Roman
republic, a usury of the same kind seems to have been common in the
provinces, under the ruinous administration of their proconsuls. The
virtuous Brutus lent money in Cyprus at eight-and-forty per cent. as we
learn from the letters of Cicero.

In a country which had acquired that full complement of riches which the
nature of its soil and climate, and its situation with respect to other
countries, allowed it to acquire, which could, therefore, advance no
further, and which was not going backwards, both the wages of labour
and the profits of stock would probably be very low. In a country fully
peopled in proportion to what either its territory could maintain, or
its stock employ, the competition for employment would necessarily be so
great as to reduce the wages of labour to what was barely sufficient
to keep up the number of labourers, and the country being already
fully peopled, that number could never be augmented. In a country fully
stocked in proportion to all the business it had to transact, as great
a quantity of stock would be employed in every particular branch as the
nature and extent of the trade would admit. The competition, therefore,
would everywhere be as great, and, consequently, the ordinary profit as
low as possible.

But, perhaps, no country has ever yet arrived at this degree of
opulence. China seems to have been long stationary, and had, probably,
long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent
with the nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be
much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions, the nature
of its soil, climate, and situation, might admit of. A country which
neglects or despises foreign commerce, and which admits the vessel of
foreign nations into one or two of its ports only, cannot transact the
same quantity of business which it might do with different laws and
institutions. In a country, too, where, though the rich, or the owners
of large capitals, enjoy a good deal of security, the poor, or the
owners of small capitals, enjoy scarce any, but are liable, under the
pretence of justice, to be pillaged and plundered at any time by the
inferior mandarins, the quantity of stock employed in all the different
branches of business transacted within it, can never be equal to what
the nature and extent of that business might admit. In every different
branch, the oppression of the poor must establish the monopoly of the
rich, who, by engrossing the whole trade to themselves, will be able to
make very large profits. Twelve per cent. accordingly, is said to be
the common interest of money in China, and the ordinary profits of stock
must be sufficient to afford this large interest.

A defect in the law may sometimes raise the rate of interest
considerably above what the condition of the country, as to wealth or
poverty, would require. When the law does not enforce the performance
of contracts, it puts all borrowers nearly upon the same footing with
bankrupts, or people of doubtful credit, in better regulated countries.
The uncertainty of recovering his money makes the lender exact the same
usurious interest which is usually required from bankrupts. Among the
barbarous nations who overran the western provinces of the Roman empire,
the performance of contracts was left for many ages to the faith of
the contracting parties. The courts of justice of their kings seldom
intermeddled in it. The high rate of interest which took place in those
ancient times, may, perhaps, be partly accounted for from this cause.

When the law prohibits interest altogether, it does not prevent it. Many
people must borrow, and nobody will lend without such a consideration
for the use of their money as is suitable, not only to what can be made
by the use of it, but to the difficulty and danger of evading the law.
The high rate of interest among all Mahometan nations is accounted for
by M. Montesquieu, not from their poverty, but partly from this, and
partly from the difficulty of recovering the money.

The lowest ordinary rate of profit must always be something more than
what is sufficient to compensate the occasional losses to which every
employment of stock is exposed. It is this surplus only which is neat
or clear profit. What is called gross profit, comprehends frequently
not only this surplus, but what is retained for compensating such
extraordinary losses. The interest which the borrower can afford to pay
is in proportion to the clear profit only. The lowest ordinary rate of
interest must, in the same manner, be something more than sufficient to
compensate the occasional losses to which lending, even with tolerable
prudence, is exposed. Were it not, mere charity or friendship could be
the only motives for lending.

In a country which had acquired its full complement of riches, where, in
every particular branch of business, there was the greatest quantity of
stock that could be employed in it, as the ordinary rate of clear profit
would be very small, so the usual market rate of interest which could
be afforded out of it would be so low as to render it impossible for any
but the very wealthiest people to live upon the interest of their money.
All people of small or middling fortunes would be obliged to superintend
themselves the employment of their own stocks. It would be necessary
that almost every man should be a man of business, or engage in some
sort of trade. The province of Holland seems to be approaching near
to this state. It is there unfashionable not to be a man of business.
Necessity makes it usual for almost every man to be so, and custom
everywhere regulates fashion. As it is ridiculous not to dress, so is
it, in some measure, not to be employed like other people. As a man of
a civil profession seems awkward in a camp or a garrison, and is even
in some danger of being despised there, so does an idle man among men of
business.

The highest ordinary rate of profit may be such as, in the price of the
greater part of commodities, eats up the whole of what should go to the
rent of the land, and leaves only what is sufficient to pay the labour
of preparing and bringing them to market, according to the lowest
rate at which labour can anywhere be paid, the bare subsistence of the
labourer. The workman must always have been fed in some way or other
while he was about the work, but the landlord may not always have been
paid. The profits of the trade which the servants of the East India
Company carry on in Bengal may not, perhaps, be very far from this rate.

The proportion which the usual market rate of interest ought to bear to
the ordinary rate of clear profit, necessarily varies as profit rises or
falls. Double interest is in Great Britain reckoned what the merchants
call a good, moderate, reasonable profit; terms which, I apprehend, mean
no more than a common and usual profit. In a country where the ordinary
rate of clear profit is eight or ten per cent. it may be reasonable that
one half of it should go to interest, wherever business is carried on
with borrowed money. The stock is at the risk of the borrower, who, as
it were, insures it to the lender; and four or five per cent. may, in
the greater part of trades, be both a sufficient profit upon the risk of
this insurance, and a sufficient recompence for the trouble of employing
the stock. But the proportion between interest and clear profit might
not be the same in countries where the ordinary rate of profit was
either a good deal lower, or a good deal higher. If it were a good deal
lower, one half of it, perhaps, could not be afforded for interest; and
more might be afforded if it were a good deal higher.

In countries which are fast advancing to riches, the low rate of profit
may, in the price of many commodities, compensate the high wages of
labour, and enable those countries to sell as cheap as their less
thriving neighbours, among whom the wages of labour may be lower.

In reality, high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than
high wages. If, in the linen manufacture, for example, the wages of the
different working people, the flax-dressers, the spinners, the weavers,
etc. should all of them be advanced twopence a-day, it would be
necessary to heighten the price of a piece of linen only by a number of
twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it,
multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed.
That part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself into the
wages, would, through all the different stages of the manufacture,
rise only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the
profits of all the different employers of those working people should
be raised five per cent. that part of the price of the commodity which
resolved itself into profit would, through all the different stages of
the manufacture, rise in geometrical proportion to this rise of profit.
The employer of the flax dressers would, in selling his flax, require
an additional five per cent. upon the whole value of the materials and
wages which he advanced to his workmen. The employer of the spinners
would require an additional five per cent. both upon the advanced price
of the flax, and upon the wages of the spinners. And the employer of the
weavers would require alike five per cent. both upon the advanced price
of the linen-yarn, and upon the wages of the weavers. In raising the
price of commodities, the rise of wages operates in the same manner as
simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. The rise of profit
operates like compound interest. Our merchants and master manufacturers
complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and
thereby lessening the sale of their goods, both at home and abroad. They
say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits; they are silent
with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains; they complain
only of those of other people.



CHAPTER X. OF WAGES AND PROFIT IN THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF LABOUR
AND STOCK.

The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different
employments of labour and stock, must, in the same neighbourhood, be
either perfectly equal, or continually tending to equality. If, in the
same neighbourhood, there was any employment evidently either more or
less advantageous than the rest, so many people would crowd into it
in the one case, and so many would desert it in the other, that its
advantages would soon return to the level of other employments. This, at
least, would be the case in a society where things were left to follow
their natural course, where there was perfect liberty, and where every
man was perfectly free both to choose what occupation he thought proper,
and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's
interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous, and to shun the
disadvantageous employment.

Pecuniary wages and profit, indeed, are everywhere in Europe extremely
different, according to the different employments of labour and stock.
But this difference arises, partly from certain circumstances in
the employments themselves, which, either really, or at least in the
imagination of men, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and
counterbalance a great one in others, and partly from the policy of
Europe, which nowhere leaves things at perfect liberty.

The particular consideration of those circumstances, and of that policy,
will divide this Chapter into two parts.


PART I. Inequalities arising from the nature of the employments
themselves.

The five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I
have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some
employments, and counterbalance a great one in others. First, the
agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves;
secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of
learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in
them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those
who exercise them; and, fifthly, the probability or improbability of
success in them.

First, the wages of labour vary with the ease or hardship, the
cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonourableness, of
the employment. Thus in most places, take the year round, a journeyman
tailor earns less than a journeyman weaver. His work is much easier. A
journeyman weaver earns less than a journeyman smith. His work is not
always easier, but it is much cleanlier. A journeyman blacksmith, though
an artificer, seldom earns so much in twelve hours, as a collier, who is
only a labourer, does in eight. His work is not quite so dirty, is less
dangerous, and is carried on in day-light, and above ground. Honour
makes a great part of the reward of all honourable professions. In
point of pecuniary gain, all things considered, they are generally
under-recompensed, as I shall endeavour to shew by and by. Disgrace has
the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious
business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part
of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public
executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid
than any common trade whatever.

Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of mankind in
the rude state of society, become, in its advanced state, their most
agreeable amusements, and they pursue for pleasure what they once
followed from necessity. In the advanced state of society, therefore,
they are all very poor people who follow as a trade, what other
people pursue as a pastime. Fishermen have been so since the time of
Theocritus. {See Idyllium xxi.}. A poacher is everywhere a very poor man
in Great Britain. In countries where the rigour of the law suffers no
poachers, the licensed hunter is not in a much better condition. The
natural taste for those employments makes more people follow them,
than can live comfortably by them; and the produce of their labour, in
proportion to its quantity, comes always too cheap to market, to afford
any thing but the most scanty subsistence to the labourers.

Disagreeableness and disgrace affect the profits of stock in the same
manner as the wages of labour. The keeper of an inn or tavern, who is
never master of his own house, and who is exposed to the brutality of
every drunkard, exercises neither a very agreeable nor a very creditable
business. But there is scarce any common trade in which a small stock
yields so great a profit.

Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheapness, or
the difficulty and expense, of learning the business.

When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be
performed by it before it is worn out, it must be expected, will replace
the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary profits. A
man educated at the expense of much labour and time to any of those
employments which require extraordinary dexterity and skill, may be
compared to one of those expensive machines. The work which he learns to
perform, it must be expected, over and above the usual wages of common
labour, will replace to him the whole expense of his education, with at
least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do
this too in a reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain
duration of human life, in the same manner as to the more certain
duration of the machine.

The difference between the wages of skilled labour and those of common
labour, is founded upon this principle.

The policy of Europe considers the labour of all mechanics, artificers,
and manufacturers, as skilled labour; and that of all country labourers
us common labour. It seems to suppose that of the former to be of a more
nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is so perhaps in
some cases; but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I shall
endeavour to shew by and by. The laws and customs of Europe, therefore,
in order to qualify any person for exercising the one species of labour,
impose the necessity of an apprenticeship, though with different degrees
of rigour in different places. They leave the other free and open to
every body. During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole
labour of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the meantime he must,
in many cases, be maintained by his parents or relations, and, in almost
all cases, must be clothed by them. Some money, too, is commonly given
to the master for teaching him his trade. They who cannot give money,
give time, or become bound for more than the usual number of years; a
consideration which, though it is not always advantageous to the
master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices, is always
disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour, on the contrary,
the labourer, while he is employed about the easier, learns the more
difficult parts of his business, and his own labour maintains him
through all the different stages of his employment. It is reasonable,
therefore, that in Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and
manufacturers, should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers.
They are so accordingly, and their superior gains make them, in most
places, be considered as a superior rank of people. This superiority,
however, is generally very small: the daily or weekly earnings of
journeymen in the more common sorts of manufactures, such as those of
plain linen and woollen cloth, computed at an average, are, in most
places, very little more than the day-wages of common labourers. Their
employment, indeed, is more steady and uniform, and the superiority of
their earnings, taking the whole year together, may be somewhat greater.
It seems evidently, however, to be no greater than what is sufficient
to compensate the superior expense of their education. Education in the
ingenious arts, and in the liberal professions, is still more tedious
and expensive. The pecuniary recompence, therefore, of painters and
sculptors, of lawyers and physicians, ought to be much more liberal; and
it is so accordingly.

The profits of stock seem to be very little affected by the easiness
or difficulty of learning the trade in which it is employed. All the
different ways in which stock is commonly employed in great towns seem,
in reality, to be almost equally easy and equally difficult to learn.
One branch, either of foreign or domestic trade, cannot well be a much
more intricate business than another.

Thirdly, the wages of labour in different occupations vary with the
constancy or inconstancy of employment.

Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others. In
the greater part of manufactures, a journeyman maybe pretty sure of
employment almost every day in the year that he is able to work. A mason
or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither in hard frost nor in
foul weather, and his employment at all other times depends upon the
occasional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be
frequently without any. What he earns, therefore, while he is employed,
must not only maintain him while he is idle, but make him some
compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought
of so precarious a situation must sometimes occasion. Where the computed
earnings of the greater part of manufacturers, accordingly, are nearly
upon a level with the day-wages of common labourers, those of masons
and bricklayers are generally from one-half more to double those wages.
Where common labourers earn four or five shillings a-week, masons and
bricklayers frequently earn seven and eight; where the former earn six,
the latter often earn nine and ten; and where the former earn nine and
ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn fifteen and eighteen. No
species of skilled labour, however, seems more easy to learn than that
of masons and bricklayers. Chairmen in London, during the summer season,
are said sometimes to be employed as bricklayers. The high wages of
those workmen, therefore, are not so much the recompence of their skill,
as the compensation for the inconstancy of their employment.

A house-carpenter seems to exercise rather a nicer and a more ingenious
trade than a mason. In most places, however, for it is not universally
so, his day-wages are somewhat lower. His employment, though it depends
much, does not depend so entirely upon the occasional calls of his
customers; and it is not liable to be interrupted by the weather.

When the trades which generally afford constant employment, happen in
a particular place not to do so, the wages of the workmen always rise a
good deal above their ordinary proportion to those of common labour. In
London, almost all journeymen artificers are liable to be called upon
and dismissed by their masters from day to day, and from week to week,
in the same manner as day-labourers in other places. The lowest order
of artificers, journeymen tailors, accordingly, earn their half-a-crown
a-day, though eighteen pence may be reckoned the wages of common labour.
In small towns and country villages, the wages of journeymen tailors
frequently scarce equal those of common labour; but in London they are
often many weeks without employment, particularly during the summer.

When the inconstancy of employment is combined with the hardship,
disagreeableness, and dirtiness of the work, it sometimes raises
the wages of the most common labour above those of the most skilful
artificers. A collier working by the piece is supposed, at Newcastle, to
earn commonly about double, and, in many parts of Scotland, about three
times, the wages of common labour. His high wages arise altogether
from the hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of his work. His
employment may, upon most occasions, be as constant as he pleases. The
coal-heavers in London exercise a trade which, in hardship, dirtiness,
and disagreeableness, almost equals that of colliers; and, from the
unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coal-ships, the employment
of the greater part of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers,
therefore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of common labour,
it ought not to seem unreasonable that coal-heavers should sometimes
earn four and five times those wages. In the inquiry made into their
condition a few years ago, it was found that, at the rate at which they
were then paid, they could earn from six to ten shillings a-day. Six
shillings are about four times the wages of common labour in London;
and, in every particular trade, the lowest common earnings may always
be considered as those of the far greater number. How extravagant
soever those earnings may appear, if they were more than sufficient to
compensate all the disagreeable circumstances of the business, there
would soon be so great a number of competitors, as, in a trade which has
no exclusive privilege, would quickly reduce them to a lower rate.

The constancy or inconstancy of employment cannot affect the ordinary
profits of stock in any particular trade. Whether the stock is or is not
constantly employed, depends, not upon the trade, but the trader.

Fourthly, the wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust
which must be reposed in the workmen.

The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere superior to
those of many other workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior
ingenuity, on account of the precious materials with which they are
entrusted. We trust our health to the physician, our fortune, and
sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney. Such
confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low
condition. Their reward must be such, therefore, as may give them that
rank in the society which so important a trust requires. The long time
and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when
combined with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further the
price of their labour.

When a person employs only his own stock in trade, there is no trust;
and the credit which he may get from other people, depends, not upon the
nature of the trade, but upon their opinion of his fortune, probity and
prudence. The different rates of profit, therefore, in the different
branches of trade, cannot arise from the different degrees of trust
reposed in the traders.

Fifthly, the wages of labour in different employments vary according to
the probability or improbability of success in them.

The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for
the employments to which he is educated, is very different in different
occupations. In the greatest part of mechanic trades success is almost
certain; but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son
apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make
a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it as at least twenty to
one if he ever makes such proficiency as will enable him to live by the
business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought
to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession,
where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that
should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor at
law, who, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make something
by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of his
own so tedious and expensive education, but of that of more than twenty
others, who are never likely to make any thing by it. How extravagant
soever the fees of counsellors at law may sometimes appear, their real
retribution is never equal to this. Compute, in any particular place,
what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually
spent, by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that
of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will
generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with regard
to all the counsellors and students of law, in all the different Inns of
Court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very small
proportion to their annual expense, even though you rate the former as
high, and the latter as low, as can well be done. The lottery of the
law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and
that as well as many other liberal and honourable professions, is, in
point of pecuniary gain, evidently under-recompensed.

Those professions keep their level, however, with other occupations;
and, notwithstanding these discouragements, all the most generous and
liberal spirits are eager to crowd into them. Two different causes
contribute to recommend them. First, the desire of the reputation which
attends upon superior excellence in any of them; and, secondly, the
natural confidence which every man has, more or less, not only in his
own abilities, but in his own good fortune.

To excel in any profession, in which but few arrive at mediocrity, it
is the most decisive mark of what is called genius, or superior talents.
The public admiration which attends upon such distinguished abilities
makes always a part of their reward; a greater or smaller, in proportion
as it is higher or lower in degree. It makes a considerable part of that
reward in the profession of physic; a still greater, perhaps, in that of
law; in poetry and philosophy it makes almost the whole.

There are some very agreeable and beautiful talents, of which the
possession commands a certain sort of admiration, but of which the
exercise, for the sake of gain, is considered, whether from reason or
prejudice, as a sort of public prostitution. The pecuniary recompence,
therefore, of those who exercise them in this manner, must be
sufficient, not only to pay for the time, labour, and expense of
acquiring the talents, but for the discredit which attends the
employment of them as the means of subsistence. The exorbitant rewards
of players, opera-singers, opera-dancers, etc. are founded upon those
two principles; the rarity and beauty of the talents, and the discredit
of employing them in this manner. It seems absurd at first sight, that
we should despise their persons, and yet reward their talents with
the most profuse liberality. While we do the one, however, we must of
necessity do the other, Should the public opinion or prejudice ever
alter with regard to such occupations, their pecuniary recompence would
quickly diminish. More people would apply to them, and the competition
would quickly reduce the price of their labour. Such talents, though
far from being common, are by no means so rare as imagined. Many people
possess them in great perfection, who disdain to make this use of them;
and many more are capable of acquiring them, if any thing could be made
honourably by them.

The over-weening conceit which the greater part of men have of their own
abilities, is an ancient evil remarked by the philosophers and moralists
of all ages. Their absurd presumption in their own good fortune has been
less taken notice of. It is, however, if possible, still more universal.
There is no man living, who, when in tolerable health and spirits, has
not some share of it. The chance of gain is by every man more or less
over-valued, and the chance of loss is by most men under-valued, and by
scarce any man, who is in tolerable health and spirits, valued more than
it is worth.

That the chance of gain is naturally overvalued, we may learn from the
universal success of lotteries. The world neither ever saw, nor ever
will see, a perfectly fair lottery, or one in which the whole gain
compensated the whole loss; because the undertaker could make nothing by
it. In the state lotteries, the tickets are really not worth the price
which is paid by the original subscribers, and yet commonly sell in the
market for twenty, thirty, and sometimes forty per cent. advance. The
vain hopes of gaining some of the great prizes is the sole cause of
this demand. The soberest people scarce look upon it as a folly to pay
a small sum for the chance of gaining ten or twenty thousand pounds,
though they know that even that small sum is perhaps twenty or thirty
per cent. more than the chance is worth. In a lottery in which no prize
exceeded twenty pounds, though in other respects it approached much
nearer to a perfectly fair one than the common state lotteries, there
would not be the same demand for tickets. In order to have a better
chance for some of the great prizes, some people purchase several
tickets; and others, small shares in a still greater number. There is
not, however, a more certain proposition in mathematics, than that the
more tickets you adventure upon, the more likely you are to be a loser.
Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain;
and the greater the number of your tickets, the nearer you approach to
this certainty.

That the chance of loss is frequently undervalued, and scarce ever
valued more than it is worth, we may learn from the very moderate profit
of insurers. In order to make insurance, either from fire or sea-risk,
a trade at all, the common premium must be sufficient to compensate the
common losses, to pay the expense of management, and to afford such a
profit as might have been drawn from an equal capital employed in any
common trade. The person who pays no more than this, evidently pays no
more than the real value of the risk, or the lowest price at which he
can reasonably expect to insure it. But though many people have made a
little money by insurance, very few have made a great fortune; and,
from this consideration alone, it seems evident enough that the ordinary
balance of profit and loss is not more advantageous in this than in
other common trades, by which so many people make fortunes. Moderate,
however, as the premium of insurance commonly is, many people despise
the risk too much to care to pay it. Taking the whole kingdom at an
average, nineteen houses in twenty, or rather, perhaps, ninety-nine in
a hundred, are not insured from fire. Sea-risk is more alarming to the
greater part of people; and the proportion of ships insured to those not
insured is much greater. Many sail, however, at all seasons, and even in
time of war, without any insurance. This may sometimes, perhaps, be done
without any imprudence. When a great company, or even a great merchant,
has twenty or thirty ships at sea, they may, as it were, insure one
another. The premium saved up on them all may more than compensate such
losses as they are likely to meet with in the common course of chances.
The neglect of insurance upon shipping, however, in the same manner as
upon houses, is, in most cases, the effect of no such nice calculation,
but of mere thoughtless rashness, and presumptuous contempt of the risk.

The contempt of risk, and the presumptuous hope of success, are in no
period of life more active than at the age at which young people choose
their professions. How little the fear of misfortune is then capable
of balancing the hope of good luck, appears still more evidently in the
readiness of the common people to enlist as soldiers, or to go to sea,
than in the eagerness of those of better fashion to enter into what are
called the liberal professions.

What a common soldier may lose is obvious enough. Without regarding
the danger, however, young volunteers never enlist so readily as at
the beginning of a new war; and though they have scarce any chance of
preferment, they figure to themselves, in their youthful fancies, a
thousand occasions of acquiring honour and distinction which never
occur. These romantic hopes make the whole price of their blood. Their
pay is less than that of common labourers, and, in actual service, their
fatigues are much greater.

The lottery of the sea is not altogether so disadvantageous as that of
the army. The son of a creditable labourer or artificer may frequently
go to sea with his father's consent; but if he enlists as a soldier,
it is always without it. Other people see some chance of his making
something by the one trade; nobody but himself sees any of his making
any thing by the other. The great admiral is less the object of public
admiration than the great general; and the highest success in the sea
service promises a less brilliant fortune and reputation than equal
success in the land. The same difference runs through all the inferior
degrees of preferment in both. By the rules of precedency, a captain in
the navy ranks with a colonel in the army; but he does not rank with him
in the common estimation. As the great prizes in the lottery are less,
the smaller ones must be more numerous. Common sailors, therefore, more
frequently get some fortune and preferment than common soldiers; and the
hope of those prizes is what principally recommends the trade. Though
their skill and dexterity are much superior to that of almost any
artificers; and though their whole life is one continual scene of
hardship and danger; yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those
hardships and dangers, while they remain in the condition of common
sailors, they receive scarce any other recompence but the pleasure of
exercising the one and of surmounting the other. Their wages are not
greater than those of common labourers at the port which regulates the
rate of seamen's wages. As they are continually going from port to port,
the monthly pay of those who sail from all the different ports of Great
Britain, is more nearly upon a level than that of any other workmen in
those different places; and the rate of the port to and from which the
greatest number sail, that is, the port of London, regulates that of
all the rest. At London, the wages of the greater part of the different
classes of workmen are about double those of the same classes at
Edinburgh. But the sailors who sail from the port of London, seldom earn
above three or four shillings a month more than those who sail from the
port of Leith, and the difference is frequently not so great. In time of
peace, and in the merchant-service, the London price is from a guinea to
about seven-and-twenty shillings the calendar month. A common labourer
in London, at the rate of nine or ten shillings a week, may earn in
the calendar month from forty to five-and-forty shillings. The sailor,
indeed, over and above his pay, is supplied with provisions. Their
value, however, may not perhaps always exceed the difference between his
pay and that of the common labourer; and though it sometimes should, the
excess will not be clear gain to the sailor, because he cannot share
it with his wife and family, whom he must maintain out of his wages at
home.

The dangers and hair-breadth escapes of a life of adventures, instead
of disheartening young people, seem frequently to recommend a trade
to them. A tender mother, among the inferior ranks of people, is often
afraid to send her son to school at a sea-port town, lest the sight of
the ships, and the conversation and adventures of the sailors, should
entice him to go to sea. The distant prospect of hazards, from which
we can hope to extricate ourselves by courage and address, is not
disagreeable to us, and does not raise the wages of labour in any
employment. It is otherwise with those in which courage and address can
be of no avail. In trades which are known to be very unwholesome, the
wages of labour are always remarkably high. Unwholesomeness is a species
of disagreeableness, and its effects upon the wages of labour are to be
ranked under that general head.

In all the different employments of stock, the ordinary rate of profit
varies more or less with the certainty or uncertainty of the returns.
These are, in general, less uncertain in the inland than in the foreign
trade, and in some branches of foreign trade than in others; in the
trade to North America, for example, than in that to Jamaica. The
ordinary rate of profit always rises more or less with the risk. It does
not, however, seem to rise in proportion to it, or so as to compensate
it completely. Bankruptcies are most frequent in the most hazardous
trades. The most hazardous of all trades, that of a smuggler, though,
when the adventure succeeds, it is likewise the most profitable, is the
infallible road to bankruptcy. The presumptuous hope of success seems to
act here as upon all other occasions, and to entice so many adventurers
into those hazardous trades, that their competition reduces the profit
below what is sufficient to compensate the risk. To compensate it
completely, the common returns ought, over and above the ordinary
profits of stock, not only to make up for all occasional losses, but to
afford a surplus profit to the adventurers, of the same nature with the
profit of insurers. But if the common returns were sufficient for all
this, bankruptcies would not be more frequent in these than in other
trades.

Of the five circumstances, therefore, which vary the wages of
labour, two only affect the profits of stock; the agreeableness or
disagreeableness of the business, and the risk or security with which
it is attended. In point of agreeableness or disagreeableness, there
is little or no difference in the far greater part of the different
employments of stock, but a great deal in those of labour; and the
ordinary profit of stock, though it rises with the risk, does not always
seem to rise in proportion to it. It should follow from all this, that,
in the same society or neighbourhood, the average and ordinary rates of
profit in the different employments of stock should be more nearly upon
a level than the pecuniary wages of the different sorts of labour.

They are so accordingly. The difference between the earnings of a common
labourer and those of a well employed lawyer or physician, is evidently
much greater than that between the ordinary profits in any two different
branches of trade. The apparent difference, besides, in the profits of
different trades, is generally a deception arising from our not always
distinguishing what ought to be considered as wages, from what ought to
be considered as profit.

Apothecaries' profit is become a bye-word, denoting something uncommonly
extravagant. This great apparent profit, however, is frequently no more
than the reasonable wages of labour. The skill of an apothecary is a
much nicer and more delicate matter than that of any artificer whatever;
and the trust which is reposed in him is of much greater importance.
He is the physician of the poor in all cases, and of the rich when the
distress or danger is not very great. His reward, therefore, ought to
be suitable to his skill and his trust; and it arises generally from the
price at which he sells his drugs. But the whole drugs which the best
employed apothecary in a large market-town, will sell in a year, may
not perhaps cost him above thirty or forty pounds. Though he should sell
them, therefore, for three or four hundred, or at a thousand per cent.
profit, this may frequently be no more than the reasonable wages of his
labour, charged, in the only way in which he can charge them, upon the
price of his drugs. The greater part of the apparent profit is real
wages disguised in the garb of profit.

In a small sea-port town, a little grocer will make forty or fifty per
cent. upon a stock of a single hundred pounds, while a considerable
wholesale merchant in the same place will scarce make eight or ten
per cent. upon a stock of ten thousand. The trade of the grocer may be
necessary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the narrowness
of the market may not admit the employment of a larger capital in the
business. The man, however, must not only live by his trade, but live by
it suitably to the qualifications which it requires. Besides possessing
a little capital, he must be able to read, write, and account and must
be a tolerable judge, too, of perhaps fifty or sixty different sorts of
goods, their prices, qualities, and the markets where they are to be had
cheapest. He must have all the knowledge, in short, that is necessary
for a great merchant, which nothing hinders him from becoming but the
want of a sufficient capital. Thirty or forty pounds a year cannot
be considered as too great a recompence for the labour of a person
so accomplished. Deduct this from the seemingly great profits of his
capital, and little more will remain, perhaps, than the ordinary profits
of stock. The greater part of the apparent profit is, in this case too,
real wages.

The difference between the apparent profit of the retail and that of
the wholesale trade, is much less in the capital than in small towns
and country villages. Where ten thousand pounds can be employed in the
grocery trade, the wages of the grocer's labour must be a very trifling
addition to the real profits of so great a stock. The apparent profits
of the wealthy retailer, therefore, are there more nearly upon a level
with those of the wholesale merchant. It is upon this account that goods
sold by retail are generally as cheap, and frequently much cheaper, in
the capital than in small towns and country villages. Grocery goods, for
example, are generally much cheaper; bread and butchers' meat frequently
as cheap. It costs no more to bring grocery goods to the great town than
to the country village; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn and
cattle, as the greater part of them must be brought from a much greater
distance. The prime cost of grocery goods, therefore, being the same in
both places, they are cheapest where the least profit is charged upon
them. The prime cost of bread and butchers' meat is greater in the
great town than in the country village; and though the profit is less,
therefore they are not always cheaper there, but often equally cheap.
In such articles as bread and butchers' meat, the same cause which
diminishes apparent profit, increases prime cost. The extent of the
market, by giving employment to greater stocks, diminishes apparent
profit; but by requiring supplies from a greater distance, it increases
prime cost. This diminution of the one and increase of the other, seem,
in most cases, nearly to counterbalance one another; which is probably
the reason that, though the prices of corn and cattle are commonly
very different in different parts of the kingdom, those of bread and
butchers' meat are generally very nearly the same through the greater
part of it.

Though the profits of stock, both in the wholesale and retail trade, are
generally less in the capital than in small towns and country villages,
yet great fortunes are frequently acquired from small beginnings in
the former, and scarce ever in the latter. In small towns and country
villages, on account of the narrowness of the market, trade cannot
always be extended as stock extends. In such places, therefore, though
the rate of a particular person's profits may be very high, the sum or
amount of them can never be very great, nor consequently that of his
annual accumulation. In great towns, on the contrary, trade can be
extended as stock increases, and the credit of a frugal and thriving
man increases much faster than his stock. His trade is extended in
proportion to the amount of both; and the sum or amount of his profits
is in proportion to the extent of his trade, and his annual accumulation
in proportion to the amount of his profits. It seldom happens, however,
that great fortunes are made, even in great towns, by any one regular,
established, and well-known branch of business, but in consequence of
a long life of industry, frugality, and attention. Sudden fortunes,
indeed, are sometimes made in such places, by what is called the trade
of speculation. The speculative merchant exercises no one regular,
established, or well-known branch of business. He is a corn merchant
this year, and a wine merchant the next, and a sugar, tobacco, or tea
merchant the year after. He enters into every trade, when he foresees
that it is likely to lie more than commonly profitable, and he quits it
when he foresees that its profits are likely to return to the level of
other trades. His profits and losses, therefore, can bear no regular
proportion to those of any one established and well-known branch of
business. A bold adventurer may sometimes acquire a considerable fortune
by two or three successful speculations, but is just as likely to lose
one by two or three unsuccessful ones. This trade can be carried on
nowhere but in great towns. It is only in places of the most extensive
commerce and correspondence that the intelligence requisite for it can
be had.

The five circumstances above mentioned, though they occasion
considerable inequalities in the wages of labour and profits of stock,
occasion none in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages, real or
imaginary, of the different employments of either. The nature of those
circumstances is such, that they make up for a small pecuniary gain in
some, and counterbalance a great one in others.

In order, however, that this equality may take place in the whole of
their advantages or disadvantages, three things are requisite, even
where there is the most perfect freedom. First the employments must be
well known and long established in the neighbourhood; secondly, they
must be in their ordinary, or what may be called their natural state;
and, thirdly, they must be the sole or principal employments of those
who occupy them.

First, This equality can take place only in those employments which are
well known, and have been long established in the neighbourhood.

Where all other circumstances are equal, wages are generally higher in
new than in old trades. When a projector attempts to establish a new
manufacture, he must at first entice his workmen from other employments,
by higher wages than they can either earn in their own trades, or than
the nature of his work would otherwise require; and a considerable time
must pass away before he can venture to reduce them to the common level.
Manufactures for which the demand arises altogether from fashion and
fancy, are continually changing, and seldom last long enough to be
considered as old established manufactures. Those, on the contrary, for
which the demand arises chiefly from use or necessity, are less liable
to change, and the same form or fabric may continue in demand for whole
centuries together. The wages of labour, therefore, are likely to be
higher in manufactures of the former, than in those of the latter kind.
Birmingham deals chiefly in manufactures of the former kind; Sheffield
in those of the latter; and the wages of labour in those two different
places are said to be suitable to this difference in the nature of their
manufactures.

The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce,
or of any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation from
which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These
profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently,
perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but, in general, they bear no regular
proportion to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood. If the
project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the
trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the
competition reduces them to the level of other trades.

Secondly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages
of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place only
in the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of those
employments.

The demand for almost every different species of labour is sometimes
greater, and sometimes less than usual. In the one case, the advantages
of the employment rise above, in the other they fall below the common
level. The demand for country labour is greater at hay-time and harvest
than during the greater part of the year; and wages rise with the
demand. In time of war, when forty or fifty thousand sailors are forced
from the merchant service into that of the king, the demand for sailors
to merchant ships necessarily rises with their scarcity; and
their wages, upon such occasions, commonly rise from a guinea and
seven-and-twenty shillings to forty shilling's and three pounds a-month.
In a decaying manufacture, on the contrary, many workmen, rather than
quit their own trade, are contented with smaller wages than would
otherwise be suitable to the nature of their employment.

The profits of stock vary with the price of the commodities in which it
is employed. As the price of any commodity rises above the ordinary or
average rate, the profits of at least some part of the stock that is
employed in bringing it to market, rise above their proper level, and as
it falls they sink below it. All commodities are more or less liable
to variations of price, but some are much more so than others. In
all commodities which are produced by human industry, the quantity
of industry annually employed is necessarily regulated by the annual
demand, in such a manner that the average annual produce may, as
nearly as possible, be equal to the average annual consumption. In some
employments, it has already been observed, the same quantity of industry
will always produce the same, or very nearly the same quantity of
commodities. In the linen or woollen manufactures, for example, the same
number of hands will annually work up very nearly the same quantity
of linen and woollen cloth. The variations in the market price of such
commodities, therefore, can arise only from some accidental variation
in the demand. A public mourning raises the price of black cloth. But
as the demand for most sorts of plain linen and woollen cloth is pretty
uniform, so is likewise the price. But there are other employments in
which the same quantity of industry will not always produce the same
quantity of commodities. The same quantity of industry, for example,
will, in different years, produce very different quantities of
corn, wine, hops, sugar tobacco, etc. The price of such commodities,
therefore, varies not only with the variations of demand, but with
the much greater and more frequent variations of quantity, and is
consequently extremely fluctuating; but the profit of some of the
dealers must necessarily fluctuate with the price of the commodities.
The operations of the speculative merchant are principally employed
about such commodities. He endeavours to buy them up when he foresees
that their price is likely to rise, and to sell them when it is likely
to fall.

Thirdly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages
of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place only in
such as are the sole or principal employments of those who occupy them.

When a person derives his subsistence from one employment, which does
not occupy the greater part of his time, in the intervals of his
leisure he is often willing to work at another for less wages than would
otherwise suit the nature of the employment.

There still subsists, in many parts of Scotland, a set of people called
cottars or cottagers, though they were more frequent some years ago
than they are now. They are a sort of out-servants of the landlords
and farmers. The usual reward which they receive from their master is a
house, a small garden for pot-herbs, as much grass as will feed a cow,
and, perhaps, an acre or two of bad arable land. When their master has
occasion for their labour, he gives them, besides, two pecks of oatmeal
a-week, worth about sixteen pence sterling. During a great part of the
year, he has little or no occasion for their labour, and the cultivation
of their own little possession is not sufficient to occupy the time
which is left at their own disposal. When such occupiers were more
numerous than they are at present, they are said to have been willing
to give their spare time for a very small recompence to any body, and to
have wrought for less wages than other labourers. In ancient times, they
seem to have been common all over Europe. In countries ill cultivated,
and worse inhabited, the greater part of landlords and farmers could
not otherwise provide themselves with the extraordinary number of hands
which country labour requires at certain seasons. The daily or weekly
recompence which such labourers occasionally received from their
masters, was evidently not the whole price of their labour. Their
small tenement made a considerable part of it. This daily or weekly
recompence, however, seems to have been considered as the whole of it,
by many writers who have collected the prices of labour and provisions
in ancient times, and who have taken pleasure in representing both as
wonderfully low.

The produce of such labour comes frequently cheaper to market than
would otherwise be suitable to its nature. Stockings, in many parts of
Scotland, are knit much cheaper than they can anywhere be wrought upon
the loom. They are the work of servants and labourers who derive the
principal part of their subsistence from some other employment. More
than a thousand pair of Shetland stockings are annually imported into
Leith, of which the price is from fivepence to seven-pence a pair. At
Lerwick, the small capital of the Shetland islands, tenpence a-day,
I have been assured, is a common price of common labour. In the same
islands, they knit worsted stockings to the value of a guinea a pair and
upwards.

The spinning of linen yarn is carried on in Scotland nearly in the same
way as the knitting of stockings, by servants, who are chiefly hired for
other purposes. They earn but a very scanty subsistence, who endeavour
to get their livelihood by either of those trades. In most parts of
Scotland, she is a good spinner who can earn twentypence a-week.

In opulent countries, the market is generally so extensive, that any one
trade is sufficient to employ the whole labour and stock of those who
occupy it. Instances of people living by one employment, and, at the
same time, deriving some little advantage from another, occur chiefly
in pour countries. The following instance, however, of something of the
same kind, is to be found in the capital of a very rich one. There is no
city in Europe, I believe, in which house-rent is dearer than in London,
and yet I know no capital in which a furnished apartment can be hired so
cheap. Lodging is not only much cheaper in London than in Paris; it is
much cheaper than in Edinburgh, of the same degree of goodness; and,
what may seem extraordinary, the dearness of house-rent is the cause of
the cheapness of lodging. The dearness of house-rent in London arises,
not only from those causes which render it dear in all great capitals,
the dearness of labour, the dearness of all the materials of building,
which must generally be brought from a great distance, and, above
all, the dearness of ground-rent, every landlord acting the part of a
monopolist, and frequently exacting a higher rent for a single acre of
bad land in a town, than can be had for a hundred of the best in the
country; but it arises in part from the peculiar manners and customs of
the people, which oblige every master of a family to hire a whole house
from top to bottom. A dwelling-house in England means every thing that
is contained under the same roof. In France, Scotland, and many other
parts of Europe, it frequently means no more than a single storey. A
tradesman in London is obliged to hire a whole house in that part of the
town where his customers live. His shop is upon the ground floor, and he
and his family sleep in the garret; and he endeavours to pay a part of
his house-rent by letting the two middle storeys to lodgers. He expects
to maintain his family by his trade, and not by his lodgers. Whereas
at Paris and Edinburgh, people who let lodgings have commonly no other
means of subsistence; and the price of the lodging must pay, not only
the rent of the house, but the whole expense of the family.


PART II.--Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe.

Such are the inequalities in the whole of the advantages and
disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, which
the defect of any of the three requisites above mentioned must occasion,
even where there is the most perfect liberty. But the policy of Europe,
by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities
of much greater importance.

It does this chiefly in the three following ways. First, by restraining
the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would
otherwise be disposed to enter into them; secondly, by increasing it in
others beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing
the free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to
employment, and from place to place.

First, The policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the
whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments
of labour and stock, by restraining the competition in some employments
to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.

The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it
makes use of for this purpose.

The exclusive privilege of an incorporated trade necessarily restrains
the competition, in the town where it is established, to those who are
free of the trade. To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under
a master properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite
for obtaining this freedom. The bye-laws of the corporation regulate
sometimes the number of apprentices which any master is allowed to have,
and almost always the number of years which each apprentice is
obliged to serve. The intention of both regulations is to restrain the
competition to a much smaller number than might otherwise be disposed
to enter into the trade. The limitation of the number of apprentices
restrains it directly. A long term of apprenticeship restrains it more
indirectly, but as effectually, by increasing the expense of education.

In Sheffield, no master cutler can have more than one apprentice at a
time, by a bye-law of the corporation. In Norfolk and Norwich, no master
weaver can have more than two apprentices, under pain of forfeiting
five pounds a-month to the king. No master hatter can have more than two
apprentices anywhere in England, or in the English plantations, under
pain of forfeiting; five pounds a-month, half to the king, and half to
him who shall sue in any court of record. Both these regulations, though
they have been confirmed by a public law of the kingdom, are evidently
dictated by the same corporation-spirit which enacted the bye-law of
Sheffield. The silk-weavers in London had scarce been incorporated a
year, when they enacted a bye-law, restraining any master from having
more than two apprentices at a time. It required a particular act of
parliament to rescind this bye-law.

Seven years seem anciently to have been, all over Europe, the usual term
established for the duration of apprenticeships in the greater part
of incorporated trades. All such incorporations were anciently
called universities, which, indeed, is the proper Latin name for any
incorporation whatever. The university of smiths, the university of
tailors, etc. are expressions which we commonly meet with in the old
charters of ancient towns. When those particular incorporations, which
are now peculiarly called universities, were first established, the term
of years which it was necessary to study, in order to obtain the degree
of master of arts, appears evidently to have been copied from the term
of apprenticeship in common trades, of which the incorporations were
much more ancient. As to have wrought seven years under a master
properly qualified, was necessary, in order to entitle my person to
become a master, and to have himself apprentices in a common trade;
so to have studied seven years under a master properly qualified, was
necessary to entitle him to become a master, teacher, or doctor (words
anciently synonymous), in the liberal arts, and to have scholars or
apprentices (words likewise originally synonymous) to study under him.

By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship,
it was enacted, that no person should, for the future, exercise any
trade, craft, or mystery, at that time exercised in England, unless he
had previously served to it an apprenticeship of seven years at least;
and what before had been the bye-law of many particular corporations,
became in England the general and public law of all trades carried on in
market towns. For though the words of the statute are very general,
and seem plainly to include the whole kingdom, by interpretation its
operation has been limited to market towns; it having been held that, in
country villages, a person may exercise several different trades, though
he has not served a seven years apprenticeship to each, they being
necessary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the number of
people frequently not being sufficient to supply each with a particular
set of hands. By a strict interpretation of the words, too, the
operation of this statute has been limited to those trades which were
established in England before the 5th of Elizabeth, and has never
been extended to such as have been introduced since that time. This
limitation has given occasion to several distinctions, which, considered
as rules of police, appear as foolish as can well be imagined. It has
been adjudged, for example, that a coach-maker can neither himself make
nor employ journeymen to make his coach-wheels, but must buy them of a
master wheel-wright; this latter trade having been exercised in England
before the 5th of Elizabeth. But a wheel-wright, though he has never
served an apprenticeship to a coachmaker, may either himself make or
employ journeymen to make coaches; the trade of a coachmaker not being
within the statute, because not exercised in England at the time when it
was made. The manufactures of Manchester, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton,
are many of them, upon this account, not within the statute, not having
been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth.

In France, the duration of apprenticeships is different in different
towns and in different trades. In Paris, five years is the term required
in a great number; but, before any person can be qualified to exercise
the trade as a master, he must, in many of them, serve five years more
as a journeyman. During this latter term, he is called the companion of
his master, and the term itself is called his companionship.

In Scotland, there is no general law which regulates universally
the duration of apprenticeships. The term is different in different
corporations. Where it is long, a part of it may generally be redeemed
by paying a small fine. In most towns, too, a very small fine is
sufficient to purchase the freedom of any corporation. The weavers of
linen and hempen cloth, the principal manufactures of the country,
as well as all other artificers subservient to them, wheel-makers,
reel-makers, etc. may exercise their trades in any town-corporate
without paying any fine. In all towns-corporate, all persons are free to
sell butchers' meat upon any lawful day of the week. Three years is,
in Scotland, a common term of apprenticeship, even in some very nice
trades; and, in general, I know of no country in Europe, in which
corporation laws are so little oppressive.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the
original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred
and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and
dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength
and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his
neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a
manifest encroachment upon the just liberty, both of the workman, and
of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one
from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the others from
employing whom they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to be
employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers,
whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the
lawgiver, lest they should employ an improper person, is evidently as
impertinent as it is oppressive.

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that
insufficient workmanship shall not frequently be exposed to public
sale. When this is done, it is generally the effect of fraud, and not of
inability; and the longest apprenticeship can give no security against
fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to prevent this abuse.
The sterling mark upon plate, and the stamps upon linen and woollen
cloth, give the purchaser much greater security than any statute of
apprenticeship. He generally looks at these, but never thinks it
worth while to enquire whether the workman had served a seven years
apprenticeship.

The institution of long apprenticeships has no tendency to form young
people to industry. A journeyman who works by the piece is likely to
be industrious, because he derives a benefit from every exertion of his
industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and almost always is so,
because he has no immediate interest to be otherwise. In the inferior
employments, the sweets of labour consist altogether in the recompence
of labour. They who are soonest in a condition to enjoy the sweets of
it, are likely soonest to conceive a relish for it, and to acquire the
early habit of industry. A young man naturally conceives an aversion to
labour, when for a long time he receives no benefit from it. The boys
who are put out apprentices from public charities are generally bound
for more than the usual number of years, and they generally turn out
very idle and worthless.

Apprenticeships were altogether unknown to the ancients. The reciprocal
duties of master and apprentice make a considerable article in every
modern code. The Roman law is perfectly silent with regard to them. I
know no Greek or Latin word (I might venture, I believe, to assert
that there is none) which expresses the idea we now annex to the word
apprentice, a servant bound to work at a particular trade for the
benefit of a master, during a term of years, upon condition that the
master shall teach him that trade.

Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts, which are
much superior to common trades, such as those of making clocks and
watches, contain no such mystery as to require a long course of
instruction. The first invention of such beautiful machines, indeed, and
even that of some of the instruments employed in making them, must no
doubt have been the work of deep thought and long time, and may justly
be considered as among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when
both have been fairly invented, and are well understood, to explain to
any young man, in the completest manner, how to apply the instruments,
and how to construct the machines, cannot well require more than the
lessons of a few weeks; perhaps those of a few days might be sufficient.
In the common mechanic trades, those of a few days might certainly be
sufficient. The dexterity of hand, indeed, even in common trades, cannot
be acquired without much practice and experience. But a young man would
practice with much more diligence and attention, if from the beginning
he wrought as a journeyman, being paid in proportion to the little work
which he could execute, and paying in his turn for the materials which
he might sometimes spoil through awkwardness and inexperience. His
education would generally in this way be more effectual, and always less
tedious and expensive. The master, indeed, would be a loser. He would
lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he now saves, for seven
years together. In the end, perhaps, the apprentice himself would be a
loser. In a trade so easily learnt he would have more competitors, and
his wages, when he came to be a complete workman, would be much less
than at present. The same increase of competition would reduce the
profits of the masters, as well as the wages of workmen. The trades, the
crafts, the mysteries, would all be losers. But the public would be a
gainer, the work of all artificers coming in this way much cheaper to
market.

It is to prevent his reduction of price, and consequently of wages and
profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly
occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation
laws have been established. In order to erect a corporation, no other
authority in ancient times was requisite, in many parts of Europe, but
that of the town-corporate in which it was established. In England,
indeed, a charter from the king was likewise necessary. But this
prerogative of the crown seems to have been reserved rather for
extorting money from the subject, than for the defence of the common
liberty against such oppressive monopolies. Upon paying a fine to the
king, the charter seems generally to have been readily granted; and when
any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as
a corporation, without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were
called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged
to fine annually to the king, for permission to exercise their usurped
privileges {See Madox Firma Burgi p. 26 etc.}. The immediate inspection
of all corporations, and of the bye-laws which they might think proper
to enact for their own government, belonged to the town-corporate in
which they were established; and whatever discipline was exercised
over them, proceeded commonly, not from the king, but from that greater
incorporation of which those subordinate ones were only parts or
members.

The government of towns-corporate was altogether in the hands of traders
and artificers, and it was the manifest interest of every particular
class of them, to prevent the market from being overstocked, as they
commonly express it, with their own particular species of industry;
which is in reality to keep it always understocked. Each class was eager
to establish regulations proper for this purpose, and, provided it was
allowed to do so, was willing to consent that every other class should
do the same. In consequence of such regulations, indeed, each class was
obliged to buy the goods they had occasion for from every other within
the town, somewhat dearer than they otherwise might have done. But, in
recompence, they were enabled to sell their own just as much dearer; so
that, so far it was as broad as long, as they say; and in the dealings
of the different classes within the town with one another, none of them
were losers by these regulations. But in their dealings with the country
they were all great gainers; and in these latter dealings consist the
whole trade which supports and enriches every town.

Every town draws its whole subsistence, and all the materials of its
industry, from the: country. It pays for these chiefly in two ways.
First, by sending back to the country a part of those materials wrought
up and manufactured; in which case, their price is augmented by the
wages of the workmen, and the profits of their masters or immediate
employers; secondly, by sending to it a part both of the rude and
manufactured produce, either of other countries, or of distant parts
of the same country, imported into the town; in which case, too, the
original price of those goods is augmented by the wages of the carriers
or sailors, and by the profits of the merchants who employ them. In what
is gained upon the first of those branches of commerce, consists the
advantage which the town makes by its manufactures; in what is gained
upon the second, the advantage of its inland and foreign trade. The
wages of the workmen, and the profits of their different employers,
make up the whole of what is gained upon both. Whatever regulations,
therefore, tend to increase those wages and profits beyond what they
otherwise: would be, tend to enable the town to purchase, with a smaller
quantity of its labour, the produce of a greater quantity of the labour
of the country. They give the traders and artificers in the town an
advantage over the landlords, farmers, and labourers, in the country,
and break down that natural equality which would otherwise take place in
the commerce which is carried on between them. The whole annual produce
of the labour of the society is annually divided between those two
different sets of people. By means of those regulations, a greater share
of it is given to the inhabitants of the town than would otherwise fall
to them, and a less to those of' the country.

The price which the town really pays for the provisions and materials
annually imported into it, is the quantity of manufactures and other
goods annually exported from it. The dearer the latter are sold, the
cheaper the former are bought. The industry of the town becomes more,
and that of the country less advantageous.

That the industry which is carried on in towns is, everywhere in Europe,
more advantageous than that which is carried on in the country, without
entering into any very nice computations, we may satisfy ourselves by
one very simple and obvious observation. In every country of Europe, we
find at least a hundred people who have acquired great fortunes, from
small beginnings, by trade and manufactures, the industry which properly
belongs to towns, for one who has done so by that which properly belongs
to the country, the raising of rude produce by the improvement and
cultivation of land. Industry, therefore, must be better rewarded, the
wages of labour and the profits of stock must evidently be greater, in
the one situation than in the other. But stock and labour naturally seek
the most advantageous employment. They naturally, therefore, resort as
much as they can to the town, and desert the country.

The inhabitants of a town being collected into one place, can easily
combine together. The most insignificant trades carried on in towns
have, accordingly, in some place or other, been incorporated; and even
where they have never been incorporated, yet the corporation-spirit,
the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take apprentices, or to
communicate the secret of their trade, generally prevail in them, and
often teach them, by voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent
that free competition which they cannot prohibit by bye-laws. The trades
which employ but a small number of hands, run most easily into such
combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers, perhaps, are necessary to
keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. By combining not to take
apprentices, they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the
whole manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the
price of their labour much above what is due to the nature of their
work.

The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot
easily combine together. They have not only never been incorporated,
but the incorporation spirit never has prevailed among them. No
apprenticeship has ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry,
the great trade of the country. After what are called the fine arts,
and the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which
requires so great a variety of knowledge and experience. The innumerable
volumes which have been written upon it in all languages, may satisfy
us, that among the wisest and most learned nations, it has never been
regarded as a matter very easily understood. And from all those volumes
we shall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge of its various and
complicated operations which is commonly possessed even by the common
farmer; how contemptuously soever the very contemptible authors of some
of them may sometimes affect to speak of him. There is scarce any common
mechanic trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not
be as completely and distinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few
pages, as it is possible for words illustrated by figures to explain
them. In the history of the arts, now publishing by the French Academy
of Sciences, several of them are actually explained in this manner. The
direction of operations, besides, which must be varied with every change
of the weather, as well as with many other accidents, requires much more
judgment and discretion, than that of those which are always the same,
or very nearly the same.

Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations
of husbandry, but many inferior branches of country labour require much
more skill and experience than the greater part of mechanic trades.
The man who works upon brass and iron, works with instruments, and upon
materials of which the temper is always the same, or very nearly the
same. But the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or oxen,
works with instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are
very different upon different occasions. The condition of the materials
which he works upon, too, is as variable as that of the instruments
which he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment
and discretion. The common ploughman, though generally regarded as the
pattern of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective in this judgment
and discretion. He is less accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse,
than the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice and language are more
uncouth, and more difficult to be understood by those who are not used
to them. His understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a
greater variety of objects, is generally much superior to that of the
other, whose whole attention, from morning till night, is commonly
occupied in performing one or two very simple operations. How much the
lower ranks of people in the country are really superior to those of the
town, is well known to every man whom either business or curiosity has
led to converse much with both. In China and Indostan, accordingly, both
the rank and the wages of country labourers are said to be superior to
those of the greater part of artificers and manufacturers. They would
probably be so everywhere, if corporation laws and the corporation
spirit did not prevent it.

The superiority which the industry of the towns has everywhere in Europe
over that of the country, is not altogether owing to corporations and
corporation laws. It is supported by many other regulations. The high
duties upon foreign manufactures, and upon all goods imported by alien
merchants, all tend to the same purpose. Corporation laws enable the
inhabitants of towns to raise their prices, without fearing to be
undersold by the free competition of their own countrymen. Those
other regulations secure them equally against that of foreigners. The
enhancement of price occasioned by both is everywhere finally paid by
the landlords, farmers, and labourers, of the country, who have seldom
opposed the establishment of such monopolies. They have commonly neither
inclination nor fitness to enter into combinations; and the clamour and
sophistry of merchants and manufacturers easily persuade them, that the
private interest of a part, and of a subordinate part, of the society,
is the general interest of the whole.

In Great Britain, the superiority of the industry of the towns over that
of the country seems to have been greater formerly than in the
present times. The wages of country labour approach nearer to those of
manufacturing labour, and the profits of stock employed in agriculture
to those of trading and manufacturing stock, than they are said to
have none in the last century, or in the beginning of the present. This
change may be regarded as the necessary, though very late consequence of
the extraordinary encouragement given to the industry of the towns. The
stocks accumulated in them come in time to be so great, that it can no
longer be employed with the ancient profit in that species of industry
which is peculiar to them. That industry has its limits like every
other; and the increase of stock, by increasing the competition,
necessarily reduces the profit. The lowering of profit in the town
forces out stock to the country, where, by creating a new demand for
country labour, it necessarily raises its wages. It then spreads itself,
if I my say so, over the face of the land, and, by being employed in
agriculture, is in part restored to the country, at the expense of
which, in a great measure, it had originally been accumulated in the
town. That everywhere in Europe the greatest improvements of the
country have been owing to such over flowings of the stock originally
accumulated in the towns, I shall endeavour to shew hereafter, and at
the same time to demonstrate, that though some countries have, by this
course, attained to a considerable degree of opulence, it is in itself
necessarily slow, uncertain, liable to be disturbed and interrupted by
innumerable accidents, and, in every respect, contrary to the order of
nature and of reason. The interests, prejudices, laws, and customs, which
have given occasion to it, I shall endeavour to explain as fully and
distinctly as I can in the third and fourth books of this Inquiry.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,
or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible, indeed, to
prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or
would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot
hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it
ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render
them necessary.

A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular
town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register,
facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never
otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a
direction where to find every other man of it.

A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves, in
order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans,
by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies
necessary.

An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act
of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an effectual
combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of
every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader
continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a
bye-law, with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more
effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever.

The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government
of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual
discipline which is exercised over a workman, is not that of his
corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their
employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An
exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline.
A particular set of workmen must then be employed, let them behave well
or ill. It is upon this account that, in many large incorporated towns,
no tolerable workmen are to be found, even in some of the most necessary
trades. If you would have your work tolerably executed, it must be done
in the suburbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege, have
nothing but their character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it
into the town as well as you can.

It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the
competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise
be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very important inequality
in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different
employments of labour and stock.

Secondly, The policy of Europe, by increasing the competition in
some employments beyond what it naturally would be, occasions another
inequality, of an opposite kind, in the whole of the advantages and
disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.

It has been considered as of so much importance that a proper number of
young people should be educated for certain professions, that
sometimes the public, and sometimes the piety of private founders, have
established many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc.
for this purpose, which draw many more people into those trades than
could otherwise pretend to follow them. In all Christian countries, I
believe, the education of the greater part of churchmen is paid for
in this manner. Very few of them are educated altogether at their own
expense. The long, tedious, and expensive education, therefore, of those
who are, will not always procure them a suitable reward, the church
being crowded with people, who, in order to get employment, are willing
to accept of a much smaller recompence than what such an education would
otherwise have entitled them to; and in this manner the competition of
the poor takes away the reward of the rich. It would be indecent, no
doubt, to compare either a curate or a chaplain with a journeyman in
any common trade. The pay of a curate or chaplain, however, may very
properly be considered as of the same nature with the wages of a
journeyman. They are all three paid for their work according to the
contract which they may happen to make with their respective superiors.
Till after the middle of the fourteenth century, five merks, containing
about as much silver as ten pounds of our present money, was in England
the usual pay of a curate or a stipendiary parish priest, as we find it
regulated by the decrees of several different national councils. At the
same period, fourpence a-day, containing the same quantity of silver as
a shilling of our present money, was declared to be the pay of a master
mason; and threepence a-day, equal to ninepence of our present money,
that of a journeyman mason. {See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed. III.}
The wages of both these labourer's, therefore, supposing them to have
been constantly employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The
wages of the master mason, supposing him to have been without employment
one-third of the year, would have fully equalled them. By the 12th of
Queen Anne, c. 12. it is declared, "That whereas, for want of sufficient
maintenance and encouragement to curates, the cures have, in several
places, been meanly supplied, the bishop is, therefore, empowered
to appoint, by writing under his hand and seal, a sufficient certain
stipend or allowance, not exceeding fifty, and not less than twenty
pounds a-year". Forty pounds a-year is reckoned at present very good
pay for a curate; and, notwithstanding this act of parliament, there
are many curacies under twenty pounds a-year. There are journeymen
shoemakers in London who earn forty pounds a-year, and there is scarce
an industrious workman of any kind in that metropolis who does not earn
more than twenty. This last sum, indeed, does not exceed what frequently
earned by common labourers in many country parishes. Whenever the law
has attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been
rather to lower them than to raise them. But the law has, upon many
occasions, attempted to raise the wages of curates, and, for the dignity
of the church, to oblige the rectors of parishes to give them more
than the wretched maintenance which they themselves might be willing
to accept of. And, in both cases, the law seems to have been equally
ineffectual, and has never either been able to raise the wages of
curates, or to sink those of labourers to the degree that was intended;
because it has never been able to hinder either the one from being
willing to accept of less than the legal allowance, on account of the
indigence of their situation and the multitude of their competitors, or
the other from receiving more, on account of the contrary competition
of those who expected to derive either profit or pleasure from employing
them.

The great benefices and other ecclesiastical dignities support the
honour of the church, notwithstanding the mean circumstances of some
of its inferior members. The respect paid to the profession, too, makes
some compensation even to them for the meanness of their pecuniary
recompence. In England, and in all Roman catholic countries, the lottery
of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.
The example of the churches of Scotland, of Geneva, and of several other
protestant churches, may satisfy us, that in so creditable a profession,
in which education is so easily procured, the hopes of much more
moderate benefices will draw a sufficient number of learned, decent, and
respectable men into holy orders.

In professions in which there are no benefices, such as law and physic,
if an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expense,
the competition would soon be so great as to sink very much their
pecuniary reward. It might then not be worth any man's while to educate
his son to either of those professions at his own expense. They would
be entirely abandoned to such as had been educated by those public
charities, whose numbers and necessities would oblige them in general
to content themselves with a very miserable recompence, to the entire
degradation of the now respectable professions of law and physic.

That unprosperous race of men, commonly called men of letters, are
pretty much in the situation which lawyers and physicians probably would
be in, upon the foregoing supposition. In every part of Europe, the
greater part of them have been educated for the church, but have been
hindered by different reasons from entering into holy orders. They have
generally, therefore, been educated at the public expense; and their
numbers are everywhere so great, as commonly to reduce the price of
their labour to a very paltry recompence.

Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by
which a man of letters could make any thing by his talents, was that
of a public or private teacher, or by communicating to other people the
curious and useful knowledge which he had acquired himself; and this is
still surely a more honourable, a more useful, and, in general, even a
more profitable employment than that other of writing for a bookseller,
to which the art of printing has given occasion. The time and study,
the genius, knowledge, and application requisite to qualify an eminent
teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the
greatest practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the
eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician,
because the trade of the one is crowded with indigent people, who have
been brought up to it at the public expense; whereas those of the other
two are encumbered with very few who have not been educated at their
own. The usual recompence, however, of public and private teachers,
small as it may appear, would undoubtedly be less than it is, if the
competition of those yet more indigent men of letters, who write for
bread, was not taken out of the market. Before the invention of the art
of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly
synonymous. The different governors of the universities, before that
time, appear to have often granted licences to their scholars to beg.

In ancient times, before any charities of this kind had been established
for the education of indigent people to the learned professions, the
rewards of eminent teachers appear to have been much more considerable.
Isocrates, in what is called his discourse against the sophists,
reproaches the teachers of his own times with inconsistency. "They
make the most magnificent promises to their scholars," says he, "and
undertake to teach them to be wise, to be happy, and to be just; and, in
return for so important a service, they stipulate the paltry reward
of four or five minae." "They who teach wisdom," continues he, "ought
certainly to be wise themselves; but if any man were to sell such a
bargain for such a price, he would be convicted of the most evident
folly." He certainly does not mean here to exaggerate the reward, and
we may be assured that it was not less than he represents it. Four minae
were equal to thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence; five minae
to sixteen pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence. Something not less
than the largest of those two sums, therefore, must at that time have
been usually paid to the most eminent teachers at Athens. Isocrates
himself demanded ten minae, or £ 33:6:8 from each scholar. When
he taught at Athens, he is said to have had a hundred scholars. I
understand this to be the number whom he taught at one time, or who
attended what we would call one course of lectures; a number which will
not appear extraordinary from so great a city to so famous a teacher,
who taught, too, what was at that time the most fashionable of all
sciences, rhetoric. He must have made, therefore, by each course
of lectures, a thousand minae, or £ 3335:6:8. A thousand minae,
accordingly, is said by Plutarch, in another place, to have been his
didactron, or usual price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in
those times appear to have acquired great fortunes. Georgias made a
present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. We must
not, I presume, suppose that it was as large as the life. His way of
living, as well as that of Hippias and Protagoras, two other eminent
teachers of those times, is represented by Plato as splendid, even to
ostentation. Plato himself is said to have lived with a good deal of
magnificence. Aristotle, after having been tutor to Alexander, and most
munificently rewarded, as it is universally agreed, both by him and his
father, Philip, thought it worth while, notwithstanding, to return to
Athens, in order to resume the teaching of his school. Teachers of the
sciences were probably in those times less common than they came to be
in an age or two afterwards, when the competition had probably somewhat
reduced both the price of their labour and the admiration for their
persons. The most eminent of them, however, appear always to have
enjoyed a degree of consideration much superior to any of the like
profession in the present times. The Athenians sent Carneades the
academic, and Diogenes the stoic, upon a solemn embassy to Rome; and
though their city had then declined from its former grandeur, it was
still an independent and considerable republic.

Carneades, too, was a Babylonian by birth; and as there never was a
people more jealous of admitting foreigners to public offices than the
Athenians, their consideration for him must have been very great.

This inequality is, upon the whole, perhaps rather advantageous than
hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a
public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an
advantage which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency.
The public, too, might derive still greater benefit from it, if the
constitution of those schools and colleges, in which education is
carried on, was more reasonable than it is at present through the
greater part of Europe.

Thirdly, the policy of Europe, by obstructing the free circulation of
labour and stock, both from employment to employment, and from place to
place, occasions, in some cases, a very inconvenient inequality in
the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of their different
employments.

The statute of apprenticeship obstructs the free circulation of labour
from one employment to another, even in the same place. The exclusive
privileges of corporations obstruct it from one place to another, even
in the same employment.

It frequently happens, that while high wages are given to the workmen in
one manufacture, those in another are obliged to content themselves with
bare subsistence. The one is in an advancing state, and has therefore a
continual demand for new hands; the other is in a declining state,
and the superabundance of hands is continually increasing. Those two
manufactures may sometimes be in the same town, and sometimes in the
same neighbourhood, without being able to lend the least assistance
to one another. The statute of apprenticeship may oppose it in the one
case, and both that and an exclusive corporation in the other. In many
different manufactures, however, the operations are so much alike, that
the workmen could easily change trades with one another, if those absurd
laws did not hinder them. The arts of weaving plain linen and plain
silk, for example, are almost entirely the same. That of weaving plain
woollen is somewhat different; but the difference is so insignificant,
that either a linen or a silk weaver might become a tolerable workman in
a very few days. If any of those three capital manufactures, therefore,
were decaying, the workmen might find a resource in one of the other two
which was in a more prosperous condition; and their wages would
neither rise too high in the thriving, nor sink too low in the decaying
manufacture. The linen manufacture, indeed, is in England, by a
particular statute, open to every body; but as it is not much cultivated
through the greater part of the country, it can afford no general
resource to the work men of other decaying manufactures, who, wherever
the statute of apprenticeship takes place, have no other choice, but
dither to come upon the parish, or to work as common labourers; for
which, by their habits, they are much worse qualified than for any sort
of manufacture that bears any resemblance to their own. They generally,
therefore, chuse to come upon the parish.

Whatever obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employment to
another, obstructs that of stock likewise; the quantity of stock which
can be employed in any branch of business depending very much upon that
of the labour which can be employed in it. Corporation laws, however,
give less obstruction to the free circulation of stock from one place
to another, than to that of labour. It is everywhere much easier for a
wealthy merchant to obtain the privilege of trading in a town-corporate,
than for a poor artificer to obtain that of working in it.

The obstruction which corporation laws give to the free circulation
of labour is common, I believe, to every part of Europe. That which is
given to it by the poor laws is, so far as I know, peculiar to England.
It consists in the difficulty which a poor man finds in obtaining a
settlement, or even in being allowed to exercise his industry in any
parish but that to which he belongs. It is the labour of artificers
and manufacturers only of which the free circulation is obstructed by
corporation laws. The difficulty of obtaining settlements obstructs even
that of common labour. It may be worth while to give some account of
the rise, progress, and present state of this disorder, the greatest,
perhaps, of any in the police of England.

When, by the destruction of monasteries, the poor had been deprived
of the charity of those religious houses, after some other ineffectual
attempts for their relief, it was enacted, by the 43d of Elizabeth, c.
2. that every parish should be bound to provide for its own poor, and
that overseers of the poor should be annually appointed, who, with the
church-wardens, should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this
purpose.

By this statute, the necessity of providing for their own poor was
indispensably imposed upon every parish. Who were to be considered
as the poor of each parish became, therefore, a question of some
importance. This question, after some variation, was at last determined
by the 13th and 14th of Charles II. when it was enacted, that forty days
undisturbed residence should gain any person a settlement in any parish;
but that within that time it should be lawful for two justices of the
peace, upon complaint made by the church-wardens or overseers of the
poor, to remove any new inhabitant to the parish where he was last
legally settled; unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds
a-year, or could give such security for the discharge of the parish
where he was then living, as those justices should judge sufficient.

Some frauds, it is said, were committed in consequence of this statute;
parish officers sometime's bribing their own poor to go clandestinely to
another parish, and, by keeping themselves concealed for forty days, to
gain a settlement there, to the discharge of that to which they properly
belonged. It was enacted, therefore, by the 1st of James II. that the
forty days undisturbed residence of any person necessary to gain a
settlement, should be accounted only from the time of his delivering
notice, in writing, of the place of his abode and the number of his
family, to one of the church-wardens or overseers of the parish where he
came to dwell.

But parish officers, it seems, were not always more honest with regard
to their own than they had been with regard to other parishes, and
sometimes connived at such intrusions, receiving the notice, and taking
no proper steps in consequence of it. As every person in a parish,
therefore, was supposed to have an interest to prevent as much as
possible their being burdened by such intruders, it was further enacted
by the 3rd of William III. that the forty days residence should be
accounted only from the publication of such notice in writing on Sunday
in the church, immediately after divine service.

"After all," says Doctor Burn, "this kind of settlement, by continuing
forty days after publication of notice in writing, is very seldom
obtained; and the design of the acts is not so much for gaining of
settlements, as for the avoiding of them by persons coming into a parish
clandestinely, for the giving of notice is only putting a force upon
the parish to remove. But if a person's situation is such, that it is
doubtful whether he is actually removable or not, he shall, by giving of
notice, compel the parish either to allow him a settlement uncontested,
by suffering him to continue forty days, or by removing him to try the
right."

This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a poor man
to gain a new settlement in the old way, by forty days inhabitancy. But
that it might not appear to preclude altogether the common people of
one' parish from ever establishing themselves with security in another,
it appointed four other ways by which a settlement might be gained
without any notice delivered or published. The first was, by being taxed
to parish rates and paying them; the second, by being elected into an
annual parish office, and serving in it a year; the third, by serving
an apprenticeship in the parish; the fourth, by being hired into service
there for a year, and continuing in the same service during the whole of
it. Nobody can gain a settlement by either of the two first ways, but
by the public deed of the whole parish, who are too well aware of the
consequences to adopt any new-comer, who has nothing but his labour to
support him, either by taxing him to parish rates, or by electing him
into a parish office.

No married man can well gain any settlement in either of the two last
ways. An apprentice is scarce ever married; and it is expressly enacted,
that no married servant shall gain any settlement by being hired for
a year. The principal effect of introducing settlement by service, has
been to put out in a great measure the old fashion of hiring for a year;
which before had been so customary in England, that even at this day, if
no particular term is agreed upon, the law intends that every servant
is hired for a year. But masters are not always willing to give their
servants a settlement by hiring them in this manner; and servants are
not always willing to be so hired, because, as every last settlement
discharges all the foregoing, they might thereby lose their original
settlement in the places of their nativity, the habitation of their
parents and relations.

No independent workman, it is evident, whether labourer or artificer,
is likely to gain any new settlement, either by apprenticeship or by
service. When such a person, therefore, carried his industry to a new
parish, he was liable to be removed, how healthy and industrious soever,
at the caprice of any churchwarden or overseer, unless he either rented
a tenement of ten pounds a-year, a thing impossible for one who has
nothing but his labour to live by, or could give such security for
the discharge of the parish as two justices of the peace should judge
sufficient.

What security they shall require, indeed, is left altogether to their
discretion; but they cannot well require less than thirty pounds, it
having been enacted, that the purchase even of a freehold estate of less
than thirty pounds value, shall not gain any person a settlement, as not
being sufficient for the discharge of the parish. But this is a security
which scarce any man who lives by labour can give; and much greater
security is frequently demanded.

In order to restore, in some measure, that free circulation of labour
which those different statutes had almost entirely taken away, the
invention of certificates was fallen upon. By the 8th and 9th of William
III. it was enacted that if any person should bring a certificate
from the parish where he was last legally settled, subscribed by the
church-wardens and overseers of the poor, and allowed by two justices
of the peace, that every other parish should be obliged to receive him;
that he should not be removable merely upon account of his being likely
to become chargeable, but only upon his becoming actually chargeable;
and that then the parish which granted the certificate should be obliged
to pay the expense both of his maintenance and of his removal. And
in order to give the most perfect security to the parish where such
certificated man should come to reside, it was further enacted by the
same statute, that he should gain no settlement there by any means
whatever, except either by renting a tenement of ten pounds a-year, or
by serving upon his own account in an annual parish office for one
whole year; and consequently neither by notice nor by service, nor by
apprenticeship, nor by paying parish rates. By the 12th of Queen Anne,
too, stat. 1, c.18, it was further enacted, that neither the servants
nor apprentices of such certificated man should gain any settlement in
the parish where he resided under such certificate.

How far this invention has restored that free circulation of labour,
which the preceding statutes had almost entirely taken away, we may
learn from the following very judicious observation of Doctor Burn. "It
is obvious," says he, "that there are divers good reasons for requiring
certificates with persons coming to settle in any place; namely,
that persons residing under them can gain no settlement, neither by
apprenticeship, nor by service, nor by giving notice, nor by paying
parish rates; that they can settle neither apprentices nor servants;
that if they become chargeable, it is certainly known whither to remove
them, and the parish shall be paid for the removal, and for their
maintenance in the mean time; and that, if they fall sick, and cannot be
removed, the parish which gave the certificate must maintain them;
none of all which can be without a certificate. Which reasons will hold
proportionably for parishes not granting certificates in ordinary cases;
for it is far more than an equal chance, but that they will have the
certificated persons again, and in a worse condition." The moral of this
observation seems to be, that certificates ought always to be required
by the parish where any poor man comes to reside, and that they ought
very seldom to be granted by that which he purposes to leave. "There is
somewhat of hardship in this matter of certificates," says the same very
intelligent author, in his History of the Poor Laws, "by putting it in
the power of a parish officer to imprison a man as it were for life,
however inconvenient it may be for him to continue at that place where
he has had the misfortune to acquire what is called a settlement, or
whatever advantage he may propose himself by living elsewhere."

Though a certificate carries along with it no testimonial of good
behaviour, and certifies nothing but that the person belongs to the
parish to which he really does belong, it is altogether discretionary in
the parish officers either to grant or to refuse it. A mandamus was once
moved for, says Doctor Burn, to compel the church-wardens and overseers
to sign a certificate; but the Court of King's Bench rejected the motion
as a very strange attempt.

The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in England, in
places at no great distance from one another, is probably owing to the
obstruction which the law of settlements gives to a poor man who would
carry his industry from one parish to another without a certificate. A
single man, indeed who is healthy and industrious, may sometimes reside
by sufferance without one; but a man with a wife and family who should
attempt to do so, would, in most parishes, be sure of being removed;
and, if the single man should afterwards marry, he would generally be
removed likewise. The scarcity of hands in one parish, therefore,
cannot always be relieved by their superabundance in another, as it is
constantly in Scotland, and I believe, in all other countries where
there is no difficulty of settlement. In such countries, though wages
may sometimes rise a little in the neighbourhood of a great town, or
wherever else there is an extraordinary demand for labour, and sink
gradually as the distance from such places increases, till they fall
back to the common rate of the country; yet we never meet with those
sudden and unaccountable differences in the wages of neighbouring places
which we sometimes find in England, where it is often more difficult for
a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish, than an arm
of the sea, or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which
sometimes separate very distinctly different rates of wages in other
countries.

To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour, from the parish where
he chooses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and
justice. The common people of England, however, so jealous of their
liberty, but like the common people of most other countries, never
rightly understanding wherein it consists, have now, for more than a
century together, suffered themselves to be exposed to this oppression
without a remedy. Though men of reflection, too, have some times
complained of the law of settlements as a public grievance; yet it
has never been the object of any general popular clamour, such as that
against general warrants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such
a one as was not likely to occasion any general oppression. There is
scarce a poor man in England, of forty years of age, I will venture to
say, who has not, in some part of his life, felt himself most cruelly
oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settlements.

I shall conclude this long chapter with observing, that though anciently
it was usual to rate wages, first by general laws extending over the
whole kingdom, and afterwards by particular orders of the justices of
peace in every particular county, both these practices have now gone
entirely into disuse. "By the experience of above four hundred years,"
says Doctor Burn, "it seems time to lay aside all endeavours to bring
under strict regulations, what in its own nature seems incapable of
minute limitation; for if all persons in the same kind of work were to
receive equal wages, there would be no emulation, and no room left for
industry or ingenuity."

Particular acts of parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to
regulate wages in particular trades, and in particular places. Thus the
8th of George III. prohibits, under heavy penalties, all master tailors
in London, and five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen
from accepting, more than two shillings and sevenpence halfpenny a-day,
except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature
attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen,
its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore,
is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is
sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which
obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in
money, and not in goods, is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real
hardship upon the masters. It only obliges them to pay that value in
money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in
goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III.
is in favour of the masters. When masters combine together, in order to
reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private
bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage, under a certain
penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the
same kind, not to accept of a certain wage, under a certain penalty, the
law would punish them very severely; and, if it dealt impartially, it
would treat the masters in the same manner. But the 8th of George III.
enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to
establish by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that
it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the same footing with an
ordinary workman, seems perfectly well founded.

In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits
of merchants and other dealers, by regulating the price of provisions
and ether goods. The assize of bread is, so far as I know, the only
remnant of this ancient usage. Where there is an exclusive corporation,
it may, perhaps, be proper to regulate the price of the first necessary
of life; but, where there is none, the competition will regulate it
much better than any assize. The method of fixing the assize of bread,
established by the 31st of George II. could not be put in practice in
Scotland, on account of a defect in the law, its execution depending
upon the office of clerk of the market, which does not exist there. This
defect was not remedied till the third of George III. The want of an
assize occasioned no sensible inconveniency; and the establishment
of one in the few places where it has yet taken place has produced
no sensible advantage. In the greater part of the towns in Scotland,
however, there is an incorporation of bakers, who claim exclusive
privileges, though they are not very strictly guarded. The proportion
between the different rates, both of wages and profit, in the different
employments of labour and stock, seems not to be much affected, as
has already been observed, by the riches or poverty, the advancing,
stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the
public welfare, though they affect the general rates both of wages
and profit, must, in the end, affect them equally in all different
employments. The proportion between them, therefore, must remain the
same, and cannot well be altered, at least for any considerable time, by
any such revolutions.



CHAPTER XI. OF THE RENT OF LAND.

Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the
highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances
of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord
endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is
sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays
the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments
of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in
the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the
tenant can content himself, without being a loser, and the landlord
seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or,
what is the same thing, whatever part of its price, is over and above
this share, he naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of
his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in
the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality,
more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of
somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes, too, though more rarely,
the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more,
or to content himself with somewhat less, than the ordinary profits of
farming stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still
be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent at which it is
naturally meant that land should, for the most part, be let.

The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a
reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord
upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some
occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The
landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed
interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an
addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not
always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of
the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord
commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all
made by his own.

He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human
improvements. Kelp is a species of sea-weed, which, when burnt, yields
an alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, and for several other
purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, particularly in
Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie within the high-water mark, which
are twice every day covered with the sea, and of which the produce,
therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however,
whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for
it as much as for his corn-fields.

The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than
commonly abundant in fish, which makes a great part of the subsistence
of their inhabitants. But, in order to profit by the produce of the
water, they must have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent
of the landlord is in proportion, not to what the farmer can make by
the land, but to what he can make both by the land and the water. It is
partly paid in sea-fish; and one of the very few instances in which
rent makes a part of the price of that commodity, is to be found in that
country.

The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of
the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned
to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land,
or to what he can afford to take, but to what the farmer can afford to
give.

Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to
market, of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock
which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its
ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus
part of it will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more,
though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent
to the landlord. Whether the price is, or is not more, depends upon the
demand.

There are some parts of the produce of land, for which the demand must
always be such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to
bring them to market; and there are others for which it either may or
may not be such as to afford this greater price. The former must always
afford a rent to the landlord. The latter sometimes may and sometimes
may not, according to different circumstances.

Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of
the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High
or low wages and profit are the causes of high or low price; high or
low rent is the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit
must be paid, in order to bring a particular commodity to market, that
its price is high or low. But it is because its price is high or low,
a great deal more, or very little more, or no more, than what is
sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it affords a high rent,
or a low rent, or no rent at all.

The particular consideration, first, of those parts of the produce of
land which always afford some rent; secondly, of those which sometimes
may and sometimes may not afford rent; and, thirdly, of the variations
which, in the different periods of improvement, naturally take place in
the relative value of those two different sorts of rude produce, when
compared both with one another and with manufactured commodities, will
divide this chapter into three parts.


PART I.--Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent.

As men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the
means of their subsistence, food is always more or less in demand. It
can always purchase or command a greater or smaller quantity of labour,
and somebody can always be found who is willing to do something in order
to obtain it. The quantity of labour, indeed, which it can purchase,
is not always equal to what it could maintain, if managed in the most
economical manner, on account of the high wages which are sometimes
given to labour; but it can always purchase such a quantity of labour as
it can maintain, according to the rate at which that sort of labour is
commonly maintained in the neighbourhood.

But land, in almost any situation, produces a greater quantity of
food than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour necessary for
bringing it to market, in the most liberal way in which that labour is
ever maintained. The surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to
replace the stock which employed that labour, together with its profits.
Something, therefore, always remains for a rent to the landlord.

The most desert moors in Norway and Scotland produce some sort of
pasture for cattle, of which the milk and the increase are always more
than sufficient, not only to maintain all the labour necessary for
tending them, and to pay the ordinary profit to the farmer or the owner
of the herd or flock, but to afford some small rent to the landlord. The
rent increases in proportion to the goodness of the pasture. The same
extent of ground not only maintains a greater number of cattle, but as
they we brought within a smaller compass, less labour becomes requisite
to tend them, and to collect their produce. The landlord gains both
ways; by the increase of the produce, and by the diminution of the
labour which must be maintained out of it.

The rent of land not only varies with its fertility, whatever be its
produce, but with its situation, whatever be its fertility. Land in the
neighbourhood of a town gives a greater rent than land equally fertile
in a distant part of the country. Though it may cost no more labour to
cultivate the one than the other, it must always cost more to bring the
produce of the distant land to market. A greater quantity of labour,
therefore, must be maintained out of it; and the surplus, from which are
drawn both the profit of the farmer and the rent of the landlord, must
be diminished. But in remote parts of the country, the rate of profit,
as has already been shewn, is generally higher than in the neighbourhood
of a large town. A smaller proportion of this diminished surplus,
therefore, must belong to the landlord.

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of
carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level
with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account
the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the
remote, which must always be the most extensive circle of the country.
They are advantageous to the town by breaking down the monopoly of the
country in its neighbourhood. They are advantageous even to that part of
the country. Though they introduce some rival commodities into the old
market, they open many new markets to its produce. Monopoly, besides,
is a great enemy to good management, which can never be universally
established, but in consequence of that free and universal competition
which forces every body to have recourse to it for the sake of self
defence. It is not more than fifty years ago, that some of the counties
in the neighbourhood of London petitioned the parliament against the
extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties. Those remoter
counties, they pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to
sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves,
and would thereby reduce their rents, and ruin their cultivation. Their
rents, however, have risen, and their cultivation has been improved
since that time.

A corn field of moderate fertility produces a much greater quantity
of food for man, than the best pasture of equal extent. Though its
cultivation requires much more labour, yet the surplus which remains
after replacing the seed and maintaining all that labour, is likewise
much greater. If a pound of butcher's meat, therefore, was never
supposed to be worth more than a pound of bread, this greater surplus
would everywhere be of greater value and constitute a greater fund, both
for the profit of the farmer and the rent of the landlord. It seems to
have done so universally in the rude beginnings of agriculture.

But the relative values of those two different species of food, bread
and butcher's meat, are very different in the different periods of
agriculture. In its rude beginnings, the unimproved wilds, which then
occupy the far greater part of the country, are all abandoned to cattle.
There is more butcher's meat than bread; and bread, therefore, is the
food for which there is the greatest competition, and which consequently
brings the greatest price. At Buenos Ayres, we are told by Ulloa, four
reals, one-and-twenty pence halfpenny sterling, was, forty or fifty
years ago, the ordinary price of an ox, chosen from a herd of two or
three hundred. He says nothing of the price of bread, probably because
he found nothing remarkable about it. An ox there, he says, costs little
more than the labour of catching him. But corn can nowhere be raised
without a great deal of labour; and in a country which lies upon the
river Plate, at that time the direct road from Europe to the silver
mines of Potosi, the money-price of labour could be very cheap. It is
otherwise when cultivation is extended over the greater part of the
country. There is then more bread than butcher's meat. The competition
changes its direction, and the price of butcher's meat becomes greater
than the price of bread.

By the extension, besides, of cultivation, the unimproved wilds become
insufficient to supply the demand for butcher's meat. A great part of
the cultivated lands must be employed in rearing and fattening cattle;
of which the price, therefore, must be sufficient to pay, not only the
labour necessary for tending them, but the rent which the landlord, and
the profit which the farmer, could have drawn from such land employed in
tillage. The cattle bred upon the most uncultivated moors, when brought
to the same market, are, in proportion to their weight or goodness, sold
at the same price as those which are reared upon the most improved land.
The proprietors of those moors profit by it, and raise the rent of their
land in proportion to the price of their cattle. It is not more than a
century ago, that in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, butcher's
meat was as cheap or cheaper than even bread made of oatmeal. The Union
opened the market of England to the Highland cattle. Their ordinary
price, at present, is about three times greater than at the beginning
of the century, and the rents of many Highland estates have been tripled
and quadrupled in the same time. In almost every part of Great Britain,
a pound of the best butcher's meat is, in the present times, generally
worth more than two pounds of the best white bread; and in plentiful
years it is sometimes worth three or four pounds.

It is thus that, in the progress of improvement, the rent and profit of
unimproved pasture come to be regulated in some measure by the rent and
profit of what is improved, and these again by the rent and profit of
corn. Corn is an annual crop; butcher's meat, a crop which requires four
or five years to grow. As an acre of land, therefore, will produce a
much smaller quantity of the one species of food than of the other, the
inferiority of the quantity must be compensated by the superiority of
the price. If it was more than compensated, more corn-land would be
turned into pasture; and if it was not compensated, part of what was in
pasture would be brought back into corn.

This equality, however, between the rent and profit of grass and those
of corn; of the land of which the immediate produce is food for cattle,
and of that of which the immediate produce is food for men, must be
understood to take place only through the greater part of the improved
lands of a great country. In some particular local situations it is
quite otherwise, and the rent and profit of grass are much superior to
what can be made by corn.

Thus, in the neighbourhood of a great town, the demand for milk, and for
forage to horses, frequently contribute, together with the high price of
butcher's meat, to raise the value of grass above what may be called its
natural proportion to that of corn. This local advantage, it is evident,
cannot be communicated to the lands at a distance.

Particular circumstances have sometimes rendered some countries so
populous, that the whole territory, like the lands in the neighbourhood
of a great town, has not been sufficient to produce both the grass
and the corn necessary for the subsistence of their inhabitants. Their
lands, therefore, have been principally employed in the production of
grass, the more bulky commodity, and which cannot be so easily brought
from a great distance; and corn, the food of the great body of the
people, has been chiefly imported from foreign countries. Holland is
at present in this situation; and a considerable part of ancient Italy
seems to have been so during the prosperity of the Romans. To feed
well, old Cato said, as we are told by Cicero, was the first and
most profitable thing in the management of a private estate; to feed
tolerably well, the second; and to feed ill, the third. To plough,
he ranked only in the fourth place of profit and advantage. Tillage,
indeed, in that part of ancient Italy which lay in the neighbour hood of
Rome, must have been very much discouraged by the distributions of corn
which were frequently made to the people, either gratuitously, or at a
very low price. This corn was brought from the conquered provinces, of
which several, instead of taxes, were obliged to furnish a tenth part of
their produce at a stated price, about sixpence a-peck, to the republic.
The low price at which this corn was distributed to the people, must
necessarily have sunk the price of what could be brought to the Roman
market from Latium, or the ancient territory of Rome, and must have
discouraged its cultivation in that country.

In an open country, too, of which the principal produce is corn, a
well-inclosed piece of grass will frequently rent higher than any corn
field in its neighbourhood. It is convenient for the maintenance of the
cattle employed in the cultivation of the corn; and its high rent is,
in this case, not so properly paid from the value of its own produce, as
from that of the corn lands which are cultivated by means of it. It is
likely to fall, if ever the neighbouring lands are completely inclosed.
The present high rent of inclosed land in Scotland seems owing to
the scarcity of inclosure, and will probably last no longer than that
scarcity. The advantage of inclosure is greater for pasture than for
corn. It saves the labour of guarding the cattle, which feed better,
too, when they are not liable to be disturbed by their keeper or his
dog.

But where there is no local advantage of this kind, the rent and profit
of corn, or whatever else is the common vegetable food of the people,
must naturally regulate upon the land which is fit for producing it, the
rent and profit of pasture.

The use of the artificial grasses, of turnips, carrots, cabbages,
and the other expedients which have been fallen upon to make an equal
quantity of land feed a greater number of cattle than when in natural
grass, should somewhat reduce, it might be expected, the superiority
which, in an improved country, the price of butcher's meat naturally has
over that of bread. It seems accordingly to have done so; and there is
some reason for believing that, at least in the London market, the price
of butcher's meat, in proportion to the price of bread, is a good deal
lower in the present times than it was in the beginning of the last
century.

In the Appendix to the life of Prince Henry, Doctor Birch has given
us an account of the prices of butcher's meat as commonly paid by that
prince. It is there said, that the four quarters of an ox, weighing
six hundred pounds, usually cost him nine pounds ten shillings, or
thereabouts; that is thirty-one shillings and eight-pence per hundred
pounds weight. Prince Henry died on the 6th of November 1612, in the
nineteenth year of his age.

In March 1764, there was a parliamentary inquiry into the causes of the
high price of provisions at that time. It was then, among other proof
to the same purpose, given in evidence by a Virginia merchant, that in
March 1763, he had victualled his ships for twentyfour or twenty-five
shillings the hundred weight of beef, which he considered as the
ordinary price; whereas, in that dear year, he had paid twenty-seven
shillings for the same weight and sort. This high price in 1764 is,
however, four shillings and eight-pence cheaper than the ordinary price
paid by Prince Henry; and it is the best beef only, it must be observed,
which is fit to be salted for those distant voyages.

The price paid by Prince Henry amounts to 3d. 4/5ths per pound weight of
the whole carcase, coarse and choice pieces taken together; and at that
rate the choice pieces could not have been sold by retail for less than
4½d. or 5d. the pound.

In the parliamentary inquiry in 1764, the witnesses stated the price of
the choice pieces of the best beef to be to the consumer 4d. and 4½d.
the pound; and the coarse pieces in general to be from seven farthings
to 2½d. and 2¾d.; and this, they said, was in general one halfpenny
dearer than the same sort of pieces had usually been sold in the month
of March. But even this high price is still a good deal cheaper than
what we can well suppose the ordinary retail price to have been in the
time of Prince Henry.

During the first twelve years of the last century, the average price of
the best wheat at the Windsor market was £ 1:18:3½d. the quarter of nine
Winchester bushels.

But in the twelve years preceding 1764 including that year, the average
price of the same measure of the best wheat at the same market was £
2:1:9½d.

In the first twelve years of the last century, therefore, wheat appears
to have been a good deal cheaper, and butcher's meat a good deal dearer,
than in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year.

In all great countries, the greater part of the cultivated lands are
employed in producing either food for men or food for cattle. The rent
and profit of these regulate the rent and profit of all other cultivated
land. If any particular produce afforded less, the land would soon be
turned into corn or pasture; and if any afforded more, some part of the
lands in corn or pasture would soon be turned to that produce.

Those productions, indeed, which require either a greater original
expense of improvement, or a greater annual expense of cultivation in
order to fit the land for them, appear commonly to afford, the one a
greater rent, the other a greater profit, than corn or pasture. This
superiority, however, will seldom be found to amount to more than a
reasonable interest or compensation for this superior expense.

In a hop garden, a fruit garden, a kitchen garden, both the rent of the
landlord, and the profit of the farmer, are generally greater than
in acorn or grass field. But to bring the ground into this condition
requires more expense. Hence a greater rent becomes due to the landlord.
It requires, too, a more attentive and skilful management. Hence a
greater profit becomes due to the farmer. The crop, too, at least in the
hop and fruit garden, is more precarious. Its price, therefore, besides
compensating all occasional losses, must afford something like the
profit of insurance. The circumstances of gardeners, generally mean,
and always moderate, may satisfy us that their great ingenuity is not
commonly over-recompensed. Their delightful art is practised by so many
rich people for amusement, that little advantage is to be made by those
who practise it for profit; because the persons who should naturally
be their best customers, supply themselves with all their most precious
productions.

The advantage which the landlord derives from such improvements, seems
at no time to have been greater than what was sufficient to compensate
the original expense of making them. In the ancient husbandry, after the
vineyard, a well-watered kitchen garden seems to have been the part
of the farm which was supposed to yield the most valuable produce. But
Democritus, who wrote upon husbandry about two thousand years ago,
and who was regarded by the ancients as one of the fathers of the art,
thought they did not act wisely who inclosed a kitchen garden. The
profit, he said, would not compensate the expense of a stone-wall: and
bricks (he meant, I suppose, bricks baked in the sun) mouldered with the
rain and the winter-storm, and required continual repairs. Columella,
who reports this judgment of Democritus, does not controvert it, but
proposes a very frugal method of inclosing with a hedge of brambles and
briars, which he says he had found by experience to be both a lasting
and an impenetrable fence; but which, it seems, was not commonly known
in the time of Democritus. Palladius adopts the opinion of Columella,
which had before been recommended by Varro. In the judgment of those
ancient improvers, the produce of a kitchen garden had, it seems, been
little more than sufficient to pay the extraordinary culture and the
expense of watering; for in countries so near the sun, it was thought
proper, in those times as in the present, to have the command of a
stream of water, which could be conducted to every bed in the garden.
Through the greater part of Europe, a kitchen garden is not at
present supposed to deserve a better inclosure than mat recommended
by Columella. In Great Britain, and some other northern countries, the
finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection but by the assistance of a
wall. Their price, therefore, in such countries, must be sufficient
to pay the expense of building and maintaining what they cannot be had
without. The fruit-wall frequently surrounds the kitchen garden, which
thus enjoys the benefit of an inclosure which its own produce could
seldom pay for.

That the vineyard, when properly planted and brought to perfection,
was the most valuable part of the farm, seems to have been an undoubted
maxim in the ancient agriculture, as it is in the modern, through all
the wine countries. But whether it was advantageous to plant a new
vineyard, was a matter of dispute among the ancient Italian husbandmen,
as we learn from Columella. He decides, like a true lover of all curious
cultivation, in favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to shew, by a
comparison of the profit and expense, that it was a most advantageous
improvement. Such comparisons, however, between the profit and expense
of new projects are commonly very fallacious; and in nothing more so
than in agriculture. Had the gain actually made by such plantations been
commonly as great as he imagined it might have been, there could have
been no dispute about it. The same point is frequently at this day
a matter of controversy in the wine countries. Their writers on
agriculture, indeed, the lovers and promoters of high cultivation, seem
generally disposed to decide with Columella in favour of the vineyard.
In France, the anxiety of the proprietors of the old vineyards to
prevent the planting of any new ones, seems to favour their opinion, and
to indicate a consciousness in those who must have the experience,
that this species of cultivation is at present in that country more
profitable than any other. It seems, at the same time, however, to
indicate another opinion, that this superior profit can last no longer
than the laws which at present restrain the free cultivation of the
vine. In 1731, they obtained an order of council, prohibiting both the
planting of new vineyards, and the renewal of these old ones, of which
the cultivation had been interrupted for two years, without a particular
permission from the king, to be granted only in consequence of an
information from the intendant of the province, certifying that he had
examined the land, and that it was incapable of any other culture. The
pretence of this order was the scarcity of corn and pasture, and the
superabundance of wine. But had this superabundance been real, it would,
without any order of council, have effectually prevented the plantation
of new vineyards, by reducing the profits of this species of cultivation
below their natural proportion to those of corn and pasture. With regard
to the supposed scarcity of corn occasioned by the multiplication of
vineyards, corn is nowhere in France more carefully cultivated than
in the wine provinces, where the land is fit for producing it: as in
Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper Languedoc. The numerous hands employed
in the one species of cultivation necessarily encourage the other, by
affording a ready market for its produce. To diminish the number
of those who are capable of paying it, is surely a most unpromising
expedient for encouraging the cultivation of corn. It is like the policy
which would promote agriculture, by discouraging manufactures.

The rent and profit of those productions, therefore, which require
either a greater original expense of improvement in order to fit the
land for them, or a greater annual expense of cultivation, though often
much superior to those of corn and pasture, yet when they do no more
than compensate such extraordinary expense, are in reality regulated by
the rent and profit of those common crops.

It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantity of land which can be
fitted for some particular produce, is too small to supply the effectual
demand. The whole produce can be disposed of to those who are willing to
give somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages,
and profit, necessary for raising and bringing it to market, according
to their natural rates, or according to the rates at which they are paid
in the greater part of other cultivated land. The surplus part of the
price which remains after defraying the whole expense of improvement and
cultivation, may commonly, in this case, and in this case only, bear
no regular proportion to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but may
exceed it in almost any degree; and the greater part of this excess
naturally goes to the rent of the landlord.

The usual and natural proportion, for example, between the rent and
profit of wine, and those of corn and pasture, must be understood to
take place only with regard to those vineyards which produce nothing but
good common wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere, upon any light,
gravelly, or sandy soil, and which has nothing to recommend it but its
strength and wholesomeness. It is with such vineyards only, that the
common land of the country can be brought into competition; for with
those of a peculiar quality it is evident that it cannot.

The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other
fruit-tree. From some it derives a flavour which no culture or
management can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real
or imaginary, is sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards;
sometimes it extends through the greater part of a small district, and
sometimes through a considerable part of a large province. The whole
quantity of such wines that is brought to market falls short of the
effectual demand, or the demand of those who would be willing to pay the
whole rent, profit, and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing them
thither, according to the ordinary rate, or according to the rate at
which they are paid in common vineyards. The whole quantity, therefore,
can be disposed of to those who are willing to pay more, which
necessarily raises their price above that of common wine. The difference
is greater or less, according as the fashionableness and scarcity of the
wine render the competition of the buyers more or less eager. Whatever
it be, the greater part of it goes to the rent of the landlord. For
though such vineyards are in general more carefully cultivated than most
others, the high price of the wine seems to be, not so much the effect,
as the cause of this careful cultivation. In so valuable a produce, the
loss occasioned by negligence is so great, as to force even the most
careless to attention. A small part of this high price, therefore, is
sufficient to pay the wages of the extraordinary labour bestowed upon
their cultivation, and the profits of the extraordinary stock which puts
that labour into motion.

The sugar colonies possessed by the European nations in the West Indies
may be compared to those precious vineyards. Their whole produce falls
short of the effectual demand of Europe, and can be disposed of to those
who are willing to give more than what is sufficient to pay the whole
rent, profit, and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing it to
market, according to the rate at which they are commonly paid by any
other produce. In Cochin China, the finest white sugar generally sells
for three piastres the quintal, about thirteen shillings and sixpence
of our money, as we are told by Mr Poivre {Voyages d'un Philosophe.}, a
very careful observer of the agriculture of that country. What is there
called the quintal, weighs from a hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris
pounds, or a hundred and seventy-five Paris pounds at a medium, which
reduces the price of the hundred weight English to about eight shillings
sterling; not a fourth part of what is commonly paid for the brown or
muscovada sugars imported from our colonies, and not a sixth part
of what is paid for the finest white sugar. The greater part of the
cultivated lands in Cochin China are employed in producing corn and
rice, the food of the great body of the people. The respective prices of
corn, rice, and sugar, are there probably in the natural proportion,
or in that which naturally takes place in the different crops of the
greater part of cultivated land, and which recompenses the landlord and
farmer, as nearly as can be computed, according to what is usually the
original expense of improvement, and the annual expense of cultivation.
But in our sugar colonies, the price of sugar bears no such proportion
to that of the produce of a rice or corn field either in Europe or
America. It is commonly said that a sugar planter expects that the rum
and the molasses should defray the whole expense of his cultivation,
and that his sugar should be all clear profit. If this be true, for I
pretend not to affirm it, it is as if a corn farmer expected to defray
the expense of his cultivation with the chaff and the straw, and that
the grain should be all clear profit. We see frequently societies of
merchants in London, and other trading towns, purchase waste lands in
our sugar colonies, which they expect to improve and cultivate with
profit, by means of factors and agents, notwithstanding the great
distance and the uncertain returns, from the defective administration of
justice in those countries. Nobody will attempt to improve and cultivate
in the same manner the most fertile lands of Scotland, Ireland, or
the corn provinces of North America, though, from the more exact
administration of justice in these countries, more regular returns might
be expected.

In Virginia and Maryland, the cultivation of tobacco is preferred,
as most profitable, to that of corn. Tobacco might be cultivated with
advantage through the greater part of Europe; but, in almost every part
of Europe, it has become a principal subject of taxation; and to collect
a tax from every different farm in the country where this plant might
happen to be cultivated, would be more difficult, it has been supposed,
than to levy one upon its importation at the custom-house. The
cultivation of tobacco has, upon this account, been most absurdly
prohibited through the greater part of Europe, which necessarily gives
a sort of monopoly to the countries where it is allowed; and as Virginia
and Maryland produce the greatest quantity of it, they share largely,
though with some competitors, in the advantage of this monopoly. The
cultivation of tobacco, however, seems not to be so advantageous as that
of sugar. I have never even heard of any tobacco plantation that was
improved and cultivated by the capital of merchants who resided in Great
Britain; and our tobacco colonies send us home no such wealthy planters
as we see frequently arrive from our sugar islands. Though, from the
preference given in those colonies to the cultivation of tobacco above
that of corn, it would appear that the effectual demand of Europe for
tobacco is not completely supplied, it probably is more nearly so than
that for sugar; and though the present price of tobacco is probably more
than sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages, and profit, necessary for
preparing and bringing it to market, according to the rate at which
they are commonly paid in corn land, it must not be so much more as the
present price of sugar. Our tobacco planters, accordingly, have shewn
the same fear of the superabundance of tobacco, which the proprietors of
the old vineyards in France have of the superabundance of wine. By
act of assembly, they have restrained its cultivation to six thousand
plants, supposed to yield a thousand weight of tobacco, for every negro
between sixteen and sixty years of age. Such a negro, over and above
this quantity of tobacco, can manage, they reckon, four acres of Indian
corn. To prevent the market from being overstocked, too, they have
sometimes, in plentiful years, we are told by Dr Douglas {Douglas's
Summary, vol. ii. p. 379, 373.} (I suspect he has been ill informed),
burnt a certain quantity of tobacco for every negro, in the same manner
as the Dutch are said to do of spices. If such violent methods are
necessary to keep up the present price of tobacco, the superior
advantage of its culture over that of corn, if it still has any, will
not probably be of long continuance.

It is in this manner that the rent of the cultivated land, of which the
produce is human food, regulates the rent of the greater part of other
cultivated land. No particular produce can long afford less, because the
land would immediately be turned to another use; and if any particular
produce commonly affords more, it is because the quantity of land which
can be fitted for it is too small to supply the effectual demand.

In Europe, corn is the principal produce of land, which serves
immediately for human food. Except in particular situations, therefore,
the rent of corn land regulates in Europe that of all other cultivated
land. Britain need envy neither the vineyards of France, nor the olive
plantations of Italy. Except in particular situations, the value of
these is regulated by that of corn, in which the fertility of Britain is
not much inferior to that of either of those two countries.

If, in any country, the common and favourite vegetable food of the
people should be drawn from a plant of which the most common land, with
the same, or nearly the same culture, produced a much greater quantity
than the most fertile does of corn; the rent of the landlord, or the
surplus quantity of food which would remain to him, after paying
the labour, and replacing the stock of the farmer, together with its
ordinary profits, would necessarily be much greater. Whatever was the
rate at which labour was commonly maintained in that country, this
greater surplus could always maintain a greater quantity of it, and,
consequently, enable the landlord to purchase or command a greater
quantity of it. The real value of his rent, his real power and
authority, his command of the necessaries and conveniencies of life with
which the labour of other people could supply him, would necessarily be
much greater.

A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most
fertile corn field. Two crops in the year, from thirty to sixty bushels
each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an acre. Though its
cultivation, therefore, requires more labour, a much greater surplus
remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice countries,
therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable food of
the people, and where the cultivators are chiefly maintained with it, a
greater share of this greater surplus should belong to the landlord than
in corn countries. In Carolina, where the planters, as in other British
colonies, are generally both farmers and landlords, and where rent,
consequently, is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice is
found to be more profitable than that of corn, though their fields
produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the prevalence
of the customs of Europe, rice is not there the common and favourite
vegetable food of the people.

A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog
covered with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pasture, or
vineyard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very
useful to men; and the lands which are fit for those purposes are not
fit for rice. Even in the rice countries, therefore, the rent of rice
lands cannot regulate the rent of the other cuitivated land which can
never be turned to that produce.

The food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quantity to
that produced by a field of rice, and much superior to what is produced
by a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of potatoes from an acre
of land is not a greater produce than two thousand weight of wheat. The
food or solid nourishment, indeed, which can be drawn from each of those
two plants, is not altogether in proportion to their weight, on account
of the watery nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, half the weight
of this root to go to water, a very large allowance, such an acre of
potatoes will still produce six thousand weight of solid nourishment,
three times the quantity produced by the acre of wheat. An acre of
potatoes is cultivated with less expense than an acre of wheat;
the fallow, which generally precedes the sowing of wheat, more than
compensating the hoeing and other extraordinary culture which is always
given to potatoes. Should this root ever become in any part of Europe,
like rice in some rice countries, the common and favourite vegetable
food of the people, so as to occupy the same proportion of the lands
in tillage, which wheat and other sorts of grain for human food do at
present, the same quantity of cultivated land would maintain a much
greater number of people; and the labourers being generally fed with
potatoes, a greater surplus would remain after replacing all the stock,
and maintaining all the labour employed in cultivation. A greater share
of this surplus, too, would belong to the landlord. Population would
increase, and rents would rise much beyond what they are at present.

The land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almost every other useful
vegetable. If they occupied the same proportion of cultivated land which
corn does at present, they would regulate, in the same manner, the rent
of the greater part of other cultivated land.

In some parts of Lancashire, it is pretended, I have been told, that
bread of oatmeal is a heartier food for labouring people than wheaten
bread, and I have frequently heard the same doctrine held in Scotland. I
am, however, somewhat doubtful of the truth of it. The common people in
Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so strong
nor so handsome as the same rank of people in England, who are fed with
wheaten bread. They neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there
is not the same difference between the people of fashion in the two
countries, experience would seem to shew, that the food of the common
people in Scotland is not so suitable to the human constitution as that
of their neighbours of the same rank in England. But it seems to be
otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in
London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the
strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British
dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest
rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food
can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its
being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution.

It is difficult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impossible to
store them like corn, for two or three years together. The fear of not
being able to sell them before they rot, discourages their cultivation,
and is, perhaps, the chief obstacle to their ever becoming in any great
country, like bread, the principal vegetable food of all the different
ranks of the people.


PART II.--Of the Produce of Land, which sometimes does, and sometimes
does not, afford Rent.

Human food seems to be the only produce of land, which always and
necessarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other sorts of
produce sometimes may, and sometimes may not, according to different
circumstances.

After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind.

Land, in its original rude state, can afford the materials of clothing
and lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed. In its
improved state, it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than
it can supply with those materials; at least in the way in which
they require them, and are willing to pay for them. In the one state,
therefore, there is always a superabundance of these materials, which
are frequently, upon that account, of little or no value. In the other,
there is often a scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In
the one state, a great part of them is thrown away as useless and the
price of what is used is considered as equal only to the labour and
expense of fitting it for use, and can, therefore, afford no rent to
the landlord. In the other, they are all made use of, and there is
frequently a demand for more than can be had. Somebody is always willing
to give more for every part of them, than what is sufficient to pay the
expense of bringing them to market. Their price, therefore, can always
afford some rent to the landlord.

The skins of the larger animals were the original materials of clothing.
Among nations of hunters and shepherds, therefore, whose food consists
chiefly in the flesh of those animals, everyman, by providing himself
with food, provides himself with the materials of more clothing than
he can wear. If there was no foreign commerce, the greater part of them
would be thrown away as things of no value. This was probably the case
among the hunting nations of North America, before their country was
discovered by the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus
peltry, for blankets, fire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value.
In the present commercial state of the known world, the most barbarous
nations, I believe, among whom land property is established, have some
foreign commerce of this kind, and find among their wealthier neighbours
such a demand for all the materials of clothing, which their land
produces, and which can neither be wrought up nor consumed at home, as
raises their price above what it costs to send them to those wealthier
neighbours. It affords, therefore, some rent to the landlord. When the
greater part of the Highland cattle were consumed on their own hills,
the exportation of their hides made the most considerable article of the
commerce of that country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some
addition to the rent of the Highland estates. The wool of England, which
in old times, could neither be consumed nor wrought up at home, found a
market in the then wealthier and more industrious country of Flanders,
and its price afforded something to the rent of the land which produced
it. In countries not better cultivated than England was then, or than
the Highlands of Scotland are now, and which had no foreign commerce,
the materials of clothing would evidently be so superabundant, that a
great part of them would be thrown away as useless, and no part could
afford any rent to the landlord.

The materials of lodging cannot always be transported to so great a
distance as those of clothing, and do not so readily become an object
of foreign commerce. When they are superabundant in the country which
produces them, it frequently happens, even in the present commercial
state of the world, that they are of no value to the landlord. A good
stone quarry in the neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable
rent. In many parts of Scotland and Wales it affords none. Barren
timber for building is of great value in a populous and well-cultivated
country, and the land which produces it affords a considerable rent. But
in many parts of North America, the landlord would be much obliged to
any body who would carry away the greater part of his large trees. In
some parts of the Highlands of Scotland, the bark is the only part of
the wood which, for want of roads and water-carriage, can be sent to
market; the timber is left to rot upon the ground. When the materials
of lodging are so superabundant, the part made use of is worth only the
labour and expense of fitting it for that use. It affords no rent to
the landlord, who generally grants the use of it to whoever takes
the trouble of asking it. The demand of wealthier nations, however,
sometimes enables him to get a rent for it. The paving of the streets
of London has enabled the owners of some barren rocks on the coast of
Scotland to draw a rent from what never afforded any before. The woods
of Norway, and of the coasts of the Baltic, find a market in many parts
of Great Britain, which they could not find at home, and thereby afford
some rent to their proprietors.

Countries are populous, not in proportion to the number of people whom
their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of
those whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the
necessary clothing and lodging. But though these are at hand, it may
often be difficult to find food. In some parts of the British dominions,
what is called a house may be built by one day's labour of one man. The
simplest species of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat
more labour to dress and prepare them for use. They do not, however,
require a great deal. Among savage or barbarous nations, a hundredth, or
little more than a hundredth part of the labour of the whole year, will
be sufficient to provide them with such clothing and lodging as satisfy
the greater part of the people. All the other ninety-nine parts are
frequently no more than enough to provide them with food.

But when, by the improvement and cultivation of land, the labour of one
family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes
sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or
at least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other
things, or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind.
Clothing and lodging, household furniture, and what is called equipage,
are the principal objects of the greater part of those wants and
fancies. The rich man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour.
In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may
require more labour and art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same.
But compare the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one, with the
hovel and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the
difference between their clothing, lodging, and household furniture, is
almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of food is
limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach;
but the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments of building, dress,
equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain
boundary. Those, therefore, who have the command of more food than they
themselves can consume, are always willing to exchange the surplus,
or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of this
other kind. What is over and above satisfying the limited desire, is
given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be satisfied, but
seem to be altogether endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert
themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich; and to obtain it more
certainly, they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of
their work. The number of workmen increases with the increasing quantity
of food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of the lands;
and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of
labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up, increases in
a much greater proportion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for
every sort of material which human invention can employ, either usefully
or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture;
for the fossils and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth, the
precious metals, and the precious stones.

Food is, in this manner, not only the original source of rent, but every
other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent, derives
that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in
producing food, by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.

Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards
afford rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and cultivated
countries, the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater
price than what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together
with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing
them to market. Whether it is or is not such, depends upon different
circumstances.

Whether a coal mine, for example, can afford any rent, depends partly
upon its fertility, and partly upon its situation.

A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according
as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain
quantity of labour, is greater or less than what can be brought by an
equal quantity from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.

Some coal mines, advantageously situated, cannot be wrought on account
of their barrenness. The produce does not pay the expense. They can
afford neither profit nor rent.

There are some, of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the
labour, and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock
employed in working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker
of the work, but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought
advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being himself the
undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary profit of the capital which he
employs in it. Many coal mines in Scotland are wrought in this manner,
and can be wrought in no other. The landlord will allow nobody else to
work them without paying some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any.

Other coal mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be
wrought on account of their situation. A quantity of mineral, sufficient
to defray the expense of working, could be brought from the mine by the
ordinary, or even less than the ordinary quantity of labour: but in
an inland country, thinly inhabited, and without either good roads or
water-carriage, this quantity could not be sold.

Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said too to be less
wholesome. The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where they are
consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.

The price of wood, again, varies with the state of agriculture, nearly
in the same manner, and exactly for the same reason, as the price of
cattle. In its rude beginnings, the greater part of every country is
covered with wood, which is then a mere incumbrance, of no value to
the landlord, who would gladly give it to any body for the cutting. As
agriculture advances, the woods are partly cleared by the progress of
tillage, and partly go to decay in consequence of the increased number
of cattle. These, though they do not increase in the same proportion
as corn, which is altogether the acquisition of human industry, yet
multiply under the care and protection of men, who store up in the
season of plenty what may maintain them in that of scarcity; who,
through the whole year, furnish them with a greater quantity of food
than uncultivated nature provides for them; and who, by destroying and
extirpating their enemies, secure them in the free enjoyment of all that
she provides. Numerous herds of cattle, when allowed to wander through
the woods, though they do not destroy the old trees, hinder any young
ones from coming up; so that, in the course of a century or two, the
whole forest goes to ruin. The scarcity of wood then raises its price.
It affords a good rent; and the landlord sometimes finds that he can
scarce employ his best lands more advantageously than in growing barren
timber, of which the greatness of the profit often compensates the
lateness of the returns. This seems, in the present times, to be nearly
the state of things in several parts of Great Britain, where the profit
of planting is found to be equal to that of either corn or pasture. The
advantage which the landlord derives from planting can nowhere exceed,
at least for any considerable time, the rent which these could afford
him; and in an inland country, which is highly cuitivated, it will
frequently not fall much short of this rent. Upon the sea-coast of a
well-improved country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be had for
fuel, it may sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timber for building
from less cultivated foreign countries than to raise it at home. In
the new town of Edinburgh, built within these few years, there is not,
perhaps, a single stick of Scotch timber.

Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals is such that the
expense of a coal fire is nearly equal to that of a wood one we may be
assured, that at that place, and in these circumstances, the price of
coals is as high as it can be. It seems to be so in some of the inland
parts of England, particularly in Oxfordshire, where it is usual, even
in the fires of the common people, to mix coals and wood together, and
where the difference in the expense of those two sorts of fuel cannot,
therefore, be very great. Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere
much below this highest price. If they were not, they could not bear
the expense of a distant carriage, either by land or by water. A
small quantity only could be sold; and the coal masters and the coal
proprietors find it more for their interest to sell a great quantity at
a price somewhat above the lowest, than a small quantity at the highest.
The most fertile coal mine, too, regulates the price of coals at all the
other mines in its neighbourhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker
of the work find, the one that he can get a greater rent, the other
that he can get a greater profit, by somewhat underselling all their
neighbours. Their neighbours are soon obliged to sell at the same price,
though they cannot so well afford it, and though it always diminishes,
and sometimes takes away altogether, both their rent and their profit.
Some works are abandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can
be wrought only by the proprietor.

The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any considerable time,
is, like that of all other commodities, the price which is barely
sufficient to replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock
which must be employed in bringing them to market. At a coal mine for
which the landlord can get no rent, but, which he must either work
himself or let it alone altogether, the price of coals must generally be
nearly about this price.

Rent, even where coals afford one, has generally a smaller share in
their price than in that of most other parts of the rude produce of
land. The rent of an estate above ground, commonly amounts to what is
supposed to be a third of the gross produce; and it is generally a rent
certain and independent of the occasional variations in the crop. In
coal mines, a fifth of the gross produce is a very great rent, a tenth
the common rent; and it is seldom a rent certain, but depends upon the
occasional variations in the produce. These are so great, that in a
country where thirty years purchase is considered as a moderate price
for the property of a landed estate, ten years purchase is regarded as a
good price for that of a coal mine.

The value of a coal mine to the proprietor, frequently depends as
much upon its situation as upon its fertility. That of a metallic
mine depends more upon its fertility, and less upon its situation. The
coarse, and still more the precious metals, when separated from the ore,
are so valuable, that they can generally bear the expense of a very long
land, and of the most distant sea carriage. Their market is not confined
to the countries in the neighbourhood of the mine, but extends to the
whole world. The copper of Japan makes an article of commerce in Europe;
the iron of Spain in that of Chili and Peru. The silver of Peru finds
its way, not only to Europe, but from Europe to China.

The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can have little effect
on their price at Newcastle; and their price in the Lionnois can have
none at all. The productions of such distant coal mines can never be
brought into competition with one another. But the productions of the
most distant metallic mines frequently may, and in fact commonly are.

The price, therefore, of the coarse, and still more that of the precious
metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must necessarily more
or less affect their price at every other in it. The price of copper
in Japan must have some influence upon its price at the copper mines in
Europe. The price of silver in Peru, or the quantity either of labour or
of other goods which it will purchase there, must have some influence
on its price, not only at the silver mines of Europe, but at those of
China. After the discovery of the mines of Peru, the silver mines of
Europe were, the greater part of them, abandoned. The value of silver
was so much reduced, that their produce could no longer pay the expense
of working them, or replace, with a profit, the food, clothes, lodging,
and other necessaries which were consumed in that operation. This was
the case, too, with the mines of Cuba and St. Domingo, and even with the
ancient mines of Peru, after the discovery of those of Potosi. The
price of every metal, at every mine, therefore, being regulated in
some measure by its price at the most fertile mine in the world that is
actually wrought, it can, at the greater part of mines, do very little
more than pay the expense of working, and can seldom afford a very high
rent to the landlord. Rent accordingly, seems at the greater part of
mines to have but a small share in the price of the coarse, and a still
smaller in that of the precious metals. Labour and profit make up the
greater part of both.

A sixth part of the gross produce may be reckoned the average rent of
the tin mines of Cornwall, the most fertile that are known in the world,
as we are told by the Rev. Mr. Borlace, vice-warden of the stannaries.
Some, he says, afford more, and some do not afford so much. A sixth
part of the gross produce is the rent, too, of several very fertile lead
mines in Scotland.

In the silver mines of Peru, we are told by Frezier and Ulloa, the
proprietor frequently exacts no other acknowledgment from the undertaker
of the mine, but that he will grind the ore at his mill, paying him the
ordinary multure or price of grinding. Till 1736, indeed, the tax of the
king of Spain amounted to one fifth of the standard silver, which till
then might be considered as the real rent of the greater part of the
silver mines of Peru, the richest which have been known in the world. If
there had been no tax, this fifth would naturally have belonged to the
landlord, and many mines might have been wrought which could not then be
wrought, because they could not afford this tax. The tax of the duke of
Cornwall upon tin is supposed to amount to more than five per cent. or
one twentieth part of the value; and whatever may be his proportion, it
would naturally, too, belong to the proprietor of the mine, if tin was
duty free. But if you add one twentieth to one sixth, you will find that
the whole average rent of the tin mines of Cornwall, was to the whole
average rent of the silver mines of Peru, as thirteen to twelve. But the
silver mines of Peru are not now able to pay even this low rent; and the
tax upon silver was, in 1736, reduced from one fifth to one tenth. Even
this tax upon silver, too, gives more temptation to smuggling than the
tax of one twentieth upon tin; and smuggling must be much easier in
the precious than in the bulky commodity. The tax of the king of Spain,
accordingly, is said to be very ill paid, and that of the duke of
Cornwall very well. Rent, therefore, it is probable, makes a greater
part of the price of tin at the most fertile tin mines than it does of
silver at the most fertile silver mines in the world. After replacing
the stock employed in working those different mines, together with
its ordinary profits, the residue which remains to the proprietor is
greater, it seems, in the coarse, than in the precious metal.

Neither are the profits of the undertakers of silver mines commonly
very great in Peru. The same most respectable and well-informed authors
acquaint us, that when any person undertakes to work a new mine in Peru,
he is universally looked upon as a man destined to bankruptcy and ruin,
and is upon that account shunned and avoided by every body. Mining, it
seems, is considered there in the same light as here, as a lottery, in
which the prizes do not compensate the blanks, though the greatness
of some tempts many adventurers to throw away their fortunes in such
unprosperous projects.

As the sovereign, however, derives a considerable part of his revenue
from the produce of silver mines, the law in Peru gives every possible
encouragement to the discovery and working of new ones. Whoever
discovers a new mine, is entitled to measure off two hundred and
forty-six feet in length, according to what he supposes to be the
direction of the vein, and half as much in breadth. He becomes
proprietor of this portion of the mine, and can work it without paving
any acknowledgment to the landlord. The interest of the duke of Cornwall
has given occasion to a regulation nearly of the same kind in that
ancient dutchy. In waste and uninclosed lands, any person who discovers
a tin mine may mark out its limits to a certain extent, which is called
bounding a mine. The bounder becomes the real proprietor of the mine,
and may either work it himself, or give it in lease to another, without
the consent of the owner of the land, to whom, however, a very small
acknowledgment must be paid upon working it. In both regulations,
the sacred rights of private property are sacrificed to the supposed
interests of public revenue.

The same encouragement is given in Peru to the discovery and working of
new gold mines; and in gold the king's tax amounts only to a twentieth
part of the standard rental. It was once a fifth, and afterwards a
tenth, as in silver; but it was found that the work could not bear even
the lowest of these two taxes. If it is rare, however, say the same
authors, Frezier and Ulloa, to find a person who has made his fortune by
a silver, it is still much rarer to find one who has done so by a gold
mine. This twentieth part seems to be the whole rent which is paid by
the greater part of the gold mines of Chili and Peru. Gold, too, is much
more liable to be smuggled than even silver; not only on account of the
superior value of the metal in proportion to its bulk, but on account
of the peculiar way in which nature produces it. Silver is very seldom
found virgin, but, like most other metals, is generally mineralized
with some other body, from which it is impossible to separate it in
such quantities as will pay for the expense, but by a very laborious and
tedious operation, which cannot well be carried on but in work-houses
erected for the purpose, and, therefore, exposed to the inspection
of the king's officers. Gold, on the contrary, is almost always found
virgin. It is sometimes found in pieces of some bulk; and, even when
mixed, in small and almost insensible particles, with sand, earth, and
other extraneous bodies, it can be separated from them by a very short
and simple operation, which can be carried on in any private house by
any body who is possessed of a small quantity of mercury. If the king's
tax, therefore, is but ill paid upon silver, it is likely to be much
worse paid upon gold; and rent must make a much smaller part of the
price of gold than that of silver.

The lowest price at which the precious metals can be sold, or the
smallest quantity of other goods for which they can be exchanged, during
any considerable time, is regulated by the same principles which fix the
lowest ordinary price of all other goods. The stock which must commonly
be employed, the food, clothes, and lodging, which must commonly be
consumed in bringing them from the mine to the market, determine it.
It must at least be sufficient to replace that stock, with the ordinary
profits.

Their highest price, however, seems not to be necessarily determined by
any thing but the actual scarcity or plenty of these metals themselves.
It is not determined by that of any other commodity, in the same manner
as the price of coals is by that of wood, beyond which no scarcity can
ever raise it. Increase the scarcity of gold to a certain degree, and
the smallest bit of it may become more precious than a diamond, and
exchange for a greater quantity of other goods.

The demand for those metals arises partly from their utility, and
partly from their beauty. If you except iron, they are more useful than,
perhaps, any other metal. As they are less liable to rust and impurity,
they can more easily be kept clean; and the utensils, either of the
table or the kitchen, are often, upon that account, more agreeable when
made of them. A silver boiler is more cleanly than a lead, copper, or
tin one; and the same quality would render a gold boiler still better
than a silver one. Their principal merit, however, arises from their
beauty, which renders them peculiarly fit for the ornaments of dress and
furniture. No paint or dye can give so splendid a colour as gilding. The
merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity. With the
greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in
the parade of riches; which, in their eye, is never so complete as when
they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can
possess but themselves. In their eyes, the merit of an object, which
is in any degree either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhanced by
its scarcity, or by the great labour which it requires to collect any
considerable quantity of it; a labour which nobody can afford to pay but
themselves. Such objects they are willing to purchase at a higher price
than things much more beautiful and useful, but more common. These
qualities of utility, beauty, and scarcity, are the original foundation
of the high price of those metals, or of the great quantity of other
goods for which they can everywhere be exchanged. This value was
antecedent to, and independent of their being employed as coin, and
was the quality which fitted them for that employment. That employment,
however, by occasioning a new demand, and by diminishing the quantity
which could be employed in any other way, may have afterwards
contributed to keep up or increase their value.

The demand for the precious stones arises altogether from their beauty.
They are of no use but as ornaments; and the merit of their beauty is
greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the difficulty and expense of
getting them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly make up, upon
most occasions, almost the whole of the high price. Rent comes in but
for a very small share, frequently for no share; and the most fertile
mines only afford any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a jeweller,
visited the diamond mines of Golconda and Visiapour, he was informed
that the sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought,
had ordered all of them to be shut up except those which yielded the
largest and finest stones. The other, it seems, were to the proprietor
not worth the working.

As the prices, both of the precious metals and of the precious stones,
is regulated all over the world by their price at the most fertile mine
in it, the rent which a mine of either can afford to its proprietor
is in proportion, not to its absolute, but to what may be called its
relative fertility, or to its superiority over other mines of the same
kind. If new mines were discovered, as much superior to those of Potosi,
as they were superior to those of Europe, the value of silver might be
so much degraded as to render even the mines of Potosi not worth the
working. Before the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, the most
fertile mines in Europe may have afforded as great a rent to their
proprietors as the richest mines in Peru do at present. Though the
quantity of silver was much less, it might have exchanged for an equal
quantity of other goods, and the proprietor's share might have enabled
him to purchase or command an equal quantity either of labour or of
commodities.

The value, both of the produce and of the rent, the real revenue which
they afforded, both to the public and to the proprietor, might have been
the same.

The most abundant mines, either of the precious metals, or of the
precious stones, could add little to the wealth of the world. A
produce, of which the value is principally derived from its scarcity, is
necessarily degraded by its abundance. A service of plate, and the other
frivolous ornaments of dress and furniture, could be purchased for a
smaller quantity of commodities; and in this would consist the sole
advantage which the world could derive from that abundance.

It is otherwise in estates above ground. The value, both of their
produce and of their rent, is in proportion to their absolute, and not
to their relative fertility. The land which produces a certain quantity
of food, clothes, and lodging, can always feed, clothe, and lodge, a
certain number of people; and whatever may be the proportion of the
landlord, it will always give him a proportionable command of the labour
of those people, and of the commodities with which that labour can
supply him. The value of the most barren land is not diminished by the
neighbourhood of the most fertile. On the contrary, it is generally
increased by it. The great number of people maintained by the fertile
lands afford a market to many parts of the produce of the barren, which
they could never have found among those whom their own produce could
maintain.

Whatever increases the fertility of land in producing food, increases
not only the value of the lands upon which the improvement is bestowed,
but contributes likewise to increase that of many other lands, by
creating a new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of
which, in consequence of the improvement of land, many people have the
disposal beyond what they themselves can consume, is the great cause
of the demand, both for the precious metals and the precious stones,
as well as for every other conveniency and ornament of dress, lodging,
household furniture, and equipage. Food not only constitutes the
principal part of the riches of the world, but it is the abundance of
food which gives the principal part of their value to many other sorts
of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba and St. Domingo, when they were
first discovered by the Spaniards, used to wear little bits of gold as
ornaments in their hair and other parts of their dress. They seemed
to value them as we would do any little pebbles of somewhat more than
ordinary beauty, and to consider them as just worth the picking up, but
not worth the refusing to any body who asked them, They gave them to
their new guests at the first request, without seeming to think that
they had made them any very valuable present. They were astonished to
observe the rage of the Spaniards to obtain them; and had no notion that
there could anywhere be a country in which many people had the disposal
of so great a superfluity of food; so scanty always among themselves,
that, for a very small quantity of those glittering baubles, they would
willingly give as much as might maintain a whole family for many
years. Could they have been made to understand this, the passion of the
Spaniards would not have surprised them.


PART III.--Of the variations in the Proportion between the respective
Values of that sort of Produce which always affords Rent, and of that
which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent.

The increasing abundance of food, in consequence of the increasing
improvement and cultivation, must necessarily increase the demand for
every part of the produce of land which is not food, and which can
be applied either to use or to ornament. In the whole progress of
improvement, it might, therefore, be expected there should be only one
variation in the comparative values of those two different sorts of
produce. The value of that sort which sometimes does, and sometimes
does not afford rent, should constantly rise in proportion to that which
always affords some rent. As art and industry advance, the materials of
clothing and lodging, the useful fossils and materials of the earth,
the precious metals and the precious stones, should gradually come to be
more and more in demand, should gradually exchange for a greater and a
greater quantity of food; or, in other words, should gradually become
dearer and dearer. This, accordingly, has been the case with most of
these things upon most occasions, and would have been the case with all
of them upon all occasions, if particular accidents had not, upon some
occasions, increased the supply of some of them in a still greater
proportion than the demand.

The value of a free-stone quarry, for example, will necessarily increase
with the increasing improvement and population of the country round
about it, especially if it should be the only one in the neighbourhood.
But the value of a silver mine, even though there should not be another
within a thousand miles of it, will not necessarily increase with the
improvement of the country in which it is situated. The market for the
produce of a free-stone quarry can seldom extend more than a few miles
round about it, and the demand must generally be in proportion to the
improvement and population of that small district; but the market for
the produce of a silver mine may extend over the whole known world.
Unless the world in general, therefore, be advancing in improvement and
population, the demand for silver might not be at all increased by the
improvement even of a large country in the neighbourhood of the mine.
Even though the world in general were improving, yet if, in the course
of its improvements, new mines should be discovered, much more fertile
than any which had been known before, though the demand for silver would
necessarily increase, yet the supply might increase in so much a greater
proportion, that the real price of that metal might gradually fall;
that is, any given quantity, a pound weight of it, for example, might
gradually purchase or command a smaller and a smaller quantity of
labour, or exchange for a smaller and a smaller quantity of corn, the
principal part of the subsistence of the labourer.

The great market for silver is the commercial and civilized part of the
world.

If, by the general progress of improvement, the demand of this market
should increase, while, at the same time, the supply did not increase
in the same proportion, the value of silver would gradually rise in
proportion to that of corn. Any given quantity of silver would exchange
for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in other words, the
average money price of corn would gradually become cheaper and cheaper.

If, on the contrary, the supply, by some accident, should increase, for
many years together, in a greater proportion than the demand, that metal
would gradually become cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the
average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements,
gradually become dearer and dearer.

But if, on the other hand, the supply of that metal should increase
nearly in the same proportion as the demand, it would continue to
purchase or exchange for nearly the same quantity of corn; and the
average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements.
continue very nearly the same.

These three seem to exhaust all the possible combinations of events
which can happen in the progress of improvement; and during the course
of the four centuries preceding the present, if we may judge by what has
happened both in France and Great Britain, each of those three different
combinations seems to have taken place in the European market, and
nearly in the same order, too, in which I have here set them down.

Digression concerning the Variations in the value of Silver during the
Course of the Four last Centuries.

First Period.--In 1350, and for some time before, the average price of
the quarter of wheat in England seems not to have been estimated
lower than four ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal to about twenty
shillings of our present money. From this price it seems to have fallen
gradually to two ounces of silver, equal to about ten shillings of our
present money, the price at which we find it estimated in the beginning
of the sixteenth century, and at which it seems to have continued to be
estimated till about 1570.

In 1350, being the 25th of Edward III. was enacted what is called
the Statute of Labourers. In the preamble, it complains much of the
insolence of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their
masters. It therefore ordains, that all servants and labourers should,
for the future, be contented with the same wages and liveries (liveries
in those times signified not only clothes, but provisions) which they
had been accustomed to receive in the 20th year of the king, and the
four preceding years; that, upon this account, their livery-wheat should
nowhere be estimated higher than tenpence a-bushel, and that it should
always be in the option of the master to deliver them either the wheat
or the money. Tenpence: a-bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th of Edward
III. been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, since it required a
particular statute to oblige servants to accept of it in exchange for
their usual livery of provisions; and it had been reckoned a reasonable
price ten years before that, or in the 16th year of the king, the
term to which the statute refers. But in the 16th year of Edward III.
tenpence contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower weight, and
was nearly equal to half-a-crown of our present money. Four ounces of
silver, Tower weight, therefore, equal to six shillings and eightpence
of the money of those times, and to near twenty shillings of that of
the present, must have been reckoned a moderate price for the quarter of
eight bushels.

This statute is surely a better evidence of what was reckoned, in those
times, a moderate price of grain, than the prices of some particular
years, which have generally been recorded by historians and other
writers, on account of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, and
from which, therefore, it is difficult to form any judgment concerning
what may have been the ordinary price. There are, besides, other reasons
for believing that, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and
for some time before, the common price of wheat was not less than four
ounces of silver the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion.

In 1309, Ralph de Born, prior of St Augustine's, Canterbury, gave a
feast upon his installation-day, of which William Thorn has preserved,
not only the bill of fare, but the prices of many particulars. In that
feast were consumed, 1st, fifty-three quarters of wheat, which cost
nineteen pounds, or seven shillings, and twopence a-quarter, equal to
about one-and-twenty shillings and sixpence of our present money; 2dly,
fifty-eight quarters of malt, which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings,
or six shillings a-quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our
present money; 3dly, twenty quarters of oats, which cost four pounds, or
four shillings a-quarter, equal to about twelve shillings of our present
money. The prices of malt and oats seem here to lie higher than their
ordinary proportion to the price of wheat.

These prices are not recorded, on account of their extraordinary
dearness or cheapness, but are mentioned accidentally, as the prices
actually paid for large quantities of grain consumed at a feast, which
was famous for its magnificence.

In 1262, being the 51st of Henry III. was revived an ancient statute,
called the assize of bread and ale, which, the king says in the
preamble, had been made in the times of his progenitors, some time kings
of England. It is probably, therefore, as old at least as the time of
his grandfather, Henry II. and may have been as old as the Conquest. It
regulates the price of bread according as the prices of wheat may happen
to be, from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of
those times. But statutes of this kind are generally presumed to provide
with equal care for all deviations from the middle price, for those
below it, as well as for those above it. Ten shillings, therefore,
containing six ounces of silver, Tower weight, and equal to about thirty
shillings of our present money, must, upon this supposition, have been
reckoned the middle price of the quarter of wheat when this statute was
first enacted, and must have continued to be so in the 51st of Henry
III. We cannot, therefore, be very wrong in supposing that the middle
price was not less than one-third of the highest price at which
this statute regulates the price of bread, or than six shillings and
eightpence of the money of those times, containing four ounces of
silver, Tower weight.

From these different facts, therefore, we seem to have some reason to
conclude that, about the middle of the fourteenth century, and for a
considerable time before, the average or ordinary price of the quarter
of wheat was not supposed to be less than four ounces of silver, Tower
weight.

From about the middle of the fourteenth to the beginning of the
sixteenth century, what was reckoned the reasonable and moderate, that
is, the ordinary or average price of wheat, seems to have sunk gradually
to about one half of this price; so as at last to have fallen to about
two ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal to about ten shillings of our
present money. It continued to be estimated at this price till about
1570.

In the household book of Henry, the fifth earl of Northumberland, drawn
up in 1512 there are two different estimations of wheat. In one of them
it is computed at six shilling and eightpence the quarter, in the
other at five shillings and eightpence only. In 1512, six shillings and
eightpence contained only two ounces of silver, Tower weight, and were
equal to about ten shillings of our present money.

From the 25th of Edward III. to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth,
during the space of more than two hundred years, six shillings and
eightpence, it appears from several different statutes, had continued
to be considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable, that is,
the ordinary or average price of wheat. The quantity of silver, however,
contained in that nominal sum was, during the course of this period,
continually diminishing in consequence of some alterations which were
made in the coin. But the increase of the value of silver had, it seems,
so far compensated the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the
same nominal sum, that the legislature did not think it worth while to
attend to this circumstance.

Thus, in 1436, it was enacted, that wheat might be exported without a
licence when the price was so low as six shillings and eightpence: and
in 1463, it was enacted, that no wheat should be imported if the price
was not above six shillings and eightpence the quarter: The legislature
had imagined, that when the price was so low, there could be no
inconveniency in exportation, but that when it rose higher, it
became prudent to allow of importation. Six shillings and eightpence,
therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as thirteen
shillings and fourpence of our present money (one-third part less than
the same nominal sum contained in the time of Edward III), had, in those
times, been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable
price of wheat.

In 1554, by the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, and in 1558, by the
1st of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was in the same manner
prohibited, whenever the price of the quarter should exceed six
shillings and eightpence, which did not then contain two penny worth
more silver than the same nominal sum does at present. But it had soon
been found, that to restrain the exportation of wheat till the price
was so very low, was, in reality, to prohibit it altogether. In 1562,
therefore, by the 5th of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was allowed
from certain ports, whenever the price of the quarter should not exceed
ten shillings, containing nearly the same quantity of silver as the like
nominal sum does at present. This price had at this time, therefore,
been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable price of
wheat. It agrees nearly with the estimation of the Northumberland book
in 1512.

That in France the average price of grain was, in the same manner,
much lower in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
century, than in the two centuries preceding, has been observed both
by Mr Dupré de St Maur, and by the elegant author of the Essay on the
Policy of Grain. Its price, during the same period, had probably sunk in
the same manner through the greater part of Europe.

This rise in the value of silver, in proportion to that of corn, may
either have been owing altogether to the increase of the demand for that
metal, in consequence of increasing improvement and cultivation, the
supply, in the mean time, continuing the same as before; or, the demand
continuing the same as before, it may have been owing altogether to the
gradual diminution of the supply: the greater part of the mines which
were then known in the world being much exhausted, and, consequently,
the expense of working them much increased; or it may have been owing
partly to the one, and partly to the other of those two circumstances.
In the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
the greater part of Europe was approaching towards a more settled from
of government than it had enjoyed for several ages before. The increase
of security would naturally increase industry and improvement; and the
demand for the precious metals, as well as for every other luxury
and ornament, would naturally increase with the increase of riches.
A greater annual produce would require a greater quantity of coin
to circulate it; and a greater number of rich people would require a
greater quantity of plate and other ornaments of silver. It is natural
to suppose, too, that the greater part of the mines which then supplied
the European market with silver might be a good deal exhausted, and have
become more expensive in the working. They had been wrought, many of
them, from the time of the Romans.

It has been the opinion, however, of the greater part of those who have
written upon the prices of commodities in ancient times, that, from the
Conquest, perhaps from the invasion of Julius Caesar, till the
discovery of the mines of America, the value of silver was continually
diminishing. This opinion they seem to have been led into, partly by
the observations which they had occasion to make upon the prices both of
corn and of some other parts of the rude produce of land, and partly by
the popular notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases
in every country with the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as
it quantity increases.

In their observations upon the prices of corn, three different
circumstances seem frequently to have misled them.

First, in ancient times, almost all rents were paid in kind; in a
certain quantity of corn, cattle, poultry, etc. It sometimes happened,
however, that the landlord would stipulate, that he should be at liberty
to demand of the tenant, either the annual payment in kind or a certain
sum of money instead of it. The price at which the payment in kind was
in this manner exchanged for a certain sum of money, is in Scotland
called the conversion price. As the option is always in the landlord to
take either the substance or the price, it is necessary, for the safety
of the tenant, that the conversion price should rather be below than
above the average market price. In many places, accordingly, it is not
much above one half of this price. Through the greater part of Scotland
this custom still continues with regard to poultry, and in some places
with regard to cattle. It might probably have continued to take place,
too, with regard to corn, had not the institution of the public fiars
put an end to it. These are annual valuations, according to the judgment
of an assize, of the average price of all the different sorts of grain,
and of all the different qualities of each, according to the actual
market price in every different county. This institution rendered it
sufficiently safe for the tenant, and much more convenient for the
landlord, to convert, as they call it, the corn rent, rather at what
should happen to be the price of the fiars of each year, than at any
certain fixed price. But the writers who have collected the prices of
corn in ancient times seem frequently to have mistaken what is called
in Scotland the conversion price for the actual market price. Fleetwood
acknowledges, upon one occasion, that he had made this mistake. As he
wrote his book, however, for a particular purpose, he does not think
proper to make this acknowledgment till after transcribing this
conversion price fifteen times. The price is eight shillings the
quarter of wheat. This sum in 1423, the year at which he begins with
it, contained the same quantity of silver as sixteen shillings of
our present money. But in 1562, the year at which he ends with it, it
contained no more than the same nominal sum does at present.

Secondly, they have been misled by the slovenly manner in which some
ancient statutes of assize had been sometimes transcribed by lazy
copiers, and sometimes, perhaps, actually composed by the legislature.

The ancient statutes of assize seem to have begun always with
determining what ought to be the price of bread and ale when the price
of wheat and barley were at the lowest; and to have proceeded gradually
to determine what it ought to be, according as the prices of those two
sorts of grain should gradually rise above this lowest price. But
the transcribers of those statutes seem frequently to have thought it
sufficient to copy the regulation as far as the three or four first and
lowest prices; saving in this manner their own labour, and judging,
I suppose, that this was enough to show what proportion ought to be
observed in all higher prices.

Thus, in the assize of bread and ale, of the 51st of Henry III. the
price of bread was regulated according to the different prices of wheat,
from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of those
times. But in the manuscripts from which all the different editions of
the statutes, preceding that of Mr Ruffhead, were printed, the copiers
had never transcribed this regulation beyond the price of twelve
shillings. Several writers, therefore, being misled by this faulty
transcription, very naturally conclude that the middle price, or six
shillings the quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present
money, was the ordinary or average price of wheat at that time.

In the statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enacted nearly about the same
time, the price of ale is regulated according to every sixpence rise in
the price of barley, from two shillings, to four shillings the quarter.
That four shillings, however, was not considered as the highest price to
which barley might frequently rise in those times, and that these
prices were only given as an example of the proportion which ought to be
observed in all other prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer from
the last words of the statute: "Et sic deinceps crescetur vel diminuetur
per sex denarios." The expression is very slovenly, but the meaning is
plain enough, "that the price of ale is in this manner to be increased
or diminished according to every sixpence rise or fall in the price
of barley." In the composition of this statute, the legislature itself
seems to have been as negligent as the copiers were in the transcription
of the other.

In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem, an old Scotch law
book, there is a statute of assize, in which the price of bread is
regulated according to all the different prices of wheat, from tenpence
to three shillings the Scotch boll, equal to about half an English
quarter. Three shillings Scotch, at the time when this assize is
supposed to have been enacted, were equal to about nine shillings
sterling of our present money Mr Ruddiman seems {See his Preface
to Anderson's Diplomata Scotiae.} to conclude from this, that three
shillings was the highest price to which wheat ever rose in those
times, and that tenpence, a shilling, or at most two shillings, were
the ordinary prices. Upon consulting the manuscript, however, it appears
evidently, that all these prices are only set down as examples of the
proportion which ought to be observed between the respective prices of
wheat and bread. The last words of the statute are "reliqua judicabis
secundum praescripta, habendo respectum ad pretium bladi."--"You shall
judge of the remaining cases, according to what is above written, having
respect to the price of corn."

Thirdly, they seem to have been misled too, by the very low price
at which wheat was sometimes sold in very ancient times; and to have
imagined, that as its lowest price was then much lower than in later
times its ordinary price must likewise have been much lower. They might
have found, however, that in those ancient times its highest price was
fully as much above, as its lowest price was below any thing that had
ever been known in later times. Thus, in 1270, Fleetwood gives us two
prices of the quarter of wheat. The one is four pounds sixteen shillings
of the money of those times, equal to fourteen pounds eight shillings of
that of the present; the other is six pounds eight shillings, equal to
nineteen pounds four shillings of our present money. No price can
be found in the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth
century, which approaches to the extravagance of these. The price of
corn, though at all times liable to variation varies most in those
turbulent and disorderly societies, in which the interruption of all
commerce and communication hinders the plenty of one part of the country
from relieving the scarcity of another. In the disorderly state of
England under the Plantagenets, who governed it from about the middle of
the twelfth till towards the end of the fifteenth century, one district
might be in plenty, while another, at no great distance, by having
its crop destroyed, either by some accident of the seasons, or by the
incursion of some neighbouring baron, might be suffering all the horrors
of a famine; and yet if the lands of some hostile lord were interposed
between them, the one might not be able to give the least assistance to
the other. Under the vigorous administration of the Tudors, who governed
England during the latter part of the fifteenth, and through the whole
of the sixteenth century, no baron was powerful enough to dare to
disturb the public security.

The reader will find at the end of this chapter all the prices of
wheat which have been collected by Fleetwood, from 1202 to 1597, both
inclusive, reduced to the money of the present times, and digested,
according to the order of time, into seven divisions of twelve years
each. At the end of each division, too, he will find the average price
of the twelve years of which it consists. In that long period of time,
Fleetwood has been able to collect the prices of no more than eighty
years; so that four years are wanting to make out the last twelve years.
I have added, therefore, from the accounts of Eton college, the prices
of 1598, 1599, 1600, and 1601. It is the only addition which I have
made. The reader will see, that from the beginning of the thirteenth
till after the middle of the sixteenth century, the average price of
each twelve years grows gradually lower and lower; and that towards
the end of the sixteenth century it begins to rise again. The prices,
indeed, which Fleetwood has been able to collect, seem to have been
those chiefly which were remarkable for extraordinary dearness or
cheapness; and I do not pretend that any very certain conclusion can be
drawn from them. So far, however, as they prove any thing at all, they
confirm the account which I have been endeavouring to give. Fleetwood
himself, however, seems, with most other writers, to have believed,
that, during all this period, the value of silver, in consequence of its
increasing abundance, was continually diminishing. The prices of
corn, which he himself has collected, certainly do not agree with this
opinion. They agree perfectly with that of Mr Dupré de St Maur, and with
that which I have been endeavouring to explain. Bishop Fleetwood and Mr
Dupré de St Maur are the two authors who seem to have collected, with
the greatest diligence and fidelity, the prices of things in ancient
times. It is some what curious that, though their opinions are so very
different, their facts, so far as they relate to the price of corn at
least, should coincide so very exactly.

It is not, however, so much from the low price of corn, as from that of
some other parts of the rude produce of land, that the most judicious
writers have inferred the great value of silver in those very ancient
times. Corn, it has been said, being a sort of manufacture, was, in
those rude ages, much dearer in proportion than the greater part of
other commodities; it is meant, I suppose, than the greater part of
unmanufactured commodities, such as cattle, poultry, game of all
kinds, etc. That in those times of poverty and barbarism these were
proportionably much cheaper than corn, is undoubtedly true. But this
cheapness was not the effect of the high value of silver, but of the
low value of those commodities. It was not because silver would in such
times purchase or represent a greater quantity of labour, but because
such commodities would purchase or represent a much smaller quantity
than in times of more opulence and improvement. Silver must certainly
be cheaper in Spanish America than in Europe; in the country where it is
produced, than in the country to which it is brought, at the expense of
a long carriage both by land and by sea, of a freight, and an insurance.
One-and-twenty pence halfpenny sterling, however, we are told by Ulloa,
was, not many years ago, at Buenos Ayres, the price of an ox chosen from
a herd of three or four hundred. Sixteen shillings sterling, we are told
by Mr Byron, was the price of a good horse in the capital of Chili. In
a country naturally fertile, but of which the far greater part is
altogether uncultivated, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc. as
they can be acquired with a very small quantity of labour, so they will
purchase or command but a very small quantity. The low money price for
which they may be sold, is no proof that the real value of silver is
there very high, but that the real value of those commodities is very
low.

Labour, it must always be remembered, and not any particular commodity,
or set of commodities, is the real measure of the value both of silver
and of all other commodities.

But in countries almost waste, or but thinly inhabited, cattle, poultry,
game of all kinds, etc. as they are the spontaneous productions of
Nature, so she frequently produces them in much greater quantities than
the consumption of the inhabitants requires. In such a state of things,
the supply commonly exceeds the demand. In different states of society,
in different states of improvement, therefore, such commodities will
represent, or be equivalent, to very different quantities of labour.

In every state of society, in every stage of improvement, corn is the
production of human industry. But the average produce of every sort
of industry is always suited, more or less exactly, to the average
consumption; the average supply to the average demand. In every
different stage of improvement, besides, the raising of equal quantities
of corn in the same soil and climate, will, at an average, require
nearly equal quantities of labour; or, what comes to the same thing,
the price of nearly equal quantities; the continual increase of the
productive powers of labour, in an improved state of cultivation,
being more or less counterbalanced by the continual increasing price
of cattle, the principal instruments of agriculture. Upon all these
accounts, therefore, we may rest assured, that equal quantities of corn
will, in every state of society, in every stage of improvement, more
nearly represent, or be equivalent to, equal quantities of labour, than
equal quantities of any other part of the rude produce of land. Corn,
accordingly, it has already been observed, is, in all the different
stages of wealth and improvement, a more accurate measure of value
than any other commodity or set of commodities. In all those different
stages, therefore, we can judge better of the real value of silver, by
comparing it with corn, than by comparing it with any other commodity or
set of commodities.

Corn, besides, or whatever else is the common and favourite vegetable
food of the people, constitutes, in every civilized country, the
principal part of the subsistence of the labourer. In consequence of
the extension of agriculture, the land of every country produces a much
greater quantity of vegetable than of animal food, and the labourer
everywhere lives chiefly upon the wholesome food that is cheapest and
most abundant. Butcher's meat, except in the most thriving countries, or
where labour is most highly rewarded, makes but an insignificant part of
his subsistence; poultry makes a still smaller part of it, and game no
part of it. In France, and even in Scotland, where labour is somewhat
better rewarded than in France, the labouring poor seldom eat butcher's
meat, except upon holidays, and other extraordinary occasions. The money
price of labour, therefore, depends much more upon the average money
price of corn, the subsistence of the labourer, than upon that of
butcher's meat, or of any other part of the rude produce of land. The
real value of gold and silver, therefore, the real quantity of labour
which they can purchase or command, depends much more upon the quantity
of corn which they can purchase or command, than upon that of butcher's
meat, or any other part of the rude produce of land.

Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either of corn or of
other commodities, would not probably have misled so many intelligent
authors, had they not been influenced at the same time by the popular
notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every
country with the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as its
quantity increases. This notion, however, seems to be altogether
groundless.

The quantity of the precious metals may increase in any country from
two different causes; either, first, from the increased abundance of the
mines which supply it; or, secondly, from the increased wealth of the
people, from the increased produce of their annual labour. The first of
these causes is no doubt necessarily connected with the diminution of
the value of the precious metals; but the second is not.

When more abundant mines are discovered, a greater quantity of
the precious metals is brought to market; and the quantity of the
necessaries and conveniencies of life for which they must be exchanged
being the same as before, equal quantities of the metals must be
exchanged for smaller quantities of commodities. So far, therefore,
as the increase of the quantity of the precious metals in any country
arises from the increased abundance of the mines, it is necessarily
connected with some diminution of their value.

When, on the contrary, the wealth of any country increases, when the
annual produce of its labour becomes gradually greater and greater,
a greater quantity of coin becomes necessary in order to circulate a
greater quantity of commodities: and the people, as they can afford it,
as they have more commodities to give for it, will naturally purchase a
greater and a greater quantity of plate. The quantity of their coin will
increase from necessity; the quantity of their plate from vanity and
ostentation, or from the same reason that the quantity of fine statues,
pictures, and of every other luxury and curiosity, is likely to increase
among them. But as statuaries and painters are not likely to be worse
rewarded in times of wealth and prosperity, than in times of poverty and
depression, so gold and silver are not likely to be worse paid for.

The price of gold and silver, when the accidental discovery of more
abundant mines does not keep it down, as it naturally rises with the
wealth of every country; so, whatever be the state of the mines, it is
at all times naturally higher in a rich than in a poor country. Gold and
silver, like all other commodities, naturally seek the market where the
best price is given for them, and the best price is commonly given for
every thing in the country which can best afford it. Labour, it must be
remembered, is the ultimate price which is paid for every thing; and
in countries where labour is equally well rewarded, the money price of
labour will be in proportion to that of the subsistence of the labourer.
But gold and silver will naturally exchange for a greater quantity of
subsistence in a rich than in a poor country; in a country which abounds
with subsistence, than in one which is but indifferently supplied with
it. If the two countries are at a great distance, the difference may be
very great; because, though the metals naturally fly from the worse to
the better market, yet it may be difficult to transport them in such
quantities as to bring their price nearly to a level in both. If the
countries are near, the difference will be smaller, and may sometimes
be scarce perceptible; because in this case the transportation will be
easy. China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, and the
difference between the price of subsistence in China and in Europe is
very great. Rice in China is much cheaper than wheat is any where
in Europe. England is a much richer country than Scotland, but the
difference between the money price of corn in those two countries is
much smaller, and is but just perceptible. In proportion to the quantity
or measure, Scotch corn generally appears to be a good deal cheaper than
English; but, in proportion to its quality, it is certainly somewhat
dearer. Scotland receives almost every year very large supplies from
England, and every commodity must commonly be somewhat dearer in the
country to which it is brought than in that from which it comes. English
corn, therefore, must be dearer in Scotland than in England; and yet in
proportion to its quality, or to the quantity and goodness of the flour
or meal which can be made from it, it cannot commonly be sold higher
there than the Scotch corn which comes to market in competition with it.

The difference between the money price of labour in China and in Europe,
is still greater than that between the money price of subsistence;
because the real recompence of labour is higher in Europe than in China,
the greater part of Europe being in an improving state, while China
seems to be standing still. The money price of labour is lower in
Scotland than in England, because the real recompence of labour is much
lower: Scotland, though advancing to greater wealth, advances much more
slowly than England. The frequency of emigration from Scotland, and the
rarity of it from England, sufficiently prove that the demand for labour
is very different in the two countries. The proportion between the real
recompence of labour in different countries, it must be remembered, is
naturally regulated, not by their actual wealth or poverty, but by their
advancing, stationary, or declining condition.

Gold and silver, as they are naturally of the greatest value among the
richest, so they are naturally of the least value among the poorest
nations. Among savages, the poorest of all nations, they are scarce of
any value.

In great towns, corn is always dearer than in remote parts of the
country. This, however, is the effect, not of the real cheapness of
silver, but of the real dearness of corn. It does not cost less labour
to bring silver to the great town than to the remote parts of the
country; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn.

In some very rich and commercial countries, such as Holland and the
territory of Genoa, corn is dear for the same reason that it is dear in
great towns. They do not produce enough to maintain their inhabitants.
They are rich in the industry and skill of their artificers and
manufacturers, in every sort of machinery which can facilitate and
abridge labour; in shipping, and in all the other instruments and means
of carriage and commerce: but they are poor in corn, which, as it must
be brought to them from distant countries, must, by an addition to its
price, pay for the carriage from those countries. It does not cost less
labour to bring silver to Amsterdam than to Dantzic; but it costs a
great deal more to bring corn. The real cost of silver must be nearly
the same in both places; but that of corn must be very different.
Diminish the real opulence either of Holland or of the territory of
Genoa, while the number of their inhabitants remains the same; diminish
their power of supplying themselves from distant countries; and the
price of corn, instead of sinking with that diminution in the quantity
of their silver, which must necessarily accompany this declension,
either as its cause or as its effect, will rise to the price of a
famine. When we are in want of necessaries, we must part with all
superfluities, of which the value, as it rises in times of opulence
and prosperity, so it sinks in times of poverty and distress. It is
otherwise with necessaries. Their real price, the quantity of labour
which they can purchase or command, rises in times of poverty and
distress, and sinks in times of opulence and prosperity, which are
always times of great abundance; for they could not otherwise be times
of opulence and prosperity. Corn is a necessary, silver is only a
superfluity.

Whatever, therefore, may have been the increase in the quantity of the
precious metals, which, during the period between the middle of the
fourteenth and that of the sixteenth century, arose from the increase
of wealth and improvement, it could have no tendency to diminish their
value, either in Great Britain, or in my other part of Europe. If those
who have collected the prices of things in ancient times, therefore,
had, during this period, no reason to infer the diminution of the value
of silver from any observations which they had made upon the prices
either of corn, or of other commodities, they had still less reason to
infer it from any supposed increase of wealth and improvement.

Second Period.--But how various soever may have been the opinions of the
learned concerning the progress of the value of silver during the first
period, they are unanimous concerning it during the second.

From about 1570 to about 1640, during a period of about seventy years,
the variation in the proportion between the value of silver and that
of corn held a quite opposite course. Silver sunk in its real value, or
would exchange for a smaller quantity of labour than before; and corn
rose in its nominal price, and, instead of being commonly sold for about
two ounces of silver the quarter, or about ten shillings of our present
money, came to be sold for six and eight ounces of silver the quarter,
or about thirty and forty shillings of our present money.

The discovery of the abundant mines of America seems to have been the
sole cause of this diminution in the value of silver, in proportion to
that of corn. It is accounted for, accordingly, in the same manner by
every body; and there never has been any dispute, either about the fact,
or about the cause of it. The greater part of Europe was, during this
period, advancing in industry and improvement, and the demand for silver
must consequently have been increasing; but the increase of the supply
had, it seems, so far exceeded that of the demand, that the value of
that metal sunk considerably. The discovery of the mines of America, it
is to be observed, does not seem to have had any very sensible effect
upon the prices of things in England till after 1570; though even the
mines of Potosi had been discovered more than twenty years before.

From 1595 to 1620, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of
nine bushels of the best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from the
accounts of Eton college, to have been £ 2:1:6 9/13. From which sum,
neglecting the fraction, and deducting a ninth, or 4s. 7 1/3d., the
price of the quarter of eight bushels comes out to have been £ 1:16:10
2/3. And from this sum, neglecting likewise the fraction, and deducting
a ninth, or 4s. 1 1/9d., for the difference between the price of the
best wheat and that of the middle wheat, the price of the middle wheat
comes out to have been about £ 1:12:8 8/9, or about six ounces and
one-third of an ounce of silver.

From 1621 to 1636, both inclusive, the average price of the same measure
of the best wheat, at the same market, appears, from the same accounts,
to have been £ 2:10s.; from which, making the like deductions as in the
foregoing case, the average price of the quarter of eight bushels of
middle wheat comes out to have been £ 1:19:6, or about seven ounces and
two-thirds of an ounce of silver.

Third Period.--Between 1630 and 1640, or about 1636, the effect of the
discovery of the mines of America, in reducing the value of silver,
appears to have been completed, and the value of that metal seems never
to have sunk lower in proportion to that of corn than it was about
that time. It seems to have risen somewhat in the course of the present
century, and it had probably begun to do so, even some time before the
end of the last.

From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, being the sixty-four last years of
the last century the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the
best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from the same accounts, to have
been £ 2:11:0 1/3, which is only 1s. 0 1/3d. dearer than it had been
during the sixteen years before. But, in the course of these sixty-four
years, there happened two events, which must have produced a much
greater scarcity of corn than what the course of the season is would
otherwise have occasioned, and which, therefore, without supposing any
further reduction in the value of silver, will much more than account
for this very small enhancement of price.

The first of these events was the civil war, which, by discouraging
tillage and interrupting commerce, must have raised the price of
corn much above what the course of the seasons would otherwise have
occasioned. It must have had this effect, more or less, at all the
different markets in the kingdom, but particularly at those in the
neighbourhood of London, which require to be supplied from the greatest
distance. In 1648, accordingly, the price of the best wheat, at Windsor
market, appears, from the same accounts, to have been £ 4:5s., and, in
1649, to have been £ 4, the quarter of nine bushels. The excess of
those two years above £ 2:10s. (the average price of the sixteen years
preceding 1637 is £ 3:5s., which, divided among the sixty four last
years of the last century, will alone very nearly account for that small
enhancement of price which seems to have taken place in them.) These,
however, though the highest, are by no means the only high prices which
seem to have been occasioned by the civil wars.

The second event was the bounty upon the exportation of corn, granted
in 1688. The bounty, it has been thought by many people, by encouraging
tillage, may, in a long course of years, have occasioned a greater
abundance, and, consequently, a greater cheapness of corn in the home
market, than what would otherwise have taken place there. How far the
bounty could produce this effect at any time I shall examine hereafter:
I shall only observe at present, that between 1688 and 1700, it had
not time to produce any such effect. During this short period, its only
effect must have been, by encouraging the exportation of the surplus
produce of every year, and thereby hindering the abundance of one year
from compensating the scarcity of another, to raise the price in the
home market. The scarcity which prevailed in England, from 1693 to 1699,
both inclusive, though no doubt principally owing to the badness of
the seasons, and, therefore, extending through a considerable part
of Europe, must have been somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699,
accordingly, the further exportation of corn was prohibited for nine
months.

There was a third event which occurred in the course of the same period,
and which, though it could not occasion any scarcity of corn, nor,
perhaps, any augmentation in the real quantity of silver which was
usually paid for it, must necessarily have occasioned some augmentation
in the nominal sum. This event was the great debasement of the silver
coin, by clipping and wearing. This evil had begun in the reign of
Charles II. and had gone on continually increasing till 1695; at which
time, as we may learn from Mr Lowndes, the current silver coin was, at
an average, near five-and-twenty per cent. below its standard value. But
the nominal sum which constitutes the market price of every commodity
is necessarily regulated, not so much by the quantity of silver, which,
according to the standard, ought to be contained in it, as by that
which, it is found by experience, actually is contained in it. This
nominal sum, therefore, is necessarily higher when the coin is much
debased by clipping and wearing, than when near to its standard value.

In the course of the present century, the silver coin has not at any
time been more below its standard weight than it is at present. But
though very much defaced, its value has been kept up by that of the gold
coin, for which it is exchanged. For though, before the late recoinage,
the gold coin was a good deal defaced too, it was less so than the
silver. In 1695, on the contrary, the value of the silver coin was not
kept up by the gold coin; a guinea then commonly exchanging for thirty
shillings of the worn and clipt silver. Before the late recoinage of the
gold, the price of silver bullion was seldom higher than five shillings
and sevenpence an ounce, which is but fivepence above the mint price.
But in 1695, the common price of silver bullion was six shillings and
fivepence an ounce, {Lowndes's Essay on the Silver Coin, 68.} which is
fifteen pence above the mint price. Even before the late recoinage of
the gold, therefore, the coin, gold and silver together, when compared
with silver bullion, was not supposed to be more than eight per cent.
below its standard value, In 1695, on the contrary, it had been supposed
to be near five-and-twenty per cent. below that value. But in the
beginning of the present century, that is, immediately after the great
recoinage in King William's time, the greater part of the current silver
coin must have been still nearer to its standard weight than it is at
present. In the course of the present century, too, there has been
no great public calamity, such as a civil war, which could either
discourage tillage, or interrupt the interior commerce of the country.
And though the bounty which has taken place through the greater part of
this century, must always raise the price of corn somewhat higher than
it otherwise would be in the actual state of tillage; yet, as in the
course of this century, the bounty has had full time to produce all the
good effects commonly imputed to it to encourage tillage, and thereby
to increase the quantity of corn in the home market, it may, upon the
principles of a system which I shall explain and examine hereafter, be
supposed to have done something to lower the price of that commodity the
one way, as well as to raise it the other. It is by many people supposed
to have done more. In the sixty-four years of the present century,
accordingly, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the
best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, by the accounts of Eton college,
to have been £ 2:0:6 10/32, which is about ten shillings and sixpence,
or more than five-and-twenty percent. cheaper than it had been during
the sixty-four last years of the last century; and about nine shillings
and sixpence cheaper than it had been during the sixteen years preceding
1636, when the discovery of the abundant mines of America may be
supposed to have produced its full effect; and about one shilling
cheaper than it had been in the twenty-six years preceding 1620, before
that discovery can well be supposed to have produced its full effect.
According to this account, the average price of middle wheat, during
these sixty-four first years of the present century, comes out to have
been about thirty-two shillings the quarter of eight bushels.

The value of silver, therefore, seems to have risen somewhat in
proportion to that of corn during the course of the present century,
and it had probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the
last.


In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat, at
Windsor market, was £ 1:5:2, the lowest price at which it had ever been
from 1595.

In 1688, Mr Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in matters of
this kind, estimated the average price of wheat, in years of moderate
plenty, to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel, or eight-and-twenty
shillings the quarter. The grower's price I understand to be the same
with what is sometimes called the contract price, or the price at which
a farmer contracts for a certain number of years to deliver a certain
quantity of corn to a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the
farmer the expense and trouble of marketing, the contract price is
generally lower than what is supposed to be the average market price.
Mr King had judged eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter to be at that
time the ordinary contract price in years of moderate plenty. Before the
scarcity occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad seasons,
it was, I have been assured, the ordinary contract price in all common
years.

In 1688 was granted the parliamentary bounty upon the exportation
of corn. The country gentlemen, who then composed a still greater
proportion of the legislature than they do at present, had felt that the
money price of corn was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it
artificially to the high price at which it had frequently been sold in
the times of Charles I. and II. It was to take place, therefore, till
wheat was so high as fortyeight shillings the quarter; that is, twenty
shillings, or 5-7ths dearer than Mr King had, in that very year,
estimated the grower's price to be in times of moderate plenty. If his
calculations deserve any part of the reputation which they have obtained
very universally, eight-and-forty shillings the quarter was a price
which, without some such expedient as the bounty, could not at that
time be expected, except in years of extraordinary scarcity. But the
government of King William was not then fully settled. It was in no
condition to refuse anything to the country gentlemen, from whom it
was, at that very time, soliciting the first establishment of the annual
land-tax.

The value of silver, therefore, in proportion to that of corn, had
probably risen somewhat before the end of the last century; and it seems
to have continued to do so during the course of the greater part of the
present, though the necessary operation of the bounty must have hindered
that rise from being so sensible as it otherwise would have been in the
actual state of tillage.

In plentiful years, the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary
exportation, necessarily raises the price of corn above what it
otherwise would be in those years. To encourage tillage, by keeping up
the price of corn, even in the most plentiful years, was the avowed end
of the institution.

In years of great scarcity, indeed, the bounty has generally been
suspended. It must, however, have had some effect upon the prices of
many of those years. By the extraordinary exportation which it occasions
in years of plenty, it must frequently hinder the plenty of one year
from compensating the scarcity of another.

Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the bounty
raises the price of corn above what it naturally would be in the actual
state of tillage. If during the sixty-four first years of the present
century, therefore, the average price has been lower than during the
sixty-four last years of the last century, it must, in the same state of
tillage, have been much more so, had it not been for this operation of
the bounty.

But, without the bounty, it may be said the state of tillage would not
have been the same. What may have been the effects of this institution
upon the agriculture of the country, I shall endeavour to explain
hereafter, when I come to treat particularly of bounties. I shall only
observe at present, that this rise in the value of silver, in proportion
to that of corn, has not been peculiar to England. It has been observed
to have taken place in France during the same period, and nearly in the
same proportion, too, by three very faithful, diligent, and laborious
collectors of the prices of corn, Mr Dupré de St Maur, Mr Messance,
and the author of the Essay on the Police of Grain. But in France, till
1764, the exportation of grain was by law prohibited; and it is somewhat
difficult to suppose, that nearly the same diminution of price which
took place in one country, notwithstanding this prohibition, should,
in another, be owing to the extraordinary encouragement given to
exportation.

It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in the
average money price of corn as the effect rather of some gradual rise in
the real value of silver in the European market, than of any fall in the
real average value of corn. Corn, it has already been observed, is, at
distant periods of time, a more accurate measure of value than either
silver or, perhaps, any other commodity. When, after the discovery of
the abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its
former money price, this change was universally ascribed, not to any
rise in the real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of
silver. If, during the sixty-four first years of the present century,
therefore, the average money price of corn has fallen somewhat below
what it had been during the greater part of the last century, we should,
in the same manner, impute this change, not to any fall in the real
value of corn, but to some rise in the real value of silver in the
European market.

The high price of corn during these ten or twelve years past, indeed,
has occasioned a suspicion that the real value of silver still continues
to fall in the European market. This high price of corn, however, seems
evidently to have been the effect of the extraordinary unfavourableness
of the seasons, and ought, therefore, to be regarded, not as a
permanent, but as a transitory and occasional event. The seasons, for
these ten or twelve years past, have been unfavourable through the
greater part of Europe; and the disorders of Poland have very much
increased the scarcity in all those countries, which, in dear years,
used to be supplied from that market. So long a course of bad seasons,
though not a very common event, is by no means a singular one; and
whoever has inquired much into the history of the prices of corn in
former times, will be at no loss to recollect several other examples
of the same kind. Ten years of extraordinary scarcity, besides, are not
more wonderful than ten years of extraordinary plenty. The low price
of corn, from 1741 to 1750, both inclusive, may very well be set in
opposition to its high price during these last eight or ten years. From
1741 to 1750, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the
best wheat, at Windsor market, it appears from the accounts of Eton
college, was only £ 1:13:9 4/5, which is nearly 6s.3d. below the average
price of the sixty-four first years of the present century. The average
price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out,
according to this account, to have been, during these ten years, only £
1:6:8.

Between 1741 and 1750, however, the bounty must have hindered the price
of corn from falling so low in the home market as it naturally would
have done. During these ten years, the quantity of all sorts of grain
exported, it appears from the custom-house books, amounted to no less
than 8,029,156 quarters, one bushel. The bounty paid for this amounted
to £ 1,514,962:17:4 1/2. In 1749, accordingly, Mr Pelham, at that time
prime minister, observed to the house of commons, that, for the three
years preceding, a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for
the exportation of corn. He had good reason to make this observation,
and in the following year he might have had still better. In that single
year, the bounty paid amounted to no less than £ 324,176:10:6. {See
Tracts on the Corn Trade, Tract 3,} It is unnecessary to observe how
much this forced exportation must have raised the price of corn above
what it otherwise would have been in the home market.

At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader will find
the particular account of those ten years separated from the rest. He
will find there, too, the particular account of the preceding ten years,
of which the average is likewise below, though not so much below, the
general average of the sixty-four first years of the century. The year
1740, however, was a year of extraordinary scarcity. These twenty
years preceding 1750 may very well be set in opposition to the twenty
preceding 1770. As the former were a good deal below the general average
of the century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear
years; so the latter have been a good deal above it, notwithstanding
the intervention of one or two cheap ones, of 1759, for example. If the
former have not been as much below the general average as the latter
have been above it, we ought probably to impute it to the bounty. The
change has evidently been too sudden to be ascribed to any change in the
value of silver, which is always slow and gradual. The suddenness of the
effect can be accounted for only by a cause which can operate suddenly,
the accidental variations of the seasons.

The money price of labour in Great Britain has, indeed, risen during the
course of the present century. This, however, seems to be the effect,
not so much of any diminution in the value of silver in the European
market, as of an increase in the demand for labour in Great Britain,
arising from the great, and almost universal prosperity of the country.
In France, a country not altogether so prosperous, the money price of
labour has, since the middle of the last century, been observed to sink
gradually with the average money price of corn. Both in the last century
and in the present, the day wages of common labour are there said to
have been pretty uniformly about the twentieth part of the average price
of the septier of wheat; a measure which contains a little more than
four Winchester bushels. In Great Britain, the real recompence
of labour, it has already been shewn, the real quantities of the
necessaries and conveniencies of life which are given to the labourer,
has increased considerably during the course of the present century.
The rise in its money price seems to have been the effect, not of any
diminution of the value of silver in the general market of Europe, but
of a rise in the real price of labour, in the particular market of Great
Britain, owing to the peculiarly happy circumstances of the country.

For some time after the first discovery of America, silver would
continue to sell at its former, or not much below its former price.
The profits of mining would for some time be very great, and much above
their natural rate. Those who imported that metal into Europe, however,
would soon find that the whole annual importation could not be disposed
of at this high price. Silver would gradually exchange for a smaller and
a smaller quantity of goods. Its price would sink gradually lower and
lower, till it fell to its natural price; or to what was just sufficient
to pay, according to their natural rates, the wages of the labour, the
profits of the stock, and the rent of the land, which must be paid in
order to bring it from the mine to the market. In the greater part of
the silver mines of Peru, the tax of the king of Spain, amounting to a
tenth of the gross produce, eats up, it has already been observed,
the whole rent of the land. This tax was originally a half; it soon
afterwards fell to a third, then to a fifth, and at last to a tenth, at
which late it still continues. In the greater part of the silver mines
of Peru, this, it seems, is all that remains, after replacing the stock
of the undertaker of the work, together with its ordinary profits; and
it seems to be universally acknowledged that these profits, which were
once very high, are now as low as they can well be, consistently with
carrying on the works.

The tax of the king of Spain was reduced to a fifth of the registered
silver in 1504 {Solorzano, vol, ii.}, one-and-forty years before 1545,
the date of the discovery of the mines of Potosi. In the course of
ninety years, or before 1636, these mines, the most fertile in all
America, had time sufficient to produce their full effect, or to reduce
the value of silver in the European market as low as it could well fall,
while it continued to pay this tax to the king of Spain. Ninety years is
time sufficient to reduce any commodity, of which there is no monopoly,
to its natural price, or to the lowest price at which, while it pays
a particular tax, it can continue to be sold for any considerable time
together.

The price of silver in the European market might, perhaps, have fallen
still lower, and it might have become necessary either to reduce the tax
upon it, not only to one-tenth, as in 1736, but to one twentieth, in the
same manner as that upon gold, or to give up working the greater part
of the American mines which are now wrought. The gradual increase of
the demand for silver, or the gradual enlargement of the market for the
produce of the silver mines of America, is probably the cause which has
prevented this from happening, and which has not only kept up the
value of silver in the European market, but has perhaps even raised it
somewhat higher than it was about the middle of the last century.

Since the first discovery of America, the market for the produce of its
silver mines has been growing gradually more and more extensive.

First, the market of Europe has become gradually more and more
extensive. Since the discovery of America, the greater part of Europe
has been much improved. England, Holland, France, and Germany; even
Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, have all advanced considerably, both in
agriculture and in manufactures. Italy seems not to have gone backwards.
The fall of Italy preceded the conquest of Peru. Since that time it
seems rather to have recovered a little. Spain and Portugal, indeed, are
supposed to have gone backwards. Portugal, however, is but a very small
part of Europe, and the declension of Spain is not, perhaps, so great as
is commonly imagined. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain
was a very poor country, even in comparison with France, which has been
so much improved since that time. It was the well known remark of
the emperor Charles V. who had travelled so frequently through both
countries, that every thing abounded in France, but that every thing
was wanting in Spain. The increasing produce of the agriculture and
manufactures of Europe must necessarily have required a gradual increase
in the quantity of silver coin to circulate it; and the increasing
number of wealthy individuals must have required the like increase in
the quantity of their plate and other ornaments of silver.

Secondly, America is itself a new market, for the produce of its
own silver mines; and as its advances in agriculture, industry,
and population, are much more rapid than those of the most thriving
countries in Europe, its demand must increase much more rapidly. The
English colonies are altogether a new market, which, partly for coin,
and partly for plate, requires a continual augmenting supply of silver
through a great continent where there never was any demand before.
The greater part, too, of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, are
altogether new markets. New Granada, the Yucatan, Paraguay, and the
Brazils, were, before discovered by the Europeans, inhabited by savage
nations, who had neither arts nor agriculture. A considerable degree
of both has now been introduced into all of them. Even Mexico and
Peru, though they cannot be considered as altogether new markets, are
certainly much more extensive ones than they ever were before. After all
the wonderful tales which have been published concerning the splendid
state of those countries in ancient times, whoever reads, with any
degree of sober judgment, the history of their first discovery and
conquest, will evidently discern that, in arts, agriculture, and
commerce, their inhabitants were much more ignorant than the Tartars
of the Ukraine are at present. Even the Peruvians, the more civilized
nation of the two, though they made use of gold and silver as ornaments,
had no coined money of any kind. Their whole commerce was carried on by
barter, and there was accordingly scarce any division of labour among
them. Those who cultivated the ground, were obliged to build their own
houses, to make their own household furniture, their own clothes, shoes,
and instruments of agriculture. The few artificers among them are
said to have been all maintained by the sovereign, the nobles, and the
priests, and were probably their servants or slaves. All the ancient
arts of Mexico and Peru have never furnished one single manufacture
to Europe. The Spanish armies, though they scarce ever exceeded five
hundred men, and frequently did not amount to half that number, found
almost everywhere great difficulty in procuring subsistence. The famines
which they are said to have occasioned almost wherever they went, in
countries, too, which at the same time are represented as very populous
and well cultivated, sufficiently demonstrate that the story of this
populousness and high cultivation is in a great measure fabulous. The
Spanish colonies are under a government in many respects less favourable
to agriculture, improvement, and population, than that of the English
colonies. They seem, however, to be advancing in all those much more
rapidly than any country in Europe. In a fertile soil and happy climate,
the great abundance and cheapness of land, a circumstance common to all
new colonies, is, it seems, so great an advantage, as to compensate
many defects in civil government. Frezier, who visited Peru in 1713,
represents Lima as containing between twenty-five and twenty-eight
thousand inhabitants. Ulloa, who resided in the same country between
1740 and 1746, represents it as containing more than fifty thousand.
The difference in their accounts of the populousness of several other
principal towns of Chili and Peru is nearly the same; and as there seems
to be no reason to doubt of the good information of either, it marks
an increase which is scarce inferior to that of the English colonies.
America, therefore, is a new market for the produce of its own silver
mines, of which the demand must increase much more rapidly than that of
the most thriving country in Europe.

Thirdly, the East Indies is another market for the produce of the
silver mines of America, and a market which, from the time of the first
discovery of those mines, has been continually taking off a greater and
a greater quantity of silver. Since that time, the direct trade between
America and the East Indies, which is carried on by means of the
Acapulco ships, has been continually augmenting, and the indirect
intercourse by the way of Europe has been augmenting in a still greater
proportion. During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the only
European nation who carried on any regular trade to the East Indies. In
the last years of that century, the Dutch began to encroach upon
this monopoly, and in a few years expelled them from their principal
settlements in India. During the greater part of the last century, those
two nations divided the most considerable part of the East India trade
between them; the trade of the Dutch continually augmenting in a still
greater proportion than that of the Portuguese declined. The English and
French carried on some trade with India in the last century, but it
has been greatly augmented in the course of the present. The East
India trade of the Swedes and Danes began in the course of the present
century. Even the Muscovites now trade regularly with China, by a sort
of caravans which go over land through Siberia and Tartary to Pekin. The
East India trade of all these nations, if we except that of the
French, which the last war had well nigh annihilated, has been almost
continually augmenting. The increasing consumptions of East India goods
in Europe is, it seems, so great, as to afford a gradual increase of
employment to them all. Tea, for example, was a drug very little used in
Europe, before the middle of the last century. At present, the value of
the tea annually imported by the English East India company, for the
use of their own countrymen, amounts to more than a million and a half
a year; and even this is not enough; a great deal more being constantly
smuggled into the country from the ports of Holland, from Gottenburgh
in Sweden, and from the coast of France, too, as long as the French East
India company was in prosperity. The consumption of the porcelain of
China, of the spiceries of the Moluccas, of the piece goods of Bengal,
and of innumerable other articles, has increased very nearly in a like
proportion. The tonnage, accordingly, of all the European shipping
employed in the East India trade, at any one time during the last
century, was not, perhaps, much greater than that of the English East
India company before the late reduction of their shipping.

But in the East Indies, particularly in China and Indostan, the value
of the precious metals, when the Europeans first began to trade to those
countries, was much higher than in Europe; and it still continues to be
so. In rice countries, which generally yield two, sometimes three crops
in the year, each of them more plentiful than any common crop of corn,
the abundance of food must be much greater than in any corn country
of equal extent. Such countries are accordingly much more populous. In
them, too, the rich, having a greater superabundance of food to dispose
of beyond what they themselves can consume, have the means of purchasing
a much greater quantity of the labour of other people. The retinue of a
grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more
numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects in Europe. The
same superabundance of food, of which they have the disposal, enables
them to give a greater quantity of it for all those singular and rare
productions which nature furnishes but in very small quantities; such
as the precious metals and the precious stones, the great objects of the
competition of the rich. Though the mines, therefore, which supplied
the Indian market, had been as abundant as those which supplied the
European, such commodities would naturally exchange for a greater
quantity of food in India than in Europe. But the mines which supplied
the Indian market with the precious metals seem to have been a good deal
less abundant, and those which supplied it with the precious stones
a good deal more so, than the mines which supplied the European. The
precious metals, therefore, would naturally exchange in India for a
somewhat greater quantity of the precious stones, and for a much greater
quantity of food than in Europe. The money price of diamonds, the
greatest of all superfluities, would be somewhat lower, and that of
food, the first of all necessaries, a great deal lower in the one
country than in the other. But the real price of labour, the real
quantity of the necessaries of life which is given to the labourer, it
has already been observed, is lower both in China and Indostan, the two
great markets of India, than it is through the greater part of Europe.
The wages of the labourer will there purchase a smaller quantity of
food: and as the money price of food is much lower in India than in
Europe, the money price of labour is there lower upon a double account;
upon account both of the small quantity of food which it will purchase,
and of the low price of that food. But in countries of equal art and
industry, the money price of the greater part of manufactures will be
in proportion to the money price of labour; and in manufacturing art
and industry, China and Indostan, though inferior, seem not to be much
inferior to any part of Europe. The money price of the greater part of
manufactures, therefore, will naturally be much lower in those great
empires than it is anywhere in Europe. Through the greater part of
Europe, too, the expense of land-carriage increases very much both the
real and nominal price of most manufactures. It costs more labour, and
therefore more money, to bring first the materials, and afterwards the
complete manufacture to market. In China and Indostan, the extent and
variety of inland navigations save the greater part of this labour, and
consequently of this money, and thereby reduce still lower both the real
and the nominal price of the greater part of their manufactures. Upon
all these accounts, the precious metals are a commodity which it always
has been, and still continues to be, extremely advantageous to carry
from Europe to India. There is scarce any commodity which brings a
better price there; or which, in proportion to the quantity of labour
and commodities which it costs in Europe, will purchase or command
a greater quantity of labour and commodities in India. It is more
advantageous, too, to carry silver thither than gold; because in China,
and the greater part of the other markets of India, the proportion
between fine silver and fine gold is but as ten, or at most as twelve
to one; whereas in Europe it is as fourteen or fifteen to one. In China,
and the greater part of the other markets of India, ten, or at most
twelve ounces of silver, will purchase an ounce of gold; in Europe, it
requires from fourteen to fifteen ounces. In the cargoes, therefore,
of the greater part of European ships which sail to India, silver
has generally been one of the most valuable articles. It is the most
valuable article in the Acapulco ships which sail to Manilla. The silver
of the new continent seems, in this manner, to be one of the principal
commodities by which the commerce between the two extremities of the old
one is carried on; and it is by means of it, in a great measure, that
those distant parts of the world are connected with one another.

In order to supply so very widely extended a market, the quantity of
silver annually brought from the mines must not only be sufficient to
support that continued increase, both of coin and of plate, which is
required in all thriving countries; but to repair that continual waste
and consumption of silver which takes place in all countries where that
metal is used.

The continual consumption of the precious metals in coin by wearing,
and in plate both by wearing and cleaning, is very sensible; and in
commodities of which the use is so very widely extended, would alone
require a very great annual supply. The consumption of those metals in
some particular manufactures, though it may not perhaps be greater
upon the whole than this gradual consumption, is, however, much more
sensible, as it is much more rapid. In the manufactures of Birmingham
alone, the quantity of gold and silver annually employed in gilding and
plating, and thereby disqualified from ever afterwards appearing in the
shape of those metals, is said to amount to more than fifty thousand
pounds sterling. We may from thence form some notion how great must be
the annual consumption in all the different parts of the world, either
in manufactures of the same kind with those of Birmingham, or in laces,
embroideries, gold and silver stuffs, the gilding of books, furniture,
etc. A considerable quantity, too, must be annually lost in transporting
those metals from one place to another both by sea and by land. In the
greater part of the governments of Asia, besides, the almost universal
custom of concealing treasures in the bowels of the earth, of which the
knowledge frequently dies with the person who makes the concealment,
must occasion the loss of a still greater quantity.

The quantity of gold and silver imported at both Cadiz and Lisbon
(including not only what comes under register, but what may be supposed
to be smuggled) amounts, according to the best accounts, to about six
millions sterling a-year.

According to Mr Meggens {Postscript to the Universal Merchant p. 15 and
16. This postscript was not printed till 1756, three years after the
publication of the book, which has never had a second edition. The
postscript is, therefore, to be found in few copies; it corrects several
errors in the book.}, the annual importation of the precious metals
into Spain, at an average of six years, viz. from 1748 to 1753, both
inclusive, and into Portugal, at an average of seven years, viz. from
1747 to 1753, both inclusive, amounted in silver to 1,101,107 pounds
weight, and in gold to 49,940 pounds weight. The silver, at sixty two
shillings the pound troy, amounts to £ 3,413,431:10s. sterling. The
gold, at forty-four guineas and a half the pound troy, amounts to
£ 2,333,446:14s. sterling. Both together amount to £ 5,746,878:4s.
sterling. The account of what was imported under register, he assures
us, is exact. He gives us the detail of the particular places from which
the gold and silver were brought, and of the particular quantity of each
metal, which, according to the register, each of them afforded. He makes
an allowance, too, for the quantity of each metal which, he supposes,
may have been smuggled. The great experience of this judicious merchant
renders his opinion of considerable weight.

According to the eloquent, and sometimes well-informed, author of
the Philosophical and Political History of the Establishment of the
Europeans in the two Indies, the annual importation of registered gold
and silver into Spain, at an average of eleven years, viz. from 1754 to
1764, both inclusive, amounted to 13,984,185 3/5 piastres of ten reals.
On account of what may have been smuggled, however, the whole annual
importation, he supposes, may have amounted to seventeen millions
of piastres, which, at 4s. 6d. the piastre, is equal to £ 3,825,000
sterling. He gives the detail, too, of the particular places from which
the gold and silver were brought, and of the particular quantities of
each metal, which according to the register, each of them afforded.
He informs us, too, that if we were to judge of the quantity of gold
annually imported from the Brazils to Lisbon, by the amount of the
tax paid to the king of Portugal, which it seems, is one-fifth of the
standard metal, we might value it at eighteen millions of cruzadoes,
or forty-five millions of French livres, equal to about twenty millions
sterling. On account of what may have been smuggled, however, we may
safely, he says, add to this sum an eighth more, or £ 250,000 sterling,
so that the whole will amount to £ 2,250,000 sterling. According to this
account, therefore, the whole annual importation of the precious metals
into both Spain and Portugal, mounts to about £ 6,075,000 sterling.

Several other very well authenticated, though manuscript accounts, I
have been assured, agree in making this whole annual importation amount,
at an average, to about six millions sterling; sometimes a little more,
sometimes a little less.

The annual importation of the precious metals into Cadiz and Lisbon,
indeed, is not equal to the whole annual produce of the mines of
America. Some part is sent annually by the Acapulco ships to Manilla;
some part is employed in a contraband trade, which the Spanish colonies
carry on with those of other European nations; and some part, no doubt,
remains in the country. The mines of America, besides, are by no means
the only gold and silver mines in the world. They, are, however, by far
the most abundant. The produce of all the other mines which are known is
insignificant, it is acknowledged, in comparison with their's; and
the far greater part of their produce, it is likewise acknowledged,
is annually imported into Cadiz and Lisbon. But the consumption of
Birmingham alone, at the rate of fifty thousand pounds a-year, is equal
to the hundred-and-twentieth part of this annual importation, at the
rate of six millions a-year. The whole annual consumption of gold and
silver, therefore, in all the different countries of the world where
those metals are used, may, perhaps, be nearly equal to the whole annual
produce. The remainder may be no more than sufficient to supply the
increasing demand of all thriving countries. It may even have fallen so
far short of this demand, as somewhat to raise the price of those metals
in the European market.

The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the
market, is out of all proportion greater than that of gold and silver.
We do not, however, upon this account, imagine that those coarse metals
are likely to multiply beyond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper
and cheaper. Why should we imagine that the precious metals are likely
to do so? The coarse metals, indeed, though harder, are put to much
harder uses, and, as they are of less value, less care is employed in
their preservation. The precious metals, however, are not necessarily
immortal any more than they, but are liable, too, to be lost, wasted,
and consumed, in a great variety of ways.

The price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradual variations,
varies less from year to year than that of almost any other part of the
rude produce of land: and the price of the precious metals is even
less liable to sudden variations than that of the coarse ones. The
durableness of metals is the foundation of this extraordinary steadiness
of price. The corn which was brought to market last year will be all, or
almost all, consumed, long before the end of this year. But some part
of the iron which was brought from: the mine two or three hundred years
ago, may be still in use, and, perhaps, some part of the gold which was
brought from it two or three thousand years ago. The different masses
of corn, which, in different years, must supply the consumption of the
world, will always be nearly in proportion to the respective produce of
those different years. But the proportion between the different masses
of iron which may be in use in two different years, will be very little
affected by any accidental difference in the produce of the iron mines
of those two years; and the proportion between the masses of gold will
be still less affected by any such difference in the produce of the
gold mines. Though the produce of the greater part of metallic mines,
therefore, varies, perhaps, still more from year to year than that of
the greater part of corn fields, those variations have not the same
effect upon the price of the one species of commodities as upon that of
the other.

Variations in the Proportion between the respective Values of Gold and
Silver.

Before the discovery of the mines of America, the value of fine gold to
fine silver was regulated in the different mines of Europe, between the
proportions of one to ten and one to twelve; that is, an ounce of fine
gold was supposed to be worth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver.
About the middle of the last century, it came to be regulated, between
the proportions of one to fourteen and one to fifteen; that is, an ounce
of fine gold came to be supposed worth between fourteen and fifteen
ounces of fine silver. Gold rose in its nominal value, or in the
quantity of silver which was given for it. Both metals sunk in their
real value, or in the quantity of labour which they could purchase; but
silver sunk more than gold. Though both the gold and silver mines
of America exceeded in fertility all those which had ever been
known before, the fertility of the silver mines had, it seems, been
proportionally still greater than that of the gold ones.

The great quantities of silver carried annually from Europe to India,
have, in some of the English settlements, gradually reduced the value of
that metal in proportion to gold. In the mint of Calcutta, an ounce of
fine gold is supposed to be worth fifteen ounces of fine silver, in the
same manner as in Europe. It is in the mint, perhaps, rated too high
for the value which it bears in the market of Bengal. In China, the
proportion of gold to silver still continues as one to ten, or one to
twelve. In Japan, it is said to be as one to eight.

The proportion between the quantities of gold and silver annually
imported into Europe, according to Mr Meggens' account, is as one to
twenty-two nearly; that is, for one ounce of gold there are imported
a little more than twenty-two ounces of silver. The great quantity
of silver sent annually to the East Indies reduces, he supposes, the
quantities of those metals which remain in Europe to the proportion
of one to fourteen or fifteen, the proportion of their values. The
proportion between their values, he seems to think, must necessarily be
the same as that between their quantities, and would therefore be as one
to twenty-two, were it not for this greater exportation of silver.

But the ordinary proportion between the respective values of two
commodities is not necessarily the same as that between the quantities
of them which are commonly in the market. The price of an ox, reckoned
at ten guineas, is about three score times the price of a lamb, reckoned
at 3s. 6d. It would be absurd, however, to infer from thence, that there
are commonly in the market three score lambs for one ox; and it would be
just as absurd to infer, because an ounce of gold will commonly purchase
from fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver, that there are commonly in
the market only fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver for one ounce of
gold.

The quantity of silver commonly in the market, it is probable, is much
greater in proportion to that of gold, than the value of a certain
quantity of gold is to that of an equal quantity of silver. The whole
quantity of a cheap commodity brought to market is commonly not only
greater, but of greater value, than the whole quantity of a dear one.
The whole quantity of bread annually brought to market, is not only
greater, but of greater value, than the whole quantity of butcher's
meat; the whole quantity of butcher's meat, than the whole quantity of
poultry; and the whole quantity of poultry, than the whole quantity of
wild fowl. There are so many more purchasers for the cheap than for the
dear commodity, that, not only a greater quantity of it, but a greater
value can commonly be disposed of. The whole quantity, therefore, of
the cheap commodity, must commonly be greater in proportion to the whole
quantity of the dear one, than the value of a certain quantity of the
dear one, is to the value of an equal quantity of the cheap one. When
we compare the precious metals with one another, silver is a cheap, and
gold a dear commodity. We ought naturally to expect, therefore, that
there should always be in the market, not only a greater quantity, but
a greater value of silver than of gold. Let any man, who has a little of
both, compare his own silver with his gold plate, and he will probably
find, that not only the quantity, but the value of the former, greatly
exceeds that of the latter. Many people, besides, have a good deal of
silver who have no gold plate, which, even with those who have it, is
generally confined to watch-cases, snuff-boxes, and such like trinkets,
of which the whole amount is seldom of great value. In the British coin,
indeed, the value of the gold preponderates greatly, but it is not so in
that of all countries. In the coin of some countries, the value of the
two metals is nearly equal. In the Scotch coin, before the union with
England, the gold preponderated very little, though it did somewhat
{See Ruddiman's Preface to Anderson's Diplomata, etc. Scotiae.}, as it
appears by the accounts of the mint. In the coin of many countries the
silver preponderates. In France, the largest sums are commonly paid
in that metal, and it is there difficult to get more gold than what is
necessary to carry about in your pocket. The superior value, however,
of the silver plate above that of the gold, which takes place in all
countries, will much more than compensate the preponderancy of the gold
coin above the silver, which takes place only in some countries.

Though, in one sense of the word, silver always has been, and probably
always will be, much cheaper than gold; yet, in another sense, gold
may perhaps, in the present state of the Spanish market, be said to
be somewhat cheaper than silver. A commodity may be said to be dear or
cheap not only according to the absolute greatness or smallness of
its usual price, but according as that price is more or less above
the lowest for which it is possible to bring it to market for any
considerable time together. This lowest price is that which barely
replaces, with a moderate profit, the stock which must be employed in
bringing the commodity thither. It is the price which affords nothing
to the landlord, of which rent makes not any component part, but which
resolves itself altogether into wages and profit. But, in the present
state of the Spanish market, gold is certainly somewhat nearer to this
lowest price than silver. The tax of the king of Spain upon gold is only
one-twentieth part of the standard metal, or five per cent.; whereas his
tax upon silver amounts to one-tenth part of it, or to ten per cent. In
these taxes, too, it has already been observed, consists the whole rent
of the greater part of the gold and silver mines of Spanish America; and
that upon gold is still worse paid than that upon silver. The profits of
the undertakers of gold mines, too, as they more rarely make a fortune,
must, in general, be still more moderate than those of the undertakers
of silver mines. The price of Spanish gold, therefore, as it affords
both less rent and less profit, must, in the Spanish market, be somewhat
nearer to the lowest price for which it is possible to bring it thither,
than the price of Spanish silver. When all expenses are computed, the
whole quantity of the one metal, it would seem, cannot, in the Spanish
market, be disposed of so advantageously as the whole quantity of the
other. The tax, indeed, of the king of Portugal upon the gold of the
Brazils, is the same with the ancient tax of the king of Spain upon the
silver of Mexico and Peru; or one-fifth part of the standard metal. It
may therefore be uncertain, whether, to the general market of Europe,
the whole mass of American gold comes at a price nearer to the lowest
for which it is possible to bring it thither, than the whole mass of
American silver.

The price of diamonds and other precious stones may, perhaps, be still
nearer to the lowest price at which it is possible to bring them to
market, than even the price of gold.

Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax, which is not only
imposed upon one of the most proper subjects of taxation, a mere luxury
and superfluity, but which affords so very important a revenue as the
tax upon silver, will ever be given up as long as it is possible to pay
it; yet the same impossibility of paying it, which, in 1736. made it
necessary to reduce it from one-fifth to one-tenth, may in time make it
necessary to reduce it still further; in the same manner as it made it
necessary to reduce the tax upon gold to one-twentieth. That the silver
mines of Spanish America, like all other mines, become gradually more
expensive in the working, on account of the greater depths at which
it is necessary to carry on the works, and of the greater expense of
drawing out the water, and of supplying them with fresh air at those
depths, is acknowledged by everybody who has inquired into the state of
those mines.

These causes, which are equivalent to a growing scarcity of silver (for
a commodity may be said to grow scarcer when it becomes more difficult
and expensive to collect a certain quantity of it), must, in time,
produce one or other of the three following events: The increase of
the expense must either, first, be compensated altogether by a
proportionable increase in the price of the metal; or, secondly, it must
be compensated altogether by a proportionable diminution of the tax upon
silver; or, thirdly, it must be compensated partly by the one and partly
by the other of those two expedients. This third event is very possible.
As gold rose in its price in proportion to silver, notwithstanding a
great diminution of the tax upon gold, so silver might rise in its
price in proportion to labour and commodities, notwithstanding an equal
diminution of the tax upon silver.

Such successive reductions of the tax, however, though they may not
prevent altogether, must certainly retard, more or less, the rise of
the value of silver in the European market. In consequence of such
reductions, many mines may be wrought which could not be wrought before,
because they could not afford to pay the old tax; and the quantity of
silver annually brought to market, must always be somewhat greater,
and, therefore, the value of any given quantity somewhat less, than it
otherwise would have been. In consequence of the reduction in 1736, the
value of silver in the European market, though it may not at this day be
lower than before that reduction, is, probably, at least ten per cent.
lower than it would have been, had the court of Spain continued to exact
the old tax. That, notwithstanding this reduction, the value of silver
has, during the course of the present century, begun to rise somewhat
in the European market, the facts and arguments which have been
alleged above, dispose me to believe, or more properly to suspect and
conjecture; for the best opinion which I can form upon this subject,
scarce, perhaps, deserves the name of belief. The rise, indeed,
supposing there has been any, has hitherto been so very small, that
after all that has been said, it may, perhaps, appear to many people
uncertain, not only whether this event has actually taken place, but
whether the contrary may not have taken place, or whether the value of
silver may not still continue to fall in the European market.

It must be observed, however, that whatever may be the supposed annual
importation of gold and silver, there must be a certain period at which
the annual consumption of those metals will be equal to that annual
importation. Their consumption must increase as their mass increases,
or rather in a much greater proportion. As their mass increases, their
value diminishes. They are more used, and less cared for, and their
consumption consequently increases in a greater proportion than their
mass. After a certain period, therefore, the annual consumption of those
metals must, in this manner, become equal to their annual importation,
provided that importation is not continually increasing; which, in the
present times, is not supposed to be the case.

If, when the annual consumption has become equal to the annual
importation, the annual importation should gradually diminish, the
annual consumption may, for some time, exceed the annual importation.
The mass of those metals may gradually and insensibly diminish, and
their value gradually and insensibly rise, till the annual importation
becoming again stationary, the annual consumption will gradually and
insensibly accommodate itself to what that annual importation can
maintain.

Grounds of the suspicion that the Value of Silver still continues to
decrease.

The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion, that
as the quantity of the precious metals naturally increases with
the increase of wealth, so their value diminishes as their quantity
increases, may, perhaps, dispose many people to believe that their value
still continues to fall in the European market; and the still gradually
increasing price of many parts of the rude produce of land may confirm
them still farther in this opinion.

That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which arises
in any country from the increase of wealth, has no tendency to diminish
their value, I have endeavoured to shew already. Gold and silver
naturally resort to a rich country, for the same reason that all sorts
of luxuries and curiosities resort to it; not because they are cheaper
there than in poorer countries, but because they are dearer, or because
a better price is given for them. It is the superiority of price which
attracts them; and as soon as that superiority ceases, they necessarily
cease to go thither.

If you except corn, and such other vegetables as are raised altogether
by human industry, that all other sorts of rude produce, cattle,
poultry, game of all kinds, the useful fossils and minerals of the
earth, etc. naturally grow dearer, as the society advances in wealth
and improvement, I have endeavoured to shew already. Though such
commodities, therefore, come to exchange for a greater quantity of
silver than before, it will not from thence follow that silver has
become really cheaper, or will purchase less labour than before; but
that such commodities have become really dearer, or will purchase more
labour than before. It is not their nominal price only, but their real
price, which rises in the progress of improvement. The rise of their
nominal price is the effect, not of any degradation of the value of
silver, but of the rise in their real price.

Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon three different
sorts of rude Produce.

These different sorts of rude produce may be divided into three classes.
The first comprehends those which it is scarce in the power of human
industry to multiply at all. The second, those which it can multiply
in proportion to the demand. The third, those in which the efficacy of
industry is either limited or uncertain. In the progress of wealth
and improvement, the real price of the first may rise to any degree of
extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary.
That of the second, though it may rise greatly, has, however, a certain
boundary, beyond which it cannot well pass for any considerable time
together. That of the third, though its natural tendency is to rise in
the progress of improvement, yet in the same degree of improvement it
may sometimes happen even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, and
sometimes to rise more or less, according as different accidents render
the efforts of human industry, in multiplying this sort of rude produce,
more or less successful.

First Sort.--The first sort of rude produce, of which the price rises in
the progress of improvement, is that which it is scarce in the power
of human industry to multiply at all. It consists in those things which
nature produces only in certain quantities, and which being of a very
perishable nature, it is impossible to accumulate together the produce
of many different seasons. Such are the greater part of rare and
singular birds and fishes, many different sorts of game, almost all
wild-fowl, all birds of passage in particular, as well as many other
things. When wealth, and the luxury which accompanies it, increase, the
demand for these is likely to increase with them, and no effort of human
industry may be able to increase the supply much beyond what it was
before this increase of the demand. The quantity of such commodities,
therefore, remaining the same, or nearly the same, while the competition
to purchase them is continually increasing, their price may rise to
any degree of extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain
boundary. If woodcocks should become so fashionable as to sell for
twenty guineas a-piece, no effort of human industry could increase the
number of those brought to market, much beyond what it is at present.
The high price paid by the Romans, in the time of their greatest
grandeur, for rare birds and fishes, may in this manner easily be
accounted for. These prices were not the effects of the low value
of silver in those times, but of the high value of such rarities and
curiosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure. The real
value of silver was higher at Rome, for sometime before, and after the
fall of the republic, than it is through the greater part of Europe at
present. Three sestertii equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price
which the republic paid for the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of
Sicily. This price, however, was probably below the average market
price, the obligation to deliver their wheat at this rate being
considered as a tax upon the Sicilian farmers. When the Romans,
therefore, had occasion to order more corn than the tithe of wheat
amounted to, they were bound by capitulation to pay for the surplus at
the rate of four sestertii, or eightpence sterling the peck; and this
had probably been reckoned the moderate and reasonable, that is, the
ordinary or average contract price of those times; it is equal to about
one-and-twenty shillings the quarter. Eight-and-twenty shillings the
quarter was, before the late years of scarcity, the ordinary contract
price of English wheat, which in quality is inferior to the Sicilian,
and generally sells for a lower price in the European market. The value
of silver, therefore, in those ancient times, must have been to its
value in the present, as three to four inversely; that is, three ounces
of silver would then have purchased the same quantity of labour and
commodities which four ounces will do at present. When we read in Pliny,
therefore, that Seius {Lib. X, c. 29.} bought a white nightingale, as
a present for the empress Agrippina, at the price of six thousand
sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our present money; and that
Asinius Celer {Lib. IX, c. 17.} purchased a surmullet at the price
of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixty-six pounds thirteen
shillings and fourpence of our present money; the extravagance of those
prices, how much soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding, to
appear to us about one third less than it really was. Their real price,
the quantity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them,
was about one-third more than their nominal price is apt to express to
us in the present times. Seius gave for the nightingale the command of
a quantity of labour and subsistence, equal to what £ 66:13: 4d. would
purchase in the present times; and Asinius Celer gave for a surmullet
the command of a quantity equal to what £ 88:17: 9d. would purchase.
What occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much
the abundance of silver, as the abundance of labour and subsistence, of
which those Romans had the disposal, beyond what was necessary for their
own use. The quantity of silver, of which they had the disposal, was a
good deal less than what the command of the same quantity of labour and
subsistence would have procured to them in the present times.

Second sort.--The second sort of rude produce, of which the price
rises in the progress of improvement, is that which human industry can
multiply in proportion to the demand. It consists in those useful plants
and animals, which, in uncultivated countries, nature produces with such
profuse abundance, that they are of little or no value, and which, as
cultivation advances, are therefore forced to give place to some more
profitable produce. During a long period in the progress of improvement,
the quantity of these is continually diminishing, while, at the same
time, the demand for them is continually increasing. Their real value,
therefore, the real quantity of labour which they will purchase or
command, gradually rises, till at last it gets so high as to render them
as profitable a produce as any thing else which human industry can raise
upon the most fertile and best cultivated land. When it has got so high,
it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land and more industry would
soon be employed to increase their quantity.

When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high, that it is as
profitable to cultivate land in order to raise food for them as in order
to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn
land would soon be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by
diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the quantity of
butcher's meat, which the country naturally produces without labour
or cultivation; and, by increasing the number of those who have either
corn, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to give in
exchange for it, increases the demand. The price of butcher's meat,
therefore, and, consequently, of cattle, must gradually rise, till it
gets so high, that it becomes as profitable to employ the most fertile
and best cultivated lands in raising food for them as in raising corn.
But it must always be late in the progress of improvement before tillage
can be so far extended as to raise the price of cattle to this height;
and, till it has got to this height, if the country is advancing at all,
their price must be continually rising. There are, perhaps, some parts
of Europe in which the price of cattle has not yet got to this height.
It had not got to this height in any part of Scotland before the Union.
Had the Scotch cattle been always confined to the market of Scotland,
in a country in which the quantity of land, which can be applied to no
other purpose but the feeding of cattle, is so great in proportion to
what can be applied to other purposes, it is scarce possible, perhaps,
that their price could ever have risen so high as to render it
profitable to cultivate land for the sake of feeding them. In England,
the price of cattle, it has already been observed, seems, in the
neighbourhood of London, to have got to this height about the beginning
of the last century; but it was much later, probably, before it got
through the greater part of the remoter counties, in some of which,
perhaps, it may scarce yet have got to it. Of all the different
substances, however, which compose this second sort of rude produce,
cattle is, perhaps, that of which the price, in the progress of
improvement, rises first to this height.

Till the price of cattle, indeed, has got to this height, it seems
scarce possible that the greater part, even of those lands which are
capable of the highest cultivation, can be completely cultivated. In all
farms too distant from any town to carry manure from it, that is, in the
far greater part of those of every extensive country, the quantity of
well cultivated land must be in proportion to the quantity of manure
which the farm itself produces; and this, again, must be in proportion
to the stock of cattle which are maintained upon it. The land is
manured, either by pasturing the cattle upon it, or by feeding them in
the stable, and from thence carrying out their dung to it. But unless
the price of the cattle be sufficient to pay both the rent and profit of
cultivated land, the farmer cannot afford to pasture them upon it; and
he can still less afford to feed them in the stable. It is with the
produce of improved and cultivated land only that cattle can be fed
in the stable; because, to collect the scanty and scattered produce of
waste and unimproved lands, would require too much labour, and be too
expensive. It the price of the cattle, therefore, is not sufficient
to pay for the produce of improved and cuitivated land, when they are
allowed to pasture it, that price will be still less sufficient to
pay for that produce, when it must be collected with a good deal
of additional labour, and brought into the stable to them. In these
circumstances, therefore, no more cattle can with profit be fed in the
stable than what are necessary for tillage. But these can never afford
manure enough for keeping constantly in good condition all the
lands which they are capable of cultivating. What they afford, being
insufficient for the whole farm, will naturally be reserved for the
lands to which it can be most advantageously or conveniently applied;
the most fertile, or those, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of the
farm-yard. These, therefore, will be kept constantly in good condition,
and fit for tillage. The rest will, the greater part of them, be allowed
to lie waste, producing scarce any thing but some miserable pasture,
just sufficient to keep alive a few straggling, half-starved cattle; the
farm, though much overstocked in proportion to what would be necessary
for its complete cultivation, being very frequently overstocked in
proportion to its actual produce. A portion of this waste land, however,
after having been pastured in this wretched manner for six or seven
years together, may be ploughed up, when it will yield, perhaps, a poor
crop or two of bad oats, or of some other coarse grain; and then, being
entirely exhausted, it must be rested and pastured again as before,
and another portion ploughed up, to be in the same manner exhausted and
rested again in its turn. Such, accordingly, was the general system of
management all over the low country of Scotland before the Union. The
lands which were kept constantly well manured and in good condition
seldom exceeded a third or fourth part of the whole farm, and sometimes
did not amount to a fifth or a sixth part of it. The rest were never
manured, but a certain portion of them was in its turn, notwithstanding,
regularly cultivated and exhausted. Under this system of management, it
is evident, even that part of the lands of Scotland which is capable of
good cultivation, could produce but little in comparison of what it may
be capable of producing. But how disadvantageous soever this system may
appear, yet, before the Union, the low price of cattle seems to have
rendered it almost unavoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise in the
price, it still continues to prevail through a considerable part of
the country, it is owing in many places, no doubt, to ignorance and
attachment to old customs, but, in most places, to the unavoidable
obstructions which the natural course of things opposes to the immediate
or speedy establishment of a better system: first, to the poverty of the
tenants, to their not having yet had time to acquire a stock of cattle
sufficient to cultivate their lands more completely, the same rise of
price, which would render it advantageous for them to maintain a
greater stock, rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it;
and, secondly, to their not having yet had time to put their lands in
condition to maintain this greater stock properly, supposing they were
capable of acquiring it. The increase of stock and the improvement of
land are two events which must go hand in hand, and of which the one can
nowhere much outrun the other. Without some increase of stock, there
can be scarce any improvement of land, but there can be no considerable
increase of stock, but in consequence of a considerable improvement of
land; because otherwise the land could not maintain it. These natural
obstructions to the establishment of a better system, cannot be removed
but by a long course of frugality and industry; and half a century or
a century more, perhaps, must pass away before the old system, which
is wearing out gradually, can be completely abolished through all
the different parts of the country. Of all the commercial advantages,
however, which Scotland has derived from the Union with England, this
rise in the price of cattle is, perhaps, the greatest. It has not only
raised the value of all highland estates, but it has, perhaps, been the
principal cause of the improvement of the low country.

In all new colonies, the great quantity of waste land, which can for
many years be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle,
soon renders them extremely abundant; and in every thing great cheapness
is the necessary consequence of great abundance. Though all the cattle
of the European colonies in America were originally carried from Europe,
they soon multiplied so much there, and became of so little value, that
even horses were allowed to run wild in the woods, without any owner
thinking it worth while to claim them. It must be a long time after the
first establishment of such colonies, before it can become profitable
to feed cattle upon the produce of cultivated land. The same causes,
therefore, the want of manure, and the disproportion between the stock
employed in cultivation and the land which it is destined to cultivate,
are likely to introduce there a system of husbandry, not unlike that
which still continues to take place in so many parts of Scotland. Mr
Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when he gives an account of the husbandry
of some of the English colonies in North America, as he found it in
1749, observes, accordingly, that he can with difficulty discover
there the character of the English nation, so well skilled in all the
different branches of agriculture. They make scarce any manure for their
corn fields, he says; but when one piece of ground has been exhausted
by continual cropping, they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh
land; and when that is exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are
allowed to wander through the woods and other uncultivated grounds,
where they are half-starved; having long ago extirpated almost all the
annual grasses, by cropping them too early in the spring, before they
had time to form their flowers, or to shed their seeds. {Kalm's Travels,
vol 1, pp. 343, 344.} The annual grasses were, it seems, the best
natural grasses in that part of North America; and when the Europeans
first settled there, they used to grow very thick, and to rise three
or four feet high. A piece of ground which, when he wrote, could not
maintain one cow, would in former times, he was assured, have maintained
four, each of which would have given four times the quantity of milk
which that one was capable of giving. The poorness of the pasture
had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their cattle, which
degenerated sensibly from me generation to another. They were probably
not unlike that stunted breed which was common all over Scotland thirty
or forty years ago, and which is now so much mended through the greater
part of the low country, not so much by a change of the breed, though
that expedient has been employed in some places, as by a more plentiful
method of feeding them.

Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement, before
cattle can bring such a price as to render it profitable to cultivate
land for the sake of feeding them; yet of all the different parts which
compose this second sort of rude produce, they are perhaps the first
which bring this price; because, till they bring it, it seems impossible
that improvement can be brought near even to that degree of perfection
to which it has arrived in many parts of Europe.

As cattle are among the first, so perhaps venison is among the last
parts of this sort of rude produce which bring this price. The price of
venison in Great Britain, how extravagant soever it may appear, is not
near sufficient to compensate the expense of a deer park, as is well
known to all those who have had any experience in the feeding of deer.
If it was otherwise, the feeding of deer would soon become an article of
common farming, in the same manner as the feeding of those small birds,
called turdi, was among the ancient Romans. Varro and Columella assure
us, that it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans,
birds of passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in
some parts of France. If venison continues in fashion, and the wealth
and luxury of Great Britain increase as they have done for some time
past, its price may very probably rise still higher than it is at
present.

Between that period in the progress of improvement, which brings to its
height the price of so necessary an article as cattle, and that which
brings to it the price of such a superfluity as venison, there is a very
long interval, in the course of which many other sorts of rude produce
gradually arrive at their highest price, some sooner and some later,
according to different circumstances.

Thus, in every farm, the offals of the barn and stable will maintain
a certain number of poultry. These, as they are fed with what would
otherwise be lost, are a mere save-all; and as they cost the farmer
scarce any thing, so he can afford to sell them for very little. Almost
all that he gets is pure gain, and their price can scarce be so low
as to discourage him from feeding this number. But in countries ill
cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the poultry, which are
thus raised without expense, are often fully sufficient to supply the
whole demand. In this state of things, therefore, they are often as
cheap as butcher's meat, or any other sort of animal food. But the
whole quantity of poultry which the farm in this manner produces
without expense, must always be much smaller than the whole quantity
of butcher's meat which is reared upon it; and in times of wealth and
luxury, what is rare, with only nearly equal merit, is always preferred
to what is common. As wealth and luxury increase, therefore, in
consequence of improvement and cultivation, the price of poultry
gradually rises above that of butcher's meat, till at last it gets
so high, that it becomes profitable to cultivate land for the sake of
feeding them. When it has got to this height, it cannot well go higher.
If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. In several
provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered as a very
important article in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable to
encourage the farmer to raise a considerable quantity of Indian corn and
buckwheat for this purpose. A middling farmer will there sometimes have
four hundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet
to be generally considered as a matter of so much importance in England.
They are certainly, however, dearer in England than in France, as
England receives considerable supplies from France. In the progress of
improvements, the period at which every particular sort of animal
food is dearest, must naturally be that which immediately precedes the
general practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it. For
some time before this practice becomes general, the scarcity must
necessarily raise the price. After it has become general, new methods of
feeding are commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer to raise upon
the same quantity of ground a much greater quantity of that particular
sort of animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sell cheaper,
but, in consequence of these improvements, he can afford to sell
cheaper; for if he could not afford it, the plenty would not be of long
continuance. It has been probably in this manner that the introduction
of clover, turnips, carrots, cabbages, etc. has contributed to sink the
common price of butcher's meat in the London market, somewhat below what
it was about the beginning of the last century.

The hog, that finds his food among ordure, and greedily devours
many things rejected by every other useful animal, is, like poultry,
originally kept as a save-all. As long as the number of such animals,
which can thus be reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient to
supply the demand, this sort of butcher's meat comes to market at a much
lower price than any other. But when the demand rises beyond what this
quantity can supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose
for feeding and fattening hogs, in the same manner as for feeding
and fattening other cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes
proportionably either higher or lower than that of other butcher's
meat, according as the nature of the country, and the state of its
agriculture, happen to render the feeding of hogs more or less expensive
than that of other cattle. In France, according to Mr Buffon, the price
of pork is nearly equal to that of beef. In most parts of Great Britain
it is at present somewhat higher.

The great rise in the price both of hogs and poultry, has, in Great
Britain, been frequently imputed to the diminution of the number of
cottagers and other small occupiers of land; an event which has in every
part of Europe been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better
cultivation, but which at the same time may have contributed to raise
the price of those articles, both somewhat sooner and somewhat faster
than it would otherwise have risen. As the poorest family can often
maintain a cat or a dog without any expense, so the poorest occupiers
of land can commonly maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few pigs, at
very little. The little offals of their own table, their whey, skimmed
milk, and butter milk, supply those animals with a part of their food,
and they find the rest in the neighbouring fields, without doing any
sensible damage to any body. By diminishing the number of those small
occupiers, therefore, the quantity of this sort of provisions, which is
thus produced at little or no expense, must certainly have been a good
deal diminished, and their price must consequently have been raised both
sooner and faster than it would otherwise have risen. Sooner or later,
however, in the progress of improvement, it must at any rate have risen
to the utmost height to which it is capable of rising; or to the
price which pays the labour and expense of cultivating the land which
furnishes them with food, as well as these are paid upon the greater
part of other cultivated land.

The business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs and poultry, is
originally carried on as a save-all. The cattle necessarily kept upon
the farm produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young,
or the consumption of the farmer's family requires; and they produce
most at one particular season. But of all the productions of land, milk
is perhaps the most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most
abundant, it will scarce keep four-and-twenty hours. The farmer, by
making it into fresh butter, stores a small part of it for a week; by
making it into salt butter, for a year; and by making it into cheese, he
stores a much greater part of it for several years. Part of all these
is reserved for the use of his own family; the rest goes to market, in
order to find the best price which is to be had, and which can scarce
be so low is to discourage him from sending thither whatever is over and
above the use of his own family. If it is very low indeed, he will be
likely to manage his dairy in a very slovenly and dirty manner, and
will scarce, perhaps, think it worth while to have a particular room or
building on purpose for it, but will suffer the business to be carried
on amidst the smoke, filth, and nastiness of his own kitchen, as was
the case of almost all the farmers' dairies in Scotland thirty or forty
years ago, and as is the case of many of them still. The same causes
which gradually raise the price of butcher's meat, the increase of
the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the country, the
diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no expense,
raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of the dairy, of which
the price naturally connects with that of butcher's meat, or with the
expense of feeding cattle. The increase of price pays for more labour,
care, and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more worthy of the farmer's
attention, and the quality of its produce gradually improves. The price
at last gets so high, that it becomes worth while to employ some of the
most fertile and best cultivated lands in feeding cattle merely for the
purpose of the dairy; and when it has got to this height, it cannot well
go higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose.
It seems to have got to this height through the greater part of England,
where much good land is commonly employed in this manner. If you except
the neighbourhood of a few considerable towns, it seems not yet to have
got to this height anywhere in Scotland, where common farmers seldom
employ much good land in raising food for cattle, merely for the
purpose of the dairy. The price of the produce, though it has risen very
considerably within these few years, is probably still too low to admit
of it. The inferiority of the quality, indeed, compared with that of
the produce of English dairies, is fully equal to that of the price.
But this inferiority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this
lowness of price, than the cause of it. Though the quality was much
better, the greater part of what is brought to market could not, I
apprehend, in the present circumstances of the country, be disposed of
at a much better price; and the present price, it is probable, would not
pay the expense of the land and labour necessary for producing a much
better quality. Through the greater part of England, notwithstanding
the superiority of price, the dairy is not reckoned a more profitable
employment of land than the raising of corn, or the fattening of cattle,
the two great objects of agriculture. Through the greater part of
Scotland, therefore, it cannot yet be even so profitable.

The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be completely
cultivated and improved, till once the price of every produce, which
human industry is obliged to raise upon them, has got so high as to pay
for the expense of complete improvement and cultivation. In order to do
this, the price of each particular produce must be sufficient, first, to
pay the rent of good corn land, as it is that which regulates the rent
of the greater part of other cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the
labour and expense of the farmer, as well as they are commonly paid upon
good corn land; or, in other words, to replace with the ordinary profits
the stock which he employs about it. This rise in the price of each
particular produce; must evidently be previous to the improvement and
cultivation of the land which is destined for raising it. Gain is the
end of all improvement; and nothing could deserve that name, of which
loss was to be the necessary consequence. But loss must be the necessary
consequence of improving land for the sake of a produce of which the
price could never bring back the expense. If the complete improvement
and cultivation of the country be, as it most certainly is, the greatest
of all public advantages, this rise in the price of all those different
sorts of rude produce, instead of being considered as a public calamity,
ought to be regarded as the necessary forerunner and attendant of the
greatest of all public advantages.

This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those different
sorts of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any degradation in
the value of silver, but of a rise in their real price. They have become
worth, not only a greater quantity of silver, but a greater quantity of
labour and subsistence than before. As it costs a greater quantity
of labour and subsistence to bring them to market, so, when they are
brought thither they represent, or are equivalent to a greater quantity.

Third Sort.--The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the price
naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is that in which the
efficacy of human industry, in augmenting the quantity, is either
limited or uncertain. Though the real price of this sort of rude
produce, therefore, naturally tends to rise in the progress of
improvement, yet, according as different accidents happen to render
the efforts of human industry more or less successful in augmenting the
quantity, it may happen sometimes even to fall, sometimes to continue
the same, in very different periods of improvement, and sometimes to
rise more or less in the same period.

There are some sorts of rude produce which nature has rendered a kind
of appendages to other sorts; so that the quantity of the one which any
country can afford, is necessarily limited by that of the other. The
quantity of wool or of raw hides, for example, which any country can
afford, is necessarily limited by the number of great and small cattle
that are kept in it. The state of its improvement, and the nature of its
agriculture, again necessarily determine this number.

The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise
the price of butcher's meat, should have the same effect, it may be
thought, upon the prices of wool and raw hides, and raise them, too,
nearly in the same proportion. It probably would be so, if, in the rude
beginnings of improvement, the market for the latter commodities was
confined within as narrow bounds as that for the former. But the extent
of their respective markets is commonly extremely different.

The market for butcher's meat is almost everywhere confined to the
country which produces it. Ireland, and some part of British America,
indeed, carry on a considerable trade in salt provisions; but they are,
I believe, the only countries in the commercial world which do so, or
which export to other countries any considerable part of their butcher's
meat.

The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is, in the rude
beginnings of improvement, very seldom confined to the country which
produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries; wool
without any preparation, and raw hides with very little; and as they are
the materials of many manufactures, the industry of other countries may
occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces
them might not occasion any.

In countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the
price of the wool and the hide bears always a much greater proportion
to that of the whole beast, than in countries where, improvement and
population being further advanced, there is more demand for butcher's
meat. Mr Hume observes, that in the Saxon times, the fleece was
estimated at two-fifths of the value of the whole sheep and that
this was much above the proportion of its present estimation. In some
provinces of Spain, I have been assured, the sheep is frequently killed
merely for the sake of the fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often
left to rot upon the ground, or to be devoured by beasts and birds
of prey. If this sometimes happens even in Spain, it happens almost
constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres, and in many other parts of Spanish
America, where the horned cattle are almost constantly killed merely for
the sake of the hide and the tallow. This, too, used to happen almost
constantly in Hispaniola, while it was infested by the buccaneers,
and before the settlement, improvement, and populousness of the French
plantations ( which now extend round the coast of almost the whole
western half of the island) had given some value to the cattle of the
Spaniards, who still continue to possess, not only the eastern part of
the coast, but the whole inland mountainous part of the country.

Though, in the progress of improvement and population, the price of the
whole beast necessarily rises, yet the price of the carcase is likely to
be much more affected by this rise than that of the wool and the hide.
The market for the carcase being in the rude state of society confined
always to the country which produces it, must necessarily be extended
in proportion to the improvement and population of that country. But the
market for the wool and the hides, even of a barbarous country, often
extending to the whole commercial world, it can very seldom be enlarged
in the same proportion. The state of the whole commercial world can
seldom be much affected by the improvement of any particular country;
and the market for such commodities may remain the same, or very nearly
the same, after such improvements, as before. It should, however, in the
natural course of things, rather, upon the whole, be somewhat extended
in consequence of them. If the manufactures, especially, of which those
commodities are the materials, should ever come to flourish in the
country, the market, though it might not be much enlarged, would at
least be brought much nearer to the place of growth than before; and the
price of those materials might at least be increased by what had usually
been the expense of transporting them to distant countries. Though it
might not rise, therefore, in the same proportion as that of butcher's
meat, it ought naturally to rise somewhat, and it ought certainly not to
fall.

In England, however, notwithstanding the flourishing state of its
woollen manufacture, the price of English wool has fallen very
considerably since the time of Edward III. There are many authentic
records which demonstrate that, during the reign of that prince (towards
the middle of the fourteenth century, or about 1339), what was reckoned
the moderate and reasonable price of the tod, or twenty-eight pounds
of English wool, was not less than ten shillings of the money of those
times {See Smith's Memoirs of Wool, vol. i c. 5, 6, 7. also vol. ii.},
containing, at the rate of twenty-pence the ounce, six ounces of silver,
Tower weight, equal to about thirty shillings of our present money. In
the present times, one-and-twenty shillings the tod may be reckoned
a good price for very good English wool. The money price of wool,
therefore, in the time of Edward III. was to its money price in the
present times as ten to seven. The superiority of its real price was
still greater. At the rate of six shillings and eightpence the quarter,
ten shillings was in those ancient times the price of twelve bushels of
wheat. At the rate of twenty-eight shillings the quarter, one-and-twenty
shillings is in the present times the price of six bushels only.
The proportion between the real price of ancient and modern times,
therefore, is as twelve to six, or as two to one. In those ancient
times, a tod of wool would have purchased twice the quantity of
subsistence which it will purchase at present, and consequently twice
the quantity of labour, if the real recompence of labour had been the
same in both periods.

This degradation, both in the real and nominal value of wool, could
never have happened in consequence of the natural course of things. It
has accordingly been the effect of violence and artifice. First, of the
absolute prohibition of exporting wool from England: secondly, of
the permission of importing it from Spain, duty free: thirdly, of the
prohibition of exporting it from Ireland to another country but England.
In consequence of these regulations, the market for English wool,
instead of being somewhat extended, in consequence of the improvement of
England, has been confined to the home market, where the wool of several
other countries is allowed to come into competition with it, and where
that of Ireland is forced into competition with it. As the woollen
manufactures, too, of Ireland, are fully as much discouraged as is
consistent with justice and fair dealing, the Irish can work up but a
smaller part of their own wool at home, and are therefore obliged to
send a greater proportion of it to Great Britain, the only market they
are allowed.

I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the
price of raw hides in ancient times. Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy
to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in
some degree, what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to have
been the case with raw hides. Fleetwood, however, from an account in
1425, between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives
us their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion,
viz. five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven
shillings and threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old at
nine shillings; sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelve
shillings contained about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty
shillings of our present money. An ox hide, therefore, was in this
account valued at the same quantity of silver as 4s. 4/5ths of our
present money. Its nominal price was a good deal lower than at present.
But at the rate of six shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve
shillings would in those times have purchased fourteen bushels and
four-fifths of a bushel of wheat, which, at three and sixpence the
bushel, would in the present times cost 51s. 4d. An ox hide, therefore,
would in those times have purchased as much corn as ten shillings and
threepence would purchase at present. Its real value was equal to ten
shillings and threepence of our present money. In those ancient times,
when the cattle were half starved during the greater part of the winter,
we cannot suppose that they were of a very large size. An ox hide
which weighs four stone of sixteen pounds of avoirdupois, is not in
the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those ancient times would
probably have been reckoned a very good one. But at half-a-crown the
stone, which at this moment (February 1773) I understand to be the
common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten shillings.
Through its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present than
it was in those ancient times, its real price, the real quantity of
subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower.
The price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in
the common proportion to that of ox hides. That of sheep skins is a good
deal above it. They had probably been sold with the wool. That of calves
skins, on the contrary, is greatly below it. In countries where the
price of cattle is very low, the calves, which are not intended to be
reared in order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young,
as was the case in Scotland twenty or thirty years ago. It saves the
milk, which their price would not pay for. Their skins, therefore, are
commonly good for little.

The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few
years ago; owing probably to the taking off the duty upon seal skins,
and to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides
from Ireland, and from the plantations, duty free, which was done in
1769. Take the whole of the present century at an average, their real
price has probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient
times. The nature of the commodity renders it not quite so proper
for being transported to distant markets as wool. It suffers more by
keeping. A salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells
for a lower price. This circumstance must necessarily have some tendency
to sink the price of raw hides produced in a country which does not
manufacture them, but is obliged to export them, and comparatively to
raise that of those produced in a country which does manufacture them.
It must have some tendency to sink their price in a barbarous, and to
raise it in an improved and manufacturing country. It must have had some
tendency, therefore, to sink it in ancient, and to raise it in modern
times. Our tanners, besides, have not been quite so successful as our
clothiers, in convincing the wisdom of the nation, that the safety
of the commonwealth depends upon the prosperity of their particular
manufacture. They have accordingly been much less favoured. The
exportation of raw hides has, indeed, been prohibited, and declared
a nuisance; but their importation from foreign countries has been
subjected to a duty; and though this duty has been taken off from those
of Ireland and the plantations (for the limited time of five years
only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the market of Great
Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those which are not
manufactured at home. The hides of common cattle have, but within
these few years, been put among the enumerated commodities which the
plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country; neither has the
commerce of Ireland been in this case oppressed hitherto, in order to
support the manufactures of Great Britain.

Whatever regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of
raw hides, below what it naturally would he, must, in an improved and
cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher's
meat. The price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on
improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which
the landlord, and the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect from
improved and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed
them. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid by the wool
and the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for
the one, the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price
is to be divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent
to the landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an
improved and cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords
and farmers cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their
interest as consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It
would be quite otherwise, however, in an unimproved and uncultivated
country, where the greater part of the lands could be applied to no
other purpose but the feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the hide
made the principal part of the value of those cattle. Their interest as
landlords and farmers would in this case be very deeply affected by such
regulations, and their interest as consumers very little. The fall in
the price of the wool and the hide would not in this case raise the
price of the carcase; because the greater part of the lands of the
country being applicable to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle,
the same number would still continue to be fed. The same quantity of
butcher's meat would still come to market. The demand for it would be no
greater than before. Its price, therefore, would be the same as before.
The whole price of cattle would fall, and along with it both the rent
and the profit of all those lands of which cattle was the principal
produce, that is, of the greater part of the lands of the country. The
perpetual prohibition of the exportation of wool, which is commonly, but
very falsely, ascribed to Edward III., would, in the then circumstances
of the country, have been the most destructive regulation which could
well have been thought of. It would not only have reduced the actual
value of the greater part of the lands in the kingdom, but by reducing
the price of the most important species of small cattle, it would have
retarded very much its subsequent improvement.

The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence
of the union with England, by which it was excluded from the great
market of Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain.
The value of the greater part of the lands in the southern counties of
Scotland, which are chiefly a sheep country, would have been very deeply
affected by this event, had not the rise in the price of butcher's meat
fully compensated the fall in the price of wool.

As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing the quantity either of
wool or of raw hides, is limited, so far as it depends upon the produce
of the country where it is exerted; so it is uncertain so far as it
depends upon the produce of other countries. It so far depends not so
much upon the quantity which they produce, as upon that which they do
not manufacture; and upon the restraints which they may or may not think
proper to impose upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce.
These circumstances, as they are altogether independent of domestic
industry, so they necessarily render the efficacy of its efforts more or
less uncertain. In multiplying this sort of rude produce, therefore, the
efficacy of human industry is not only limited, but uncertain.

In multiplying another very important sort of rude produce, the quantity
of fish that is brought to market, it is likewise both limited and
uncertain. It is limited by the local situation of the country, by the
proximity or distance of its different provinces from the sea, by the
number of its lakes and rivers, and by what may be called the fertility
or barrenness of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this sort of rude
produce. As population increases, as the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country grows greater and greater, there come to be more
buyers of fish; and those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and
variety of other goods, or, what is the same thing, the price of a
greater quantity and variety of other goods, to buy with. But it will
generally be impossible to supply the great and extended market, without
employing a quantity of labour greater than in proportion to what had
been requisite for supplying the narrow and confined one. A market
which, from requiring only one thousand, comes to require annually ten
thousand ton of fish, can seldom be supplied, without employing more
than ten times the quantity of labour which had before been sufficient
to supply it. The fish must generally be sought for at a greater
distance, larger vessels must be employed, and more expensive machinery
of every kind made use of. The real price of this commodity, therefore,
naturally rises in the progress of improvement. It has accordingly done
so, I believe, more or less in every country.

Though the success of a particular day's fishing maybe a very uncertain
matter, yet the local situation of the country being supposed, the
general efficacy of industry in bringing a certain quantity of fish to
market, taking the course of a year, or of several years together, it
may, perhaps, be thought is certain enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As
it depends more, however, upon the local situation of the country, than
upon the state of its wealth and industry; as upon this account it
may in different countries be the same in very different periods of
improvement, and very different in the same period; its connection
with the state of improvement is uncertain; and it is of this sort of
uncertainty that I am here speaking.

In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals which
are drawn from the bowels of the earth, that of the more precious ones
particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems not to be limited,
but to be altogether uncertain.

The quantity of the precious metals which is to be found in any
country, is not limited by any thing in its local situation, such as the
fertility or barrenness of its own mines. Those metals frequently abound
in countries which possess no mines. Their quantity, in every particular
country, seems to depend upon two different circumstances; first, upon
its power of purchasing, upon the state of its industry, upon the annual
produce of its land and labour, in consequence of which it can afford
to employ a greater or a smaller quantity of labour and subsistence,
in bringing or purchasing such superfluities as gold and silver, either
from its own mines, or from those of other countries; and, secondly,
upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen at any
particular time to supply the commercial world with those metals. The
quantity of those metals in the countries most remote from the mines,
must be more or less affected by this fertility or barrenness, on
account of the easy and cheap transportation of those metals, of their
small bulk and great value. Their quantity in China and Indostan
must have been more or less affected by the abundance of the mines of
America.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the
former of those two circumstances (the power of purchasing), their real
price, like that of all other luxuries and superfluities, is likely to
rise with the wealth and improvement of the country, and to fall with
its poverty and depression. Countries which have a great quantity of
labour and subsistence to spare, can afford to purchase any particular
quantity of those metals at the expense of a greater quantity of labour
and subsistence, than countries which have less to spare.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the
latter of those two circumstances (the fertility or barrenness of the
mines which happen to supply the commercial world), their real price,
the real quantity of labour and subsistence which they will purchase
or exchange for, will, no doubt, sink more or less in proportion to the
fertility, and rise in proportion to the barrenness of those mines.

The fertility or barrenness of the mines, however, which may happen at
any particular time to supply the commercial world, is a circumstance
which, it is evident, may have no sort of connection with the state
of industry in a particular country. It seems even to have no very
necessary connection with that of the world in general. As arts and
commerce, indeed, gradually spread themselves over a greater and a
greater part of the earth, the search for new mines, being extended over
a wider surface, may have somewhat a better chance for being successful
than when confined within narrower bounds. The discovery of new mines,
however, as the old ones come to be gradually exhausted, is a matter
of the greatest uncertainty, and such as no human skill or industry
can insure. All indications, it is acknowledged, are doubtful; and
the actual discovery and successful working of a new mine can alone
ascertain the reality of its value, or even of its existence. In this
search there seem to be no certain limits, either to the possible
success, or to the possible disappointment of human industry. In
the course of a century or two, it is possible that new mines may be
discovered, more fertile than any that have ever yet been known; and it
is just equally possible, that the most fertile mine then known may be
more barren than any that was wrought before the discovery of the mines
of America. Whether the one or the other of those two events may happen
to take place, is of very little importance to the real wealth and
prosperity of the world, to the real value of the annual produce of the
land and labour of mankind. Its nominal value, the quantity of gold and
silver by which this annual produce could be expressed or represented,
would, no doubt, be very different; but its real value, the real
quantity of labour which it could purchase or command, would be
precisely the same. A shilling might, in the one case, represent no more
labour than a penny does at present; and a penny, in the other, might
represent as much as a shilling does now. But in the one case, he who
had a shilling in his pocket would be no richer than he who has a penny
at present; and in the other, he who had a penny would be just as rich
as he who has a shilling now. The cheapness and abundance of gold and
silver plate would be the sole advantage which the world could derive
from the one event; and the dearness and scarcity of those trifling
superfluities, the only inconveniency it could suffer from the other.

Conclusion of the Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of
Silver.

The greater part of the writers who have collected the money price of
things in ancient times, seem to have considered the low money price
of corn, and of goods in general, or, in other words, the high value of
gold and silver, as a proof, not only of the scarcity of those metals,
but of the poverty and barbarism of the country at the time when it took
place. This notion is connected with the system of political economy,
which represents national wealth as consisting in the abundance and
national poverty in the scarcity, of gold and silver; a system which
I shall endeavour to explain and examine at great length in the fourth
book of this Inquiry. I shall only observe at present, that the high
value of the precious metals can be no proof of the poverty or barbarism
of any particular country at the time when it took place. It is a proof
only of the barrenness of the mines which happened at that time to
supply the commercial world. A poor country, as it cannot afford to buy
more, so it can as little afford to pay dearer for gold and silver than
a rich one; and the value of those metals, therefore, is not likely to
be higher in the former than in the latter. In China, a country much
richer than any part of Europe, the value of the precious metals is much
higher than in any part of Europe. As the wealth of Europe, indeed, has
increased greatly since the discovery of the mines of America, so the
value of gold and silver has gradually diminished. This diminution of
their value, however, has not been owing to the increase of the real
wealth of Europe, of the annual produce of its land and labour, but to
the accidental discovery of more abundant mines than any that were known
before. The increase of the quantity of gold and silver in Europe, and
the increase of its manufactures and agriculture, are two events which,
though they have happened nearly about the same time, yet have arisen
from very different causes, and have scarce any natural connection with
one another. The one has arisen from a mere accident, in which neither
prudence nor policy either had or could have any share; the other,
from the fall of the feudal system, and from the establishment of a
government which afforded to industry the only encouragement which it
requires, some tolerable security that it shall enjoy the fruits of
its own labour. Poland, where the feudal system still continues to
take place, is at this day as beggarly a country as it was before the
discovery of America. The money price of corn, however, has risen; the
real value of the precious metals has fallen in Poland, in the same
manner as in other parts of Europe. Their quantity, therefore, must have
increased there as in other places, and nearly in the same proportion to
the annual produce of its land and labour. This increase of the quantity
of those metals, however, has not, it seems, increased that annual
produce, has neither improved the manufactures and agriculture of the
country, nor mended the circumstances of its inhabitants. Spain and
Portugal, the countries which possess the mines, are, after Poland,
perhaps the two most beggarly countries in Europe. The value of the
precious metals, however, must be lower in Spain and Portugal than in
any other part of Europe, as they come from those countries to all other
parts of Europe, loaded, not only with a freight and an insurance, but
with the expense of smuggling, their exportation being either prohibited
or subjected to a duty. In proportion to the annual produce of the land
and labour, therefore, their quantity must be greater in those countries
than in any other part of Europe; those countries, however, are poorer
than the greater part of Europe. Though the feudal system has been
abolished in Spain and Portugal, it has not been succeeded by a much
better.

As the low value of gold and silver, therefore, is no proof of the
wealth and flourishing state of the country where it takes place; so
neither is their high value, or the low money price either of goods
in general, or of corn in particular, any proof of its poverty and
barbarism.

But though the low money price, either of goods in general, or of corn
in particular, be no proof of the poverty or barbarism of the times,
the low money price of some particular sorts of goods, such as cattle,
poultry, game of all kinds, etc. in proportion to that of corn, is a
most decisive one. It clearly demonstrates, first, their great abundance
in proportion to that of corn, and, consequently, the great extent of
the land which they occupied in proportion to what was occupied by corn;
and, secondly, the low value of this land in proportion to that of corn
land, and, consequently, the uncultivated and unimproved state of the
far greater part of the lands of the country. It clearly demonstrates,
that the stock and population of the country did not bear the same
proportion to the extent of its territory, which they commonly do in
civilized countries; and that society was at that time, and in that
country, but in its infancy. From the high or low money price, either of
goods in general, or of corn in particular, we can infer only, that the
mines, which at that time happened to supply the commercial world with
gold and silver, were fertile or barren, not that the country was rich
or poor. But from the high or low money price of some sorts of goods in
proportion to that of others, we can infer, with a degree of probability
that approaches almost to certainty, that it was rich or poor, that the
greater part of its lands were improved or unimproved, and that it was
either in a more or less barbarous state, or in a more or less civilized
one.

Any rise in the money price of goods which proceeded altogether from
the degradation of the value of silver, would affect all sorts of goods
equally, and raise their price universally, a third, or a fourth, or a
fifth part higher, according as silver happened to lose a third, or a
fourth, or a fifth part of its former value. But the rise in the price
of provisions, which has been the subject of so much reasoning and
conversation, does not affect all sorts of provisions equally. Taking
the course of the present century at an average, the price of corn,
it is acknowledged, even by those who account for this rise by the
degradation of the value of silver, has risen much less than that of
some other sorts of provisions. The rise in the price of those other
sorts of provisions, therefore, cannot be owing altogether to the
degradation of the value of silver. Some other causes must be taken into
the account; and those which have been above assigned, will, perhaps,
without having recourse to the supposed degradation of the value of
silver, sufficiently explain this rise in those particular sorts of
provisions, of which the price has actually risen in proportion to that
of corn.

As to the price of corn itself, it has, during the sixty-four first
years of the present century, and before the late extraordinary course
of bad seasons, been somewhat lower than it was during the sixty-four
last years of the preceding century. This fact is attested, not only
by the accounts of Windsor market, but by the public fiars of all the
different counties of Scotland, and by the accounts of several different
markets in France, which have been collected with great diligence and
fidelity by Mr Messance, and by Mr Dupré de St Maur. The evidence is
more complete than could well have been expected in a matter which is
naturally so very difficult to be ascertained.

As to the high price of corn during these last ten or twelve years,
it can be sufficiently accounted for from the badness of the seasons,
without supposing any degradation in the value of silver.

The opinion, therefore, that silver is continually sinking in its value,
seems not to be founded upon any good observations, either upon the
prices of corn, or upon those of other provisions.

The same quantity of silver, it may perhaps be said, will, in the
present times, even according to the account which has been here given,
purchase a much smaller quantity of several sorts of provisions than it
would have done during some part of the last century; and to ascertain
whether this change be owing to a rise in the value of those goods,
or to a fall in the value of silver, is only to establish a vain and
useless distinction, which can be of no sort of service to the man who
has only a certain quantity of silver to go to market with, or a certain
fixed revenue in money. I certainly do not pretend that the knowledge
of this distinction will enable him to buy cheaper. It may not, however,
upon that account be altogether useless.

It may be of some use to the public, by affording an easy proof of the
prosperous condition of the country. If the rise in the price of some
sorts of provisions be owing altogether to a fall in the value of
silver, it is owing to a circumstance, from which nothing can be
inferred but the fertility of the American mines. The real wealth of the
country, the annual produce of its land and labour, may, notwithstanding
this circumstance, be either gradually declining, as in Portugal and
Poland; or gradually advancing, as in most other parts of Europe. But if
this rise in the price of some sorts of provisions be owing to a rise
in the real value of the land which produces them, to its increased
fertility, or, in consequence of more extended improvement and good
cultivation, to its having been rendered fit for producing corn; it is
owing to a circumstance which indicates, in the clearest manner, the
prosperous and advancing state of the country. The land constitutes by
far the greatest, the most important, and the most durable part of the
wealth of every extensive country. It may surely be of some use, or, at
least, it may give some satisfaction to the public, to have so decisive
a proof of the increasing value of by far the greatest, the most
important, and the most durable part of its wealth.

It may, too, be of some use to the public, in regulating the pecuniary
reward of some of its inferior servants. If this rise in the price of
some sorts of provisions be owing to a fall in the value of silver,
their pecuniary reward, provided it was not too large before, ought
certainly to be augmented in proportion to the extent of this fall. If
it is not augmented, their real recompence will evidently be so much
diminished. But if this rise of price is owing to the increased value,
in consequence of the improved fertility of the land which produces
such provisions, it becomes a much nicer matter to judge, either in what
proportion any pecuniary reward ought to be augmented, or whether
it ought to be augmented at all. The extension of improvement and
cultivation, as it necessarily raises more or less, in proportion to the
price of corn, that of every sort of animal food, so it as necessarily
lowers that of, I believe, every sort of vegetable food. It raises the
price of animal food; because a great part of the land which produces
it, being rendered fit for producing corn, must afford to the landlord
anti farmer the rent and profit of corn land. It lowers the price of
vegetable food; because, by increasing the fertility of the land, it
increases its abundance. The improvements of agriculture, too, introduce
many sorts of vegetable food, which requiring less land, and not more
labour than corn, come much cheaper to market. Such are potatoes
and maize, or what is called Indian corn, the two most important
improvements which the agriculture of Europe, perhaps, which Europe
itself, has received from the great extension of its commerce and
navigation. Many sorts of vegetable food, besides, which in the rude
state of agriculture are confined to the kitchen-garden, and raised only
by the spade, come, in its improved state, to be introduced into common
fields, and to be raised by the plough; such as turnips, carrots,
cabbages, etc. If, in the progress of improvement, therefore, the real
price of one species of food necessarily rises, that of another as
necessarily falls; and it becomes a matter of more nicety to judge how
far the rise in the one may be compensated by the fall in the other.
When the real price of butcher's meat has once got to its height (which,
with regard to every sort, except perhaps that of hogs flesh, it seems
to have done through a great part of England more than a century ago),
any rise which can afterwards happen in that of any other sort of animal
food, cannot much affect the circumstances of the inferior ranks of
people. The circumstances of the poor, through a great part of England,
cannot surely be so much distressed by any rise in the price of poultry,
fish, wild-fowl, or venison, as they must be relieved by the fall in
that of potatoes.

In the present season of scarcity, the high price of corn no doubt
distresses the poor. But in times of moderate plenty, when corn is at
its ordinary or average price, the natural rise in the price of any
other sort of rude produce cannot much affect them. They suffer more,
perhaps, by the artificial rise which has been occasioned by taxes in
the price of some manufactured commodities, as of salt, soap, leather,
candles, malt, beer, ale, etc.

Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon the real Price of
Manufactures.

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually
the real price of almost all manufactures. That of the manufacturing
workmanship diminishes, perhaps, in all of them without exception. In
consequence of better machinery, of greater dexterity, and of a more
proper division and distribution of work, all of which are the natural
effects of improvement, a much smaller quantity of labour becomes
requisite for executing any particular piece of work; and though, in
consequence of the flourishing circumstances of the society, the real
price of labour should rise very considerably, yet the great diminution
of the quantity will generally much more than compensate the greatest
rise which can happen in the price.

There are, indeed, a few manufactures, in which the necessary rise in
the real price of the rude materials will more than compensate all the
advantages which improvement can introduce into the execution of the
work in carpenters' and joiners' work, and in the coarser sort of
cabinet work, the necessary rise in the real price of barren timber, in
consequence of the improvement of land, will more than compensate
all the advantages which can be derived from the best machinery, the
greatest dexterity, and the most proper division and distribution of
work.

But in all cases in which the real price of the rude material
either does not rise at all, or does not rise very much, that of the
manufactured commodity sinks very considerably.

This diminution of price has, in the course of the present and preceding
century, been most remarkable in those manufactures of which the
materials are the coarser metals. A better movement of a watch, than
about the middle of the last century could have been bought for twenty
pounds, may now perhaps be had for twenty shillings. In the work of
cutlers and locksmiths, in all the toys which are made of the coarser
metals, and in all those goods which are commonly known by the name of
Birmingham and Sheffield ware, there has been, during the same period,
a very great reduction of price, though not altogether so great as in
watch-work. It has, however, been sufficient to astonish the workmen of
every other part of Europe, who in many cases acknowledge that they
can produce no work of equal goodness for double or even for triple
the price. There are perhaps no manufactures, in which the division of
labour can be carried further, or in which the machinery employed admits
of' a greater variety of improvements, than those of which the materials
are the coarser metals.

In the clothing manufacture there has, during the same period, been no
such sensible reduction of price. The price of superfine cloth, I have
been assured, on the contrary, has, within these five-and-twenty or
thirty years, risen somewhat in proportion to its quality, owing, it
was said, to a considerable rise in the price of the material, which
consists altogether of Spanish wool. That of the Yorkshire cloth, which
is made altogether of English wool, is said, indeed, during the course
of the present century, to have fallen a good deal in proportion to its
quality. Quality, however, is so very disputable a matter, that I look
upon all information of this kind as somewhat uncertain. In the clothing
manufacture, the division of labour is nearly the same now as it was
a century ago, and the machinery employed is not very different. There
may, however, have been some small improvements in both, which may have
occasioned some reduction of price.

But the reduction will appear much more sensible and undeniable, if we
compare the price of this manufacture in the present times with what it
was in a much remoter period, towards the end of the fifteenth century,
when the labour was probably much less subdivided, and the machinery
employed much more imperfect, than it is at present.

In 1487, being the 4th of Henry VII., it was enacted, that "whosoever
shall sell by retail a broad yard of the finest scarlet grained, or of
other grained cloth of the finest making, above sixteen shillings, shall
forfeit forty shillings for every yard so sold." Sixteen shillings,
therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as
four-and-twenty shillings of our present money, was, at that time,
reckoned not an unreasonable price for a yard of the finest cloth; and
as this is a sumptuary law, such cloth, it is probable, had usually been
sold somewhat dearer. A guinea may be reckoned the highest price in the
present times. Even though the quality of the cloths, therefore, should
be supposed equal, and that of the present times is most probably much
superior, yet, even upon this supposition, the money price of the finest
cloth appears to have been considerably reduced since the end of the
fifteenth century. But its real price has been much more reduced. Six
shillings and eightpence was then, and long afterwards, reckoned the
average price of a quarter of wheat. Sixteen shillings, therefore, was
the price of two quarters and more than three bushels of wheat. Valuing
a quarter of wheat in the present times at eight-and-twenty shillings,
the real price of a yard of fine cloth must, in those times, have been
equal to at least three pounds six shillings and sixpence of our present
money. The man who bought it must have parted with the command of a
quantity of labour and subsistence equal to what that sum would purchase
in the present times.

The reduction in the real price of the coarse manufacture, though
considerable, has not been so great as in that of the fine.

In 1463, being the 3rd of Edward IV. it was enacted, that "no servant in
husbandry nor common labourer, nor servant to any artificer inhabiting
out of a city or burgh, shall use or wear in their clothing any cloth
above two shillings the broad yard." In the 3rd of Edward IV., two
shillings contained very nearly the same quantity of silver as four of
our present money. But the Yorkshire cloth which is now sold at four
shillings the yard, is probably much superior to any that was then made
for the wearing of the very poorest order of common servants. Even the
money price of their clothing, therefore, may, in proportion to the
quality, be somewhat cheaper in the present than it was in those ancient
times. The real price is certainly a good deal cheaper. Tenpence was
then reckoned what is called the moderate and reasonable price of a
bushel of wheat. Two shillings, therefore, was the price of two bushels
and near two pecks of wheat, which in the present times, at three
shillings and sixpence the bushel, would be worth eight shillings and
ninepence. For a yard of this cloth the poor servant must have parted
with the power of purchasing a quantity of subsistence equal to what
eight shillings and ninepence would purchase in the present times. This
is a sumptuary law, too, restraining the luxury and extravagance of the
poor. Their clothing, therefore, had commonly been much more expensive.

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from wearing
hose, of which the price should exceed fourteen-pence the pair, equal
to about eight-and-twenty pence of our present money. But fourteen-pence
was in those times the price of a bushel and near two pecks of wheat;
which in the present times, at three and sixpence the bushel, would cost
five shillings and threepence. We should in the present times consider
this as a very high price for a pair of stockings to a servant of the
poorest and lowest order. He must however, in those times, have paid
what was really equivalent to this price for them.

In the time of Edward IV. the art of knitting stockings was probably not
known in any part of Europe. Their hose were made of common cloth, which
may have been one of the causes of their dearness. The first person
that wore stockings in England is said to have been Queen Elizabeth. She
received them as a present from the Spanish ambassador.

Both in the coarse and in the fine woollen manufacture, the machinery
employed was much more imperfect in those ancient, than it is in the
present times. It has since received three very capital improvements,
besides, probably, many smaller ones, of which it may be difficult
to ascertain either the number or the importance. The three capital
improvements are, first, the exchange of the rock and spindle for the
spinning-wheel, which, with the same quantity of labour, will perform
more than double the quantity of work. Secondly, the use of several very
ingenious machines, which facilitate and abridge, in a still greater
proportion, the winding of the worsted and woollen yarn, or the proper
arrangement of the warp and woof before they are put into the loom; an
operation which, previous to the invention of those machines, must have
been extremely tedious and troublesome. Thirdly, the employment of the
fulling-mill for thickening the cloth, instead of treading it in water.
Neither wind nor water mills of any kind were known in England so early
as the beginning of the sixteenth century, nor, so far as I know, in any
other part of Europe north of the Alps. They had been introduced into
Italy some time before.

The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure,
explain to us why the real price both of the coarse and of the fine
manufacture was so much higher in those ancient than it is in the
present times. It cost a greater quantity of labour to bring the goods
to market. When they were brought thither, therefore, they must have
purchased, or exchanged for the price of, a greater quantity.

The coarse manufacture probably was, in those ancient times, carried on
in England in the same manner as it always has been in countries where
arts and manufactures are in their infancy. It was probably a household
manufacture, in which every different part of the work was occasionally
performed by all the different members of almost every private family,
but so as to be their work only when they had nothing else to do, and
not to be the principal business from which any of them derived the
greater part of their subsistence. The work which is performed in this
manner, it has already been observed, comes always much cheaper to
market than that which is the principal or sole fund of the workman's
subsistence. The fine manufacture, on the other hand, was not, in those
times, carried on in England, but in the rich and commercial country of
Flanders; and it was probably conducted then, in the same manner as
now, by people who derived the whole, or the principal part of their
subsistence from it. It was, besides, a foreign manufacture, and must
have paid some duty, the ancient custom of tonnage and poundage at
least, to the king. This duty, indeed, would not probably be very great.
It was not then the policy of Europe to restrain, by high duties, the
importation of foreign manufactures, but rather to encourage it, in
order that merchants might be enabled to supply, at as easy a rate as
possible, the great men with the conveniencies and luxuries which they
wanted, and which the industry of their own country could not afford
them.

The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure
explain to us why, in those ancient times, the real price of the coarse
manufacture was, in proportion to that of the fine, so much lower than
in the present times.

Conclusion of the Chapter.

I shall conclude this very long chapter with observing, that every
improvement in the circumstances of the society tends, either directly
or indirectly, to raise the real rent of land to increase the real
wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour, or the
produce of the labour of other people.

The extension of improvement and cultivation tends to raise it directly.
The landlord's share of the produce necessarily increases with the
increase of the produce.

That rise in the real price of those parts of the rude produce of land,
which is first the effect of the extended improvement and cultivation,
and afterwards the cause of their being still further extended, the rise
in the price of cattle, for example, tends, too, to raise the rent of
land directly, and in a still greater proportion. The real value of the
landlord's share, his real command of the labour of other people, not
only rises with the real value of the produce, but the proportion of his
share to the whole produce rises with it.

That produce, after the rise in its real price, requires no more labour
to collect it than before. A smaller proportion of it will, therefore,
be sufficient to replace, with the ordinary profit, the stock which
employs that labour. A greater proportion of it must consequently belong
to the landlord.

All those improvements in the productive powers of labour, which tend
directly to reduce the rent price of manufactures, tend indirectly to
raise the real rent of land. The landlord exchanges that part of his
rude produce, which is over and above his own consumption, or, what
comes to the same thing, the price of that part of it, for manufactured
produce. Whatever reduces the real price of the latter, raises that of
the former. An equal quantity of the former becomes thereby equivalent
to a greater quantity of the latter; and the landlord is enabled to
purchase a greater quantity of the conveniencies, ornaments, or luxuries
which he has occasion for.

Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the
quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise
the real rent of land. A certain proportion of this labour naturally
goes to the land. A greater number of men and cattle are employed in its
cultivation, the produce increases with the increase of the stock which
is thus employed in raising it, and the rent increases with the produce.

The contrary circumstances, the neglect of cultivation and improvement,
the fall in the real price of any part of the rude produce of land, the
rise in the real price of manufactures from the decay of manufacturing
art and industry, the declension of the real wealth of the society, all
tend, on the other hand, to lower the real rent of land, to reduce the
real wealth of the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either
the labour, or the produce of the labour, of other people.

The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, or,
what comes to the same thing, the whole price of that annual produce,
naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three
parts; the rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock;
and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people; to those
who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by
profit. These are the three great, original, and constituent, orders of
every civilized society, from whose revenue that of every other order is
ultimately derived.

The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from
what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected
with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or
obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other. When the
public deliberates concerning any regulation of commerce or police, the
proprietors of land never can mislead it, with a view to promote the
interest of their own particular order; at least, if they have any
tolerable knowledge of that interest. They are, indeed, too often
defective in this tolerable knowledge. They are the only one of the
three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes
to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or
project of their own. That indolence which is the natural effect of the
ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only
ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind, which is necessary
in order to foresee and understand the consequence of any public
regulation.

The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is
as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the
first. The wages of the labourer, it has already been shewn, are never
so high as when the demand for labour is continually rising, or when the
quantity employed is every year increasing considerably. When this real
wealth of the society becomes stationary, his wages are soon reduced to
what is barely enough to enable him to bring up a family, or to continue
the race of labourers. When the society declines, they fall even below
this. The order of proprietors may perhaps gain more by the prosperity
of the society than that of labourers; but there is no order that
suffers so cruelly from its decline. But though the interest of the
labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable
either of comprehending that interest, or of understanding its connexion
with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary
information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render
him unfit to judge, even though he was fully informed. In the public
deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard, and less regarded;
except upon particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on,
and supported by his employers, not for his, but their own particular
purposes.

His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by
profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which
puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society.
The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all
the most important operation of labour, and profit is the end proposed
by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like
rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension
of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high
in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are
going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has
not the same connexion with the general interest of the society, as that
of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order,
the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and
who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public
consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and
projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than
the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are
commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular
branch of business. than about that of the society, their judgment, even
when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every
occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former
of those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority
over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the
public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own
interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their
own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and
persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public,
from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and
not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers,
however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in
some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.
To widen the market, and to narrow the competition, is always the
interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable
enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition
must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by
raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for
their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.
The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from
this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and
ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully
examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most
suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is
never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an
interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly
have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.



# PRICES OF WHEAT


  Year    Prices/Quarter  Average of different   Average prices of
          in each year     prices in one year    each year in money
                                                    of 1776

            £   s   d         £   s   d             £   s   d
  1202      0  12   0                               1  16   0
  1205      0  12   0
            0  13   4         0  13   5             2   0   3
            0  15   0
  1223      0  12   0                               1  16   0
  1237      0   3   4                               0  10   0
  1243      0   2   0                               0   6   0
  1244      0   2   0                               0   6   0
  1246      0  16   0                               2   8   0
  1247      0  13   5                               2   0   0
  1257      1   4   0                               3  12   0
  1258      1   0   0
            0  15   0         0  17   0             2  11   0
            0  16   0
  1270      4  16   0
            6   8   0         5  12   0            16  16   0
  1286      0   2   8
            0  16   0         0   9   4             1   8   0
                                          Total    35   9   3
                                          Average   2  19   1¼

  1287      0   3   4                               0  10   0
  1288      0   0   8
            0   1   0
            0   1   4
            0   1   6
            0   1   8         0   3   0¼            0   9   1¾
            0   2   0
            0   3   4
            0   9   4
  1289      0  12   0
            0   6   0
            0   2   0         0  10   1½            1  10   4½
            0  10   8
            1   0   0
  1290      0  16   0                               2   8   0
  1294      0  16   0                               2   8   0
  1302      0   4   0                               0  12   0
  1309      0   7   2                               1   1   6
  1315      1   0   0                               3   0   0
  1316      1   0   0
            1  10   0         1  10   6             4  11   6
            1  12   0
            2   0   0
  1317      2   4   0
            0  14   0
            2  13   0         1  19   6             5  18   6
            4   0   0
            0   6   8
  1336      0   2   0                               0   6   0
  1338      0   3   4                               0  10   0
                                          Total    23   4  11¼
                                          Average   1  18   8

  1339      0   9   0                               1   7   0
  1349      0   2   0                               0   5   2
  1359      1   6   8                               3   2   2
  1361      0   2   0                               0   4   8
  1363      0  15   0                               1  15   0
  1369      1   0   0
            1   4   0         1   2   0             2   9   4
  1379      0   4   0                               0   9   4
  1387      0   2   0                               0   4   8
  1390      0  13   4
            0  14   0         0  14   5             1  13   7
            0  16   0
  1401      0  16   0                               1  17   6
  1407      0   4   4¾
            0   3   4         0   3  10             0   8  10
  1416      0  16   0                               1  12   0
                                         Total     15   9   4
                                         Average    1   5   9½

  1423      0   8   0                                       0
  1425      0   4   0                                       0
  1434      1   6   8                                       4
  1435      0   5   4                                       8
  1439      1   0   0
            1   6   8         1   3   4             2   6   8
  1440      1   4   0                               2   8   0
  1444      0   4   4         0   4   2             0   4   8
            0   4   0
  1445      0   4   6                               0   9   0
  1447      0   8   0                               0  16   0
  1448      0   6   8                               0  13   4
  1449      0   5   0                               0  10   0
  1451      0   8   0                               0  16   0
                                         Total     12  15   4
                                         Average    1   1   3¹/³

  1453      0   5   4                               0  10   8
  1455      0   1   2                               0   2   4
  1457      0   7   8                               1  15   4
  1459      0   5   0                               0  10   0
  1460      0   8   0                               0  16   0
  1463      0   2   0         0   1  10             0   3   8
            0   1   8
  1464      0   6   8                               0  10   0
  1486      1   4   0                               1  17   0
  1491      0  14   8                               1   2   0
  1494      0   4   0                               0   6   0
  1495      0   3   4                               0   5   0
  1497      1   0   0                               1  11   0
                                         Total      8   9   0
                                         Average    0  14   1

  1499      0   4   0                               0   6   0
  1504      0   5   8                               0   8   6
  1521      1   0   0                               1  10   0
  1551      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1553      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1554      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1555      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1556      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1557      0   8   0
            0   4   0         0  17   8½            0  17   8½
            0   5   0
            2  13   4
  1558      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1559      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1560      0   8   0                               0   8   0
                                         Total      6   0   2½
                                         Average    0  10   0½

  1561      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1562      0   8   0                               0   8   0
  1574      2  16   0
            1   4   0         2   0   0             2   0   0
  1587      3   4   0                               3   4   0
  1594      2  16   0                               2  16   0
  1595      2  13   0                               2  13   0
  1596      4   0   0                               4   0   0
  1597      5   4   0
            4   0   0         4  12   0             4  12   0
  1598      2  16   8                               2  16   8
  1599      1  19   2                               1  19   8
  1600      1  17   8                               1  17   8
  1601      1  14  10                               1  14  10
                                         Total     28   9   4
                                         Average    2   7   5½


PRICES OF THE QUARTER OF NINE BUSHELS OF THE BEST OR HIGHEST PRICED
WHEAT AT WINDSOR MARKET, ON LADY DAY AND MICHAELMAS, FROM 1595 TO 1764
BOTH INCLUSIVE; THE PRICE OF EACH YEAR BEING THE MEDIUM BETWEEN THE
HIGHEST PRICES OF THESE TWO MARKET DAYS.

            £   s   d
  1595      2   0   0
  1596      2   8   0
  1597      3   9   6
  1598      2  16   8
  1599      1  19   2
  1600      1  17   8
  1601      1  14  10
  1602      1   9   4
  1603      1  15   4
  1604      1  10   8
  1605      1  15  10
  1606      1  13   0
  1607      1  16   8
  1608      2  16   8
  1609      2  10   0
  1610      1  15  10
  1611      1  18   8
  1612      2   2   4
  1613      2   8   8
  1614      2   1   8½
  1615      1  18   8
  1616      2   0   4
  1617      2   8   8
  1618      2   6   8
  1619      1  15   4
  1620      1  10   4
        26)54   0   6½
    Average 2   1   6¾

  1621      1  10    4
  1622      2  18    8
  1623      2  12    0
  1624      2   8    0
  1625      2  12    0
  1626      2   9    4
  1627      1  16    0
  1628      1   8    0
  1629      2   2    0
  1630      2  15    8
  1631      3   8    0
  1632      2  13    4
  1633      2  18    0
  1634      2  16    0
  1635      2  16    0
  1636      2  16    8
        16)40   0    0
    Average 2  10    0

  1637      2  13    0
  1638      2  17    4
  1639      2   4   10
  1640      2   4    8
  1641      2   8    0
  1646      2   8    0
  1647      3  13    0
  1648      4   5    0
  1649      4   0    0
  1650      3  16    8
  1651      3  13    4
  1652      2   9    6
  1653      1  15    6
  1654      1   6    0
  1655      1  13    4
  1656      2   3    0
  1657      2   6    8
  1658      3   5    0
  1659      3   6    0
  1660      2  16    6
  1661      3  10    0
  1662      3  14    0
  1663      2  17    0
  1664      2   0    6
  1665      2   9    4
  1666      1  16    0
  1667      1  16    0
  1668      2   0    0
  1669      2   4    4
  1670      2   1    8
  1671      2   2    0
  1672      2   1    0
  1673      2   6    8
  1674      3   8    8
  1675      3   4    8
  1676      1  18    0
  1677      2   2    0
  1678      2  19    0
  1679      3   0    0
  1680      2   5    0
  1681      2   6    8
  1682      2   4    0
  1683      2   0    0
  1684      2   4    0
  1685      2   6    8
  1686      1  14    0
  1687      1   5    2
  1688      2   6    0
  1689      1  10    0
  1690      1  14    8
  1691      1  14    0
  1692      2   6    8
  1693      3   7    8
  1694      3   4    0
  1695      2  13    0
  1696      3  11    0
  1697      3   0    0
  1698      3   8    4
  1699      3   4    0
  1700      2   0    0
      60) 153   1    8
   Average  2  11    0¹/³

  1701      1  17    8
  1702      1   9    6
  1703      1  16    0
  1704      2   6    6
  1705      1  10    0
  1706      1   6    0
  1707      1   8    6
  1708      2   1    6
  1709      3  18    6
  1710      3  18    0
  1711      2  14    0
  1712      2   6    4
  1713      2  11    0
  1714      2  10    4
  1715      2   3    0
  1716      2   8    0
  1717      2   5    8
  1718      1  18   10
  1719      1  15    0
  1720      1  17    0
  1721      1  17    6
  1722      1  16    0
  1723      1  14    8
  1724      1  17    0
  1725      2   8    6
  1726      2   6    0
  1727      2   2    0
  1728      2  14    6
  1729      2   6   10
  1730      1  16    6
  1731      1  12   10                     1  12   10
  1732      1   6    8                     1   6    8
  1733      1   8    4                     1   8    4
  1734      1  18   10                     1  18   10
  1735      2   3    0                     2   3    0
  1736      2   0    4                     2   0    4
  1737      1  18    0                     1  18    0
  1738      1  15    6                     1  15    6
  1739      1  18    6                     1  18    6
  1740      2  10    8                     2  10    8
                                      10) 18  12    8
                                           1  17    3½

  1741      2   6    8                     2   6    8
  1742      1  14    0                     1  14    0
  1743      1   4   10                     1   4   10
  1744      1   4   10                     1   4   10
  1745      1   7    6                     1   7    6
  1746      1  19    0                     1  19    0
  1747      1  14   10                     1  14   10
  1748      1  17    0                     1  17    0
  1749      1  17    0                     1  17    0
  1750      1  12    6                     1  12    6
                                      10) 16  18    2
                                           1  13    9¾

  1751      1  18    6
  1752      2   1   10
  1753      2   4    8
  1754      1  13    8
  1755      1  14   10
  1756      2   5    3
  1757      3   0    0
  1758      2  10    0
  1759      1  19   10
  1760      1  16    6
  1761      1  10    3
  1762      1  19    0
  1763      2   0    9
  1764      2   6    9
      64) 129  13    6
   Average  2   0    6¾



BOOK II. OF THE NATURE, ACCUMULATION, AND EMPLOYMENT OF STOCK.

INTRODUCTION.

In that rude state of society, in which there is no division of labour,
in which exchanges are seldom made, and in which every man provides
every thing for himself, it is not necessary that any stock should be
accumulated, or stored up before-hand, in order to carry on the business
of the society. Every man endeavours to supply, by his own industry, his
own occasional wants, as they occur. When he is hungry, he goes to the
forest to hunt; when his coat is worn out, he clothes himself with the
skin of the first large animal he kills: and when his hut begins to go
to ruin, he repairs it, as well as he can, with the trees and the turf
that are nearest it.

But when the division of labour has once been thoroughly introduced, the
produce of a man's own labour can supply but a very small part of his
occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the
produce of other men's labour, which he purchases with the produce, or,
what is the same thing, with the price of the produce, of his own. But
this purchase cannot be made till such time as the produce of his
own labour has not only been completed, but sold. A stock of goods of
different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere, sufficient
to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his
work, till such time at least as both these events can be brought about.
A weaver cannot apply himself entirely to his peculiar business, unless
there is before-hand stored up somewhere, either in his own possession,
or in that of some other person, a stock sufficient to maintain him, and
to supply him with the materials and tools of his work, till he has not
only completed, but sold his web. This accumulation must evidently
be previous to his applying his industry for so long a time to such a
peculiar business.

As the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous
to the division of labour, so labour can be more and more subdivided in
proportion only as stock is previously more and more accumulated. The
quantity of materials which the same number of people can work up,
increases in a great proportion as labour comes to be more and more
subdivided; and as the operations of each workman are gradually reduced
to a greater degree of simplicity, a variety of new machines come to
be invented for facilitating and abridging those operations. As the
division of labour advances, therefore, in order to give constant
employment to an equal number of workmen, an equal stock of provisions,
and a greater stock of materials and tools than what would have been
necessary in a ruder state of things, must be accumulated before-hand.
But the number of workmen in every branch of business generally
increases with the division of labour in that branch; or rather it is
the increase of their number which enables them to class and subdivide
themselves in this manner.

As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying on
this great improvement in the productive powers of labour, so that
accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person who employs
his stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes to employ it in
such a manner as to produce as great a quantity of work as possible. He
endeavours, therefore, both to make among his workmen the most proper
distribution of employment, and to furnish them with the best machines
which he can either invent or afford to purchase. His abilities, in both
these respects, are generally in proportion to the extent of his stock,
or to the number of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry,
therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase of the
stock which employs it, but, in consequence of that increase, the same
quantity of industry produces a much greater quantity of work.

Such are in general the effects of the increase of stock upon industry
and its productive powers.

In the following book, I have endeavoured to explain the nature of
stock, the effects of its accumulation into capital of different kinds,
and the effects of the different employments of those capitals. This
book is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, I have
endeavoured to shew what are the different parts or branches into which
the stock, either of an individual, or of a great society, naturally
divides itself. In the second, I have endeavoured to explain the nature
and operation of money, considered as a particular branch of the general
stock of the society. The stock which is accumulated into a capital, may
either be employed by the person to whom it belongs, or it may be
lent to some other person. In the third and fourth chapters, I have
endeavoured to examine the manner in which it operates in both these
situations. The fifth and last chapter treats of the different effects
which the different employments of capital immediately produce upon the
quantity, both of national industry, and of the annual produce of land
and labour.



CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF STOCK.

When the stock which a man possesses is no more than sufficient to
maintain him for a few days or a few weeks, he seldom thinks of
deriving any revenue from it. He consumes it as sparingly as he can,
and endeavours, by his labour, to acquire something which may supply its
place before it be consumed altogether. His revenue is, in this case,
derived from his labour only. This is the state of the greater part of
the labouring poor in all countries.

But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for months or
years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenue from the greater
part of it, reserving only so much for his immediate consumption as
may maintain him till this revenue begins to come in. His whole stock,
therefore, is distinguished into two parts. That part which he expects
is to afford him this revenue is called his capital. The other is that
which supplies his immediate consumption, and which consists either,
first, in that portion of his whole stock which was originally reserved
for this purpose; or, secondly, in his revenue, from whatever source
derived, as it gradually comes in; or, thirdly, in such things as had
been purchased by either of these in former years, and which are not yet
entirely consumed, such as a stock of clothes, household furniture, and
the like. In one or other, or all of these three articles, consists the
stock which men commonly reserve for their own immediate consumption.

There are two different ways in which a capital may be employed so as to
yield a revenue or profit to its employer.

First, it maybe employed in raising, manufacturing, or purchasing goods,
and selling them again with a profit. The capital employed in this
manner yields no revenue or profit to its employer, while it either
remains in his possession, or continues in the same shape. The goods
of the merchant yield him no revenue or profit till he sells them for
money, and the money yields him as little till it is again exchanged
for goods. His capital is continually going from him in one shape,
and returning to him in another; and it is only by means of such
circulation, or successive changes, that it can yield him any profit.
Such capitals, therefore, may very properly be called circulating
capitals.

Secondly, it may be employed in the improvement of land, in the purchase
of useful machines and instruments of trade, or in such like things as
yield a revenue or profit without changing masters, or circulating any
further. Such capitals, therefore, may very properly be called fixed
capitals.

Different occupations require very different proportions between the
fixed and circulating capitals employed in them.

The capital of a merchant, for example, is altogether a circulating
capital. He has occasion for no machines or instruments of trade, unless
his shop or warehouse be considered as such.

Some part of the capital of every master artificer or manufacturer must
be fixed in the instruments of his trade. This part, however, is very
small in some, and very great in others, A master tailor requires no
other instruments of trade but a parcel of needles. Those of the master
shoemaker are a little, though but a very little, more expensive. Those
of the weaver rise a good deal above those of the shoemaker. The far
greater part of the capital of all such master artificers, however,
is circulated either in the wages of their workmen, or in the price of
their materials, and repaid, with a profit, by the price of the work.

In other works a much greater fixed capital is required. In a great
iron-work, for example, the furnace for melting the ore, the forge, the
slit-mill, are instruments of trade which cannot be erected without
a very great expense. In coal works, and mines of every kind, the
machinery necessary, both for drawing out the water, and for other
purposes, is frequently still more expensive.

That part of the capital of the farmer which is employed in the
instruments of agriculture is a fixed, that which is employed in
the wages and maintenance of his labouring servants is a circulating
capital. He makes a profit of the one by keeping it in his own
possession, and of the other by parting with it. The price or value of
his labouring cattle is a fixed capital, in the same manner as that
of the instruments of husbandry; their maintenance is a circulating
capital, in the same manner as that of the labouring servants. The
farmer makes his profit by keeping the labouring cattle, and by parting
with their maintenance. Both the price and the maintenance of the cattle
which are bought in and fattened, not for labour, but for sale, are a
circulating capital. The farmer makes his profit by parting with them.
A flock of sheep or a herd of cattle, that, in a breeding country,
is brought in neither for labour nor for sale, but in order to make a
profit by their wool, by their milk, and by their increase, is a fixed
capital. The profit is made by keeping them. Their maintenance is a
circulating capital. The profit is made by parting with it; and it comes
back with both its own profit and the profit upon the whole price of the
cattle, in the price of the wool, the milk, and the increase. The whole
value of the seed, too, is properly a fixed capital. Though it goes
backwards and forwards between the ground and the granary, it never
changes masters, and therefore does not properly circulate. The farmer
makes his profit, not by its sale, but by its increase.

The general stock of any country or society is the same with that of
all its inhabitants or members; and, therefore, naturally divides itself
into the same three portions, each of which has a distinct function or
office.

The first is that portion which is reserved for immediate consumption,
and of which the characteristic is, that it affords no revenue or
profit. It consists in the stock of food, clothes, household furniture,
etc. which have been purchased by their proper consumers, but which are
not yet entirely consumed. The whole stock of mere dwelling-houses,
too, subsisting at anyone time in the country, make a part of this
first portion. The stock that is laid out in a house, if it is to be the
dwelling-house of the proprietor, ceases from that moment to serve in
the function of a capital, or to afford any revenue to its owner. A
dwelling-house, as such, contributes nothing to the revenue of its
inhabitant; and though it is, no doubt, extremely useful to him, it
is as his clothes and household furniture are useful to him, which,
however, make a part of his expense, and not of his revenue. If it is
to be let to a tenant for rent, as the house itself can produce nothing,
the tenant must always pay the rent out of some other revenue, which
he derives, either from labour, or stock, or land. Though a house,
therefore, may yield a revenue to its proprietor, and thereby serve in
the function of a capital to him, it cannot yield any to the public, nor
serve in the function of a capital to it, and the revenue of the whole
body of the people can never be in the smallest degree increased by it.
Clothes and household furniture, in the same manner, sometimes yield a
revenue, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to particular
persons. In countries where masquerades are common, it is a trade to
let out masquerade dresses for a night. Upholsterers frequently let
furniture by the month or by the year. Undertakers let the furniture of
funerals by the day and by the week. Many people let furnished houses,
and get a rent, not only for the use of the house, but for that of the
furniture. The revenue, however, which is derived from such things, must
always be ultimately drawn from some other source of revenue. Of all
parts of the stock, either of an individual or of a society, reserved
for immediate consumption, what is laid out in houses is most slowly
consumed. A stock of clothes may last several years; a stock of
furniture half a century or a century; but a stock of houses, well built
and properly taken care of, may last many centuries. Though the period
of their total consumption, however, is more distant, they are still as
really a stock reserved for immediate consumption as either clothes or
household furniture.

The second of the three portions into which the general stock of
the society divides itself, is the fixed capital; of which the
characteristic is, that it affords a revenue or profit without
circulating or changing masters. It consists chiefly of the four
following articles.

First, of all useful machines and instruments of trade, which facilitate
and abridge labour.

Secondly, of all those profitable buildings which are the means of
procuring a revenue, not only to the proprietor who lets them for a
rent, but to the person who possesses them, and pays that rent for them;
such as shops, warehouses, work-houses, farm-houses, with all their
necessary buildings, stables, granaries, etc. These are very different
from mere dwelling-houses. They are a sort of instruments of trade, and
may be considered in the same light.

Thirdly, of the improvements of land, of what has been profitably laid
out in clearing, draining, inclosing, manuring, and reducing it into the
condition most proper for tillage and culture. An improved farm may
very justly be regarded in the same light as those useful machines
which facilitate and abridge labour, and by means of which an equal
circulating capital can afford a much greater revenue to its employer.
An improved farm is equally advantageous and more durable than any of
those machines, frequently requiring no other repairs than the most
profitable application of the farmer's capital employed in cultivating
it.

Fourthly, of the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants
and members of the society. The acquisition of such talents, by
the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or
apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed
and realized, as it were, in his person. Those talents, as they make a
part of his fortune, so do they likewise that of the society to which
he belongs. The improved dexterity of a workman may be considered in
the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which facilitates and
abridges labour, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays
that expense with a profit.

The third and last of the three portions into which the general stock
of the society naturally divides itself, is the circulating capital,
of which the characteristic is, that it affords a revenue only by
circulating or changing masters. It is composed likewise of four parts.

First, of the money, by means of which all the other three are
circulated and distributed to their proper consumers.

Secondly, of the stock of provisions which are in the possession of the
butcher, the grazier, the farmer, the corn-merchant, the brewer, etc.
and from the sale of which they expect to derive a profit.

Thirdly, of the materials, whether altogether rude, or more or less
manufactured, of clothes, furniture, and building which are not yet made
up into any of those three shapes, but which remain in the hands of
the growers, the manufacturers, the mercers, and drapers, the
timber-merchants, the carpenters and joiners, the brick-makers, etc.

Fourthly, and lastly, of the work which is made up and completed, but
which is still in the hands of the merchant and manufacturer, and not
yet disposed of or distributed to the proper consumers; such as the
finished work which we frequently find ready made in the shops of
the smith, the cabinet-maker, the goldsmith, the jeweller, the
china-merchant, etc. The circulating capital consists, in this manner,
of the provisions, materials, and finished work of all kinds that are
in the hands of their respective dealers, and of the money that is
necessary for circulating and distributing them to those who are finally
to use or to consume them.

Of these four parts, three--provisions, materials, and finished
work, are either annually or in a longer or shorter period, regularly
withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed capital, or in the
stock reserved for immediate consumption.

Every fixed capital is both originally derived from, and requires to be
continually supported by, a circulating capital. All useful machines and
instruments of trade are originally derived from a circulating
capital, which furnishes the materials of which they are made, and the
maintenance of the workmen who make them. They require, too, a capital
of the same kind to keep them in constant repair.

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating
capital. The most useful machines and instruments of trade will produce
nothing, without the circulating capital, which affords the materials
they are employed upon, and the maintenance of the workmen who
employ them. Land, however improved, will yield no revenue without a
circulating capital, which maintains the labourers who cultivate and
collect its produce.

To maintain and augment the stock which maybe reserved for immediate
consumption, is the sole end and purpose both of the fixed and
circulating capitals. It is this stock which feeds, clothes, and lodges
the people. Their riches or poverty depend upon the abundant or sparing
supplies which those two capitals can afford to the stock reserved for
immediate consumption.

So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn
from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general
stock of the society, it must in its turn require continual supplies
without which it would soon cease to exist. These supplies are
principally drawn from three sources; the produce of land, of mines,
and of fisheries. These afford continual supplies of provisions and
materials, of which part is afterwards wrought up into finished work
and by which are replaced the provisions, materials, and finished work,
continually withdrawn from the circulating capital. From mines, too, is
drawn what is necessary for maintaining and augmenting that part of it
which consists in money. For though, in the ordinary course of business,
this part is not, like the other three, necessarily withdrawn from it,
in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general stock of
the society, it must, however, like all other things, be wasted and
worn out at last, and sometimes, too, be either lost or sent abroad,
and must, therefore, require continual, though no doubt much smaller
supplies.

Lands, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and circulating
capital to cultivate them; and their produce replaces, with a profit not
only those capitals, but all the others in the society. Thus the farmer
annually replaces to the manufacturer the provisions which he had
consumed, and the materials which he had wrought up the year before; and
the manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had
wasted and worn out in the same time. This is the real exchange that
is annually made between those two orders of people, though it seldom
happens that the rude produce of the one, and the manufactured produce
of the other, are directly bartered for one another; because it seldom
happens that the farmer sells his corn and his cattle, his flax and his
wool, to the very same person of whom he chuses to purchase the
clothes, furniture, and instruments of trade, which he wants. He sells,
therefore, his rude produce for money, with which he can purchase,
wherever it is to be had, the manufactured produce he has occasion for.
Land even replaces, in part at least, the capitals with which fisheries
and mines are cultivated. It is the produce of land which draws the fish
from the waters; and it is the produce of the surface of the earth which
extracts the minerals from its bowels.

The produce of land, mines, and fisheries, when their natural fertility
is equal, is in proportion to the extent and proper application of the
capitals employed about them. When the capitals are equal, and equally
well applied, it is in proportion to their natural fertility.

In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man of
common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can
command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit. If it
is employed in procuring present enjoyment, it is a stock reserved for
immediate consumption. If it is employed in procuring future profit, it
must procure this profit either by staying with him, or by going from
him. In the one case it is a fixed, in the other it is a circulating
capital. A man must be perfectly crazy, who, where there is a tolerable
security, does not employ all the stock which he commands, whether it
be his own, or borrowed of other people, in some one or other of those
three ways.

In those unfortunate countries, indeed, where men are continually afraid
of the violence of their superiors, they frequently bury or conceal a
great part of their stock, in order to have it always at hand to carry
with them to some place of safety, in case of their being threatened
with any of those disasters to which they consider themselves at all
times exposed. This is said to be a common practice in Turkey, in
Indostan, and, I believe, in most other governments of Asia. It seems to
have been a common practice among our ancestors during the violence of
the feudal government. Treasure-trove was, in these times, considered
as no contemptible part of the revenue of the greatest sovereigns in
Europe. It consisted in such treasure as was found concealed in the
earth, and to which no particular person could prove any right. This was
regarded, in those times, as so important an object, that it was always
considered as belonging to the sovereign, and neither to the finder nor
to the proprietor of the land, unless the right to it had been conveyed
to the latter by an express clause in his charter. It was put upon the
same footing with gold and silver mines, which, without a special clause
in the charter, were never supposed to be comprehended in the general
grant of the lands, though mines of lead, copper, tin, and coal were, as
things of smaller consequence.



CHAPTER II. OF MONEY, CONSIDERED AS A PARTICULAR BRANCH OF THE GENERAL
STOCK OF THE SOCIETY, OR OF THE EXPENSE OF MAINTAINING THE NATIONAL
CAPITAL.

It has been shown in the First Book, that the price of the greater part
of commodities resolves itself into three parts, of which one pays the
wages of the labour, another the profits of the stock, and a third the
rent of the land which had been employed in producing and bringing them
to market: that there are, indeed, some commodities of which the price
is made up of two of those parts only, the wages of labour, and the
profits of stock; and a very few in which it consists altogether in one,
the wages of labour; but that the price of every commodity necessarily
resolves itself into some one or other, or all, of those three parts;
every part of it which goes neither to rent nor to wages, being
necessarily profit to some body.

Since this is the case, it has been observed, with regard to every
particular commodity, taken separately, it must be so with regard to all
the commodities which compose the whole annual produce of the land
and labour of every country, taken complexly. The whole price or
exchangeable value of that annual produce must resolve itself into the
same three parts, and be parcelled out among the different inhabitants
of the country, either as the wages of their labour, the profits of
their stock, or the rent of their land.

But though the whole value of the annual produce of the land and labour
of every country, is thus divided among, and constitutes a revenue to,
its different inhabitants; yet, as in the rent of a private estate, we
distinguish between the gross rent and the neat rent, so may we likewise
in the revenue of all the inhabitants of a great country.

The gross rent of a private estate comprehends whatever is paid by
the farmer; the neat rent, what remains free to the landlord, after
deducting the expense of management, of repairs, and all other necessary
charges; or what, without hurting his estate, he can afford to place
in his stock reserved for immediate consumption, or to spend upon his
table, equipage, the ornaments of his house and furniture, his private
enjoyments and amusements. His real wealth is in proportion, not to his
gross, but to his neat rent.

The gross revenue of all the inhabitants of a great country comprehends
the whole annual produce of their land and labour; the neat revenue,
what remains free to them, after deducting the expense of maintaining
first, their fixed, and, secondly, their circulating capital, or what,
without encroaching upon their capital, they can place in their stock
reserved for immediate consumption, or spend upon their subsistence,
conveniencies, and amusements. Their real wealth, too, is in proportion,
not to their gross, but to their neat revenue.

The whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital must evidently be
excluded from the neat revenue of the society. Neither the materials
necessary for supporting their useful machines and instruments of trade,
their profitable buildings, etc. nor the produce of the labour necessary
for fashioning those materials into the proper form, can ever make any
part of it. The price of that labour may indeed make a part of it; as
the workmen so employed may place the whole value of their wages in
their stock reserved for immediate consumption. But in other sorts of
labour, both the price and the produce go to this stock; the price
to that of the workmen, the produce to that of other people, whose
subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements, are augmented by the labour
of those workmen.

The intention of the fixed capital is to increase the productive powers
of labour, or to enable the same number of labourers to perform a much
greater quantity of work. In a farm where all the necessary buildings,
fences, drains, communications, etc. are in the most perfect good order,
the same number of labourers and labouring cattle will raise a much
greater produce, than in one of equal extent and equally good ground,
but not furnished with equal conveniencies. In manufactures, the same
number of hands, assisted with the best machinery, will work up a much
greater quantity of goods than with more imperfect instruments of trade.
The expense which is properly laid out upon a fixed capital of any kind,
is always repaid with great profit, and increases the annual produce by
a much greater value than that of the support which such improvements
require. This support, however, still requires a certain portion of that
produce. A certain quantity of materials, and the labour of a certain
number of workmen, both of which might have been immediately employed
to augment the food, clothing, and lodging, the subsistence and
conveniencies of the society, are thus diverted to another employment,
highly advantageous indeed, but still different from this one. It is
upon this account that all such improvements in mechanics, as enable the
same number of workmen to perform an equal quantity of work with cheaper
and simpler machinery than had been usual before, are always regarded as
advantageous to every society. A certain quantity of materials, and the
labour of a certain number of workmen, which had before been employed
in supporting a more complex and expensive machinery, can afterwards
be applied to augment the quantity of work which that or any other
machinery is useful only for performing. The undertaker of some great
manufactory, who employs a thousand a-year in the maintenance of his
machinery, if he can reduce this expense to five hundred, will naturally
employ the other five hundred in purchasing an additional quantity of
materials, to be wrought up by an additional number of workmen. The
quantity of that work, therefore, which his machinery was useful
only for performing, will naturally be augmented, and with it all the
advantage and conveniency which the society can derive from that work.

The expense of maintaining the fixed capital in a great country, may
very properly be compared to that of repairs in a private estate.
The expense of repairs may frequently be necessary for supporting the
produce of the estate, and consequently both the gross and the neat rent
of the landlord. When by a more proper direction, however, it can be
diminished without occasioning any diminution of produce, the gross rent
remains at least the same as before, and the neat rent is necessarily
augmented.

But though the whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital is thus
necessarily excluded from the neat revenue of the society, it is not the
same case with that of maintaining the circulating capital. Of the
four parts of which this latter capital is composed, money, provisions,
materials, and finished work, the three last, it has already been
observed, are regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the
fixed capital of the society, or in their stock reserved for immediate
consumption. Whatever portion of those consumable goods is not employed
in maintaining the former, goes all to the latter, and makes a part of
the neat revenue of the society. The maintenance of those three parts of
the circulating capital, therefore, withdraws no portion of the annual
produce from the neat revenue of the society, besides what is necessary
for maintaining the fixed capital.

The circulating capital of a society is in this respect different from
that of an individual. That of an individual is totally excluded from
making any part of his neat revenue, which must consist altogether in
his profits. But though the circulating capital of every individual
makes a part of that of the society to which he belongs, it is not upon
that account totally excluded from making a part likewise of their neat
revenue. Though the whole goods in a merchant's shop must by no means be
placed in his own stock reserved for immediate consumption, they may in
that of other people, who, from a revenue derived from other funds, may
regularly replace their value to him, together with its profits, without
occasioning any diminution either of his capital or of theirs.

Money, therefore, is the only part of the circulating capital of a
society, of which the maintenance can occasion any diminution in their
neat revenue.

The fixed capital, and that part of the circulating capital which
consists in money, so far as they affect the revenue of the society,
bear a very great resemblance to one another.

First, as those machines and instruments of trade, etc. require a
certain expense, first to erect them, and afterwards to support
them, both which expenses, though they make a part of the gross, are
deductions from the neat revenue of the society; so the stock of money
which circulates in any country must require a certain expense, first
to collect it, and afterwards to support it; both which expenses, though
they make a part of the gross, are, in the same manner, deductions from
the neat revenue of the society. A certain quantity of very valuable
materials, gold and silver, and of very curious labour, instead
of augmenting the stock reserved for immediate consumption, the
subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements of individuals, is employed
in supporting that great but expensive instrument of commerce, by
means of which every individual in the society has his subsistence,
conveniencies, and amusements, regularly distributed to him in their
proper proportions.

Secondly, as the machines and instruments of trade, etc. which compose
the fixed capital either of an individual or of a society, make no part
either of the gross or of the neat revenue of either; so money, by means
of which the whole revenue of the society is regularly distributed among
all its different members, makes itself no part of that revenue. The
great wheel of circulation is altogether different from the goods which
are circulated by means of it. The revenue of the society consists
altogether in those goods, and not in the wheel which circulates them.
In computing either the gross or the neat revenue of any society, we
must always, from the whole annual circulation of money and goods,
deduct the whole value of the money, of which not a single farthing can
ever make any part of either.

It is the ambiguity of language only which can make this proposition
appear either doubtful or paradoxical. When properly explained and
understood, it is almost self-evident.

When we talk of any particular sum of money, we sometimes mean nothing
but the metal pieces of which it is composed, and sometimes we include
in our meaning some obscure reference to the goods which can be had in
exchange for it, or to the power of purchasing which the possession of
it conveys. Thus, when we say that the circulating money of England has
been computed at eighteen millions, we mean only to express the amount
of the metal pieces, which some writers have computed, or rather have
supposed, to circulate in that country. But when we say that a man is
worth fifty or a hundred pounds a-year, we mean commonly to express, not
only the amount of the metal pieces which are annually paid to him, but
the value of the goods which he can annually purchase or consume; we
mean commonly to ascertain what is or ought to be his way of living, or
the quantity and quality of the necessaries and conveniencies of life in
which he can with propriety indulge himself.

When, by any particular sum of money, we mean not only to express the
amount of the metal pieces of which it is composed, but to include in
its signification some obscure reference to the goods which can be
had in exchange for them, the wealth or revenue which it in this case
denotes, is equal only to one of the two values which are thus intimated
somewhat ambiguously by the same word, and to the latter more properly
than to the former, to the money's worth more properly than to the
money.

Thus, if a guinea be the weekly pension of a particular person, he
can in the course of the week purchase with it a certain quantity
of subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements. In proportion as this
quantity is great or small, so are his real riches, his real weekly
revenue. His weekly revenue is certainly not equal both to the guinea
and to what can be purchased with it, but only to one or other of those
two equal values, and to the latter more properly than to the former, to
the guinea's worth rather than to the guinea.

If the pension of such a person was paid to him, not in gold, but in
a weekly bill for a guinea, his revenue surely would not so properly
consist in the piece of paper, as in what he could get for it. A guinea
may be considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and
conveniencies upon all the tradesmen in the neighbourhood. The revenue of
the person to whom it is paid, does not so properly consist in the piece
of gold, as in what he can get for it, or in what he can exchange it
for. If it could be exchanged for nothing, it would, like a bill upon a
bankrupt, be of no more value than the most useless piece of paper.

Though the weekly or yearly revenue of all the different inhabitants of
any country, in the same manner, may be, and in reality frequently is,
paid to them in money, their real riches, however, the real weekly or
yearly revenue of all of them taken together, must always be great or
small, in proportion to the quantity of consumable goods which they can
all of them purchase with this money. The whole revenue of all of
them taken together is evidently not equal to both the money and the
consumable goods, but only to one or other of those two values, and to
the latter more properly than to the former.

Though we frequently, therefore, express a person's revenue by the metal
pieces which are annually paid to him, it is because the amount of those
pieces regulates the extent of his power of purchasing, or the value of
the goods which he can annually afford to consume. We still consider his
revenue as consisting in this power of purchasing or consuming, and not
in the pieces which convey it.

But if this is sufficiently evident, even with regard to an individual,
it is still more so with regard to a society. The amount of the metal
pieces which are annually paid to an individual, is often precisely
equal to his revenue, and is upon that account the shortest and best
expression of its value. But the amount of the metal pieces which
circulate in a society, can never be equal to the revenue of all its
members. As the same guinea which pays the weekly pension of one man
to-day, may pay that of another to-morrow, and that of a third the day
thereafter, the amount of the metal pieces which annually circulate
in any country, must always be of much less value than the whole money
pensions annually paid with them. But the power of purchasing, or the
goods which can successively be bought with the whole of those money
pensions, as they are successively paid, must always be precisely of the
same value with those pensions; as must likewise be the revenue of the
different persons to whom they are paid. That revenue, therefore, cannot
consist in those metal pieces, of which the amount is so much inferior
to its value, but in the power of purchasing, in the goods which can
successively be bought with them as they circulate from hand to hand.

Money, therefore, the great wheel of circulation, the great instrument
of commerce, like all other instruments of trade, though it makes a
part, and a very valuable part, of the capital, makes no part of the
revenue of the society to which it belongs; and though the metal pieces
of which it is composed, in the course of their annual circulation,
distribute to every man the revenue which properly belongs to him, they
make themselves no part of that revenue.

Thirdly, and lastly, the machines and instruments of trade, etc. which
compose the fixed capital, bear this further resemblance to that part of
the circulating capital which consists in money; that as every saving
in the expense of erecting and supporting those machines, which does
not diminish the introductive powers of labour, is an improvement of
the neat revenue of the society; so every saving in the expense of
collecting and supporting that part of the circulating capital which
consists in money is an improvement of exactly the same kind.

It is sufficiently obvious, and it has partly, too, been explained
already, in what manner every saving in the expense of supporting the
fixed capital is an improvement of the neat revenue of the society. The
whole capital of the undertaker of every work is necessarily divided
between his fixed and his circulating capital. While his whole capital
remains the same, the smaller the one part, the greater must necessarily
be the other. It is the circulating capital which furnishes the
materials and wages of labour, and puts industry into motion. Every
saving, therefore, in the expense of maintaining the fixed capital,
which does not diminish the productive powers of labour, must increase
the fund which puts industry into motion, and consequently the annual
produce of land and labour, the real revenue of every society.

The substitution of paper in the room of gold and silver money, replaces
a very expensive instrument of commerce with one much less costly, and
sometimes equally convenient. Circulation comes to be carried on by a
new wheel, which it costs less both to erect and to maintain than the
old one. But in what manner this operation is performed, and in what
manner it tends to increase either the gross or the neat revenue of the
society, is not altogether so obvious, and may therefore require some
further explication.

There are several different sorts of paper money; but the circulating
notes of banks and bankers are the species which is best known, and
which seems best adapted for this purpose.

When the people of any particular country have such confidence in the
fortune, probity and prudence of a particular banker, as to believe that
he is always ready to pay upon demand such of his promissory notes as
are likely to be at any time presented to him, those notes come to have
the same currency as gold and silver money, from the confidence that
such money can at any time be had for them.

A particular banker lends among his customers his own promissory notes,
to the extent, we shall suppose, of a hundred thousand pounds. As those
notes serve all the purposes of money, his debtors pay him the same
interest as if he had lent them so much money. This interest is the
source of his gain. Though some of those notes are continually coming
back upon him for payment, part of them continue to circulate for months
and years together. Though he has generally in circulation, therefore,
notes to the extent of a hundred thousand pounds, twenty thousand
pounds in gold and silver may, frequently, be a sufficient provision
for answering occasional demands. By this operation, therefore, twenty
thousand pounds in gold and silver perform all the functions which a
hundred thousand could otherwise have performed. The same exchanges may
be made, the same quantity of consumable goods may be circulated and
distributed to their proper consumers, by means of his promissory notes,
to the value of a hundred thousand pounds, as by an equal value of gold
and silver money. Eighty thousand pounds of gold and silver, therefore,
can in this manner be spared from the circulation of the country; and if
different operations of the the same kind should, at the same time, be
carried on by many different banks and bankers, the whole circulation
may thus be conducted with a fifth part only of the gold and silver
which would otherwise have been requisite.

Let us suppose, for example, that the whole circulating money of some
particular country amounted, at a particular time, to one million
sterling, that sum being then sufficient for circulating the whole
annual produce of their land and labour; let us suppose, too, that some
time thereafter, different banks and bankers issued promissory notes
payable to the bearer, to the extent of one million, reserving in their
different coffers two hundred thousand pounds for answering occasional
demands; there would remain, therefore, in circulation, eight hundred
thousand pounds in gold and silver, and a million of bank notes, or
eighteen hundred thousand pounds of paper and money together. But the
annual produce of the land and labour of the country had before required
only one million to circulate and distribute it to its proper consumers,
and that annual produce cannot be immediately augmented by those
operations of banking. One million, therefore, will be sufficient to
circulate it after them. The goods to be bought and sold being precisely
the same as before, the same quantity of money will be sufficient for
buying and selling them. The channel of circulation, if I may be allowed
such an expression, will remain precisely the same as before. One
million we have supposed sufficient to fill that channel. Whatever,
therefore, is poured into it beyond this sum, cannot run into it, but
must overflow. One million eight hundred thousand pounds are poured into
it. Eight hundred thousand pounds, therefore, must overflow, that sum
being over and above what can be employed in the circulation of the
country. But though this sum cannot be employed at home, it is too
valuable to be allowed to lie idle. It will, therefore, be sent abroad,
in order to seek that profitable employment which it cannot find at
home. But the paper cannot go abroad; because at a distance from the
banks which issue it, and from the country in which payment of it can
be exacted by law, it will not be received in common payments. Gold and
silver, therefore, to the amount of eight hundred thousand pounds, will
be sent abroad, and the channel of home circulation will remain filled
with a million of paper instead of a million of those metals which
filled it before.

But though so great a quantity of gold and silver is thus sent abroad,
we must not imagine that it is sent abroad for nothing, or that its
proprietors make a present of it to foreign nations. They will exchange
it for foreign goods of some kind or another, in order to supply the
consumption either of some other foreign country, or of their own.

If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign country, in order
to supply the consumption of another, or in what is called the carrying
trade, whatever profit they make will be in addition to the neat revenue
of their own country. It is like a new fund, created for carrying on a
new trade; domestic business being now transacted by paper, and the gold
and silver being converted into a fund for this new trade.

If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they
may either, first, purchase such goods as are likely to be consumed by
idle people, who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks,
etc.; or, secondly, they may purchase an additional stock of materials,
tools, and provisions, in order to maintain and employ an additional
number of industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, the value of
their annual consumption.

So far as it is employed in the first way, it promotes prodigality,
increases expense and consumption, without increasing production, or
establishing any permanent fund for supporting that expense, and is in
every respect hurtful to the society.

So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes industry;
and though it increases the consumption of the society, it provides a
permanent fund for supporting that consumption; the people who consume
reproducing, with a profit, the whole value of their annual consumption.
The gross revenue of the society, the annual produce of their land
and labour, is increased by the whole value which the labour of those
workmen adds to the materials upon which they are employed, and their
neat revenue by what remains of this value, after deducting what is
necessary for supporting the tools and instruments of their trade.

That the greater part of the gold and silver which being forced abroad
by those operations of banking, is employed in purchasing foreign goods
for home consumption, is, and must be, employed in purchasing those
of this second kind, seems not only probable, but almost unavoidable.
Though some particular men may sometimes increase their expense very
considerably, though their revenue does not increase at all, we maybe
assured that no class or order of men ever does so; because, though the
principles of common prudence do not always govern the conduct of every
individual, they always influence that of the majority of every class or
order. But the revenue of idle people, considered as a class or order,
cannot, in the smallest degree, be increased by those operations of
banking. Their expense in general, therefore, cannot be much increased
by them, though that of a few individuals among them may, and in reality
sometimes is. The demand of idle people, therefore, for foreign goods,
being the same, or very nearly the same as before, a very small part of
the money which, being forced abroad by those operations of banking, is
employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, is likely to
be employed in purchasing those for their use. The greater part of it
will naturally be destined for the employment of industry, and not for
the maintenance of idleness.

When we compute the quantity of industry which the circulating capital
of any society can employ, we must always have regard to those parts of
it only which consist in provisions, materials, and finished work; the
other, which consists in money, and which serves only to circulate those
three, must always be deducted. In order to put industry into motion,
three things are requisite; materials to work upon, tools to work with,
and the wages or recompence for the sake of which the work is done.
Money is neither a material to work upon, nor a tool to work with; and
though the wages of the workman are commonly paid to him in money, his
real revenue, like that of all other men, consists, not in the money,
but in the money's worth; not in the metal pieces, but in what can be
got for them.

The quantity of industry which any capital can employ, must evidently be
equal to the number of workmen whom it can supply with materials, tools,
and a maintenance suitable to the nature of the work. Money may be
requisite for purchasing the materials and tools of the work, as well as
the maintenance of the workmen; but the quantity of industry which the
whole capital can employ, is certainly not equal both to the money
which purchases, and to the materials, tools, and maintenance, which are
purchased with it, but only to one or other of those two values, and to
the latter more properly than to the former.

When paper is substituted in the room of gold and silver money, the
quantity of the materials, tools, and maintenance, which the whole
circulating capital can supply, may be increased by the whole value of
gold and silver which used to be employed in purchasing them. The whole
value of the great wheel of circulation and distribution is added to
the goods which are circulated and distributed by means of it. The
operation, in some measure, resembles that of the undertaker of some
great work, who, in consequence of some improvement in mechanics, takes
down his old machinery, and adds the difference between its price and
that of the new to his circulating capital, to the fund from which he
furnishes materials and wages to his workmen.

What is the proportion which the circulating money of any country bears
to the whole value of the annual produce circulated by means of it, it
is perhaps impossible to determine. It has been computed by different
authors at a fifth, at a tenth, at a twentieth, and at a thirtieth, part
of that value. But how small soever the proportion which the circulating
money may bear to the whole value of the annual produce, as but a part,
and frequently but a small part, of that produce, is ever destined for
the maintenance of industry, it must always bear a very considerable
proportion to that part. When, therefore, by the substitution of paper,
the gold and silver necessary for circulation is reduced to, perhaps, a
fifth part of the former quantity, if the value of only the greater part
of the other four-fifths be added to the funds which are destined for
the maintenance of industry, it must make a very considerable addition
to the quantity of that industry, and, consequently, to the value of the
annual produce of land and labour.

An operation of this kind has, within these five-and-twenty or thirty
years, been performed in Scotland, by the erection of new banking
companies in almost every considerable town, and even in some country
villages. The effects of it have been precisely those above described.
The business of the country is almost entirely carried on by means of
the paper of those different banking companies, with which purchases
and payments of all kinds are commonly made. Silver very seldom appears,
except in the change of a twenty shilling bank note, and gold still
seldomer. But though the conduct of all those different companies
has not been unexceptionable, and has accordingly required an act of
parliament to regulate it, the country, notwithstanding, has evidently
derived great benefit from their trade. I have heard it asserted, that
the trade of the city of Glasgow doubled in about fifteen years after
the first erection of the banks there; and that the trade of Scotland
has more than quadrupled since the first erection of the two public
banks at Edinburgh; of which the one, called the Bank of Scotland, was
established by act of parliament in 1695, and the other, called the
Royal Bank, by royal charter in 1727. Whether the trade, either of
Scotland in general, or of the city of Glasgow in particular, has really
increased in so great a proportion, during so short a period, I do not
pretend to know. If either of them has increased in this proportion,
it seems to be an effect too great to be accounted for by the sole
operation of this cause. That the trade and industry of Scotland,
however, have increased very considerably during this period, and that
the banks have contributed a good deal to this increase, cannot be
doubted.

The value of the silver money which circulated in Scotland before the
Union in 1707, and which, immediately after it, was brought into the
Bank of Scotland, in order to be recoined, amounted to £411,117: 10: 9
sterling. No account has been got of the gold coin; but it appears from
the ancient accounts of the mint of Scotland, that the value of the gold
annually coined somewhat exceeded that of the silver. There were a
good many people, too, upon this occasion, who, from a diffidence of
repayment, did not bring their silver into the Bank of Scotland; and
there was, besides, some English coin, which was not called in. The
whole value of the gold and silver, therefore, which circulated in
Scotland before the Union, cannot be estimated at less than a million
sterling. It seems to have constituted almost the whole circulation of
that country; for though the circulation of the Bank of Scotland, which
had then no rival, was considerable, it seems to have made but a very
small part of the whole. In the present times, the whole circulation of
Scotland cannot be estimated at less than two millions, of which that
part which consists in gold and silver, most probably, does not amount
to half a million. But though the circulating gold and silver of
Scotland have suffered so great a diminution during this period, its
real riches and prosperity do not appear to have suffered any. Its
agriculture, manufactures, and trade, on the contrary, the annual
produce of its land and labour, have evidently been augmented.

It is chiefly by discounting bills of exchange, that is, by advancing
money upon them before they are due, that the greater part of banks and
bankers issue their promissory notes. They deduct always, upon whatever
sum they advance, the legal interest till the bill shall become due. The
payment of the bill, when it becomes due, replaces to the bank the value
of what had been advanced, together with a clear profit of the interest.
The banker, who advances to the merchant whose bill he discounts, not
gold and silver, but his own promissory notes, has the advantage of
being able to discount to a greater amount by the whole value of
his promissory notes, which he finds, by experience, are commonly in
circulation. He is thereby enabled to make his clear gain of interest on
so much a larger sum.

The commerce of Scotland, which at present is not very great, was
still more inconsiderable when the two first banking companies were
established; and those companies would have had but little trade, had
they confined their business to the discounting of bills of exchange.
They invented, therefore, another method of issuing their promissory
notes; by granting what they call cash accounts, that is, by giving
credit, to the extent of a certain sum (two or three thousand pounds for
example), to any individual who could procure two persons of undoubted
credit and good landed estate to become surety for him, that whatever
money should be advanced to him, within the sum for which the credit
had been given, should be repaid upon demand, together with the legal
interest. Credits of this kind are, I believe, commonly granted by banks
and bankers in all different parts of the world. But the easy terms upon
which the Scotch banking companies accept of repayment are, so far as I
know, peculiar to them, and have perhaps been the principal cause,
both of the great trade of those companies, and of the benefit which the
country has received from it.

Whoever has a credit of this kind with one of those companies, and
borrows a thousand pounds upon it, for example, may repay this
sum piece-meal, by twenty and thirty pounds at a time, the company
discounting a proportionable part of the interest of the great sum, from
the day on which each of those small sums is paid in, till the whole be
in this manner repaid. All merchants, therefore, and almost all men of
business, find it convenient to keep such cash accounts with them,
and are thereby interested to promote the trade of those companies, by
readily receiving their notes in all payments, and by encouraging all
those with whom they have any influence to do the same. The banks, when
their customers apply to them for money, generally advance it to them
in their own promissory notes. These the merchants pay away to the
manufacturers for goods, the manufacturers to the farmers for materials
and provisions, the farmers to their landlords for rent; the landlords
repay them to the merchants for the conveniencies and luxuries with
which they supply them, and the merchants again return them to the
banks, in order to balance their cash accounts, or to replace what they
my have borrowed of them; and thus almost the whole money business of
the country is transacted by means of them. Hence the great trade of
those companies.

By means of those cash accounts, every merchant can, without imprudence,
carry on a greater trade than he otherwise could do. If there are two
merchants, one in London and the other in Edinburgh, who employ equal
stocks in the same branch of trade, the Edinburgh merchant can, without
imprudence, carry on a greater trade, and give employment to a greater
number of people, than the London merchant. The London merchant must
always keep by him a considerable sum of money, either in his own
coffers, or in those of his banker, who gives him no interest for it, in
order to answer the demands continually coming upon him for payment of
the goods which he purchases upon credit. Let the ordinary amount of
this sum be supposed five hundred pounds; the value of the goods in his
warehouse must always be less, by five hundred pounds, than it would
have been, had he not been obliged to keep such a sum unemployed. Let us
suppose that he generally disposes of his whole stock upon hand, or of
goods to the value of his whole stock upon hand, once in the year. By
being obliged to keep so great a sum unemployed, he must sell in a year
five hundred pounds worth less goods than he might otherwise have done.
His annual profits must be less by all that he could have made by the
sale of five hundred pounds worth more goods; and the number of people
employed in preparing his goods for the market must be less by all those
that five hundred pounds more stock could have employed. The merchant
in Edinburgh, on the other hand, keeps no money unemployed for answering
such occasional demands. When they actually come upon him, he satisfies
them from his cash account with the bank, and gradually replaces the
sum borrowed with the money or paper which comes in from the occasional
sales of his goods. With the same stock, therefore, he can, without
imprudence, have at all times in his warehouse a larger quantity of
goods than the London merchant; and can thereby both make a greater
profit himself, and give constant employment to a greater number of
industrious people who prepare those goods for the market. Hence the
great benefit which the country has derived from this trade.

The facility of discounting bills of exchange, it may be thought,
indeed, gives the English merchants a conveniency equivalent to the cash
accounts of the Scotch merchants. But the Scotch merchants, it must
be remembered, can discount their bills of exchange as easily as the
English merchants; and have, besides, the additional conveniency of
their cash accounts.

The whole paper money of every kind which can easily circulate in any
country, never can exceed the value of the gold and silver, of which
it supplies the place, or which (the commerce being supposed the same)
would circulate there, if there was no paper money. If twenty shilling
notes, for example, are the lowest paper money current in Scotland, the
whole of that currency which can easily circulate there, cannot exceed
the sum of gold and silver which would be necessary for transacting
the annual exchanges of twenty shillings value and upwards usually
transacted within that country. Should the circulating paper at any
time exceed that sum, as the excess could neither be sent abroad nor be
employed in the circulation of the country, it must immediately return
upon the banks, to be exchanged for gold and silver. Many people would
immediately perceive that they had more of this paper than was necessary
for transacting their business at home; and as they could not send it
abroad, they would immediately demand payment for it from the banks.
When this superfluous paper was converted into gold and silver, they
could easily find a use for it, by sending it abroad; but they
could find none while it remained in the shape of paper. There would
immediately, therefore, be a run upon the banks to the whole extent
of this superfluous paper, and if they showed any difficulty or
backwardness in payment, to a much greater extent; the alarm which this
would occasion necessarily increasing the run.

Over and above the expenses which are common to every branch of trade,
such as the expense of house-rent, the wages of servants, clerks,
accountants, etc. the expenses peculiar to a bank consist chiefly in two
articles: first, in the expense of keeping at all times in its coffers,
for answering the occasional demands of the holders of its notes, a
large sum of money, of which it loses the interest; and, secondly, in
the expense of replenishing those coffers as fast as they are emptied by
answering such occasional demands.

A banking company which issues more paper than can be employed in the
circulation of the country, and of which the excess is continually
returning upon them for payment, ought to increase the quantity of gold
and silver which they keep at all times in their coffers, not only in
proportion to this excessive increase of their circulation, but in a
much greater proportion; their notes returning upon them much faster
than in proportion to the excess of their quantity. Such a company,
therefore, ought to increase the first article of their expense, not
only in proportion to this forced increase of their business, but in a
much greater proportion.

The coffers of such a company, too, though they ought to be filled much
fuller, yet must empty themselves much faster than if their business was
confined within more reasonable bounds, and must require not only a more
violent, but a more constant and uninterrupted exertion of expense, in
order to replenish them, The coin, too, which is thus continually drawn
in such large quantities from their coffers, cannot be employed in the
circulation of the country. It comes in place of a paper which is over
and above what can be employed in that circulation, and is, therefore,
over and above what can be employed in it too. But as that coin will
not be allowed to lie idle, it must, in one shape or another, be sent
abroad, in order to find that profitable employment which it cannot find
at home; and this continual exportation of gold and silver, by enhancing
the difficulty, must necessarily enhance still farther the expense of
the bank, in finding new gold and silver in order to replenish those
coffers, which empty themselves so very rapidly. Such a company,
therefore, must in proportion to this forced increase of their business,
increase the second article of their expense still more than the first.

Let us suppose that all the paper of a particular bank, which the
circulation of the country can easily absorb and employ, amounts exactly
to forty thousand pounds, and that, for answering occasional demands,
this bank is obliged to keep at all times in its coffers ten thousand
pounds in gold and silver. Should this bank attempt to circulate
forty-four thousand pounds, the four thousand pounds which are over and
above what the circulation can easily absorb and employ, will return
upon it almost as fast as they are issued. For answering occasional
demands, therefore, this bank ought to keep at all times in its coffers,
not eleven thousand pounds only, but fourteen thousand pounds. It will
thus gain nothing by the interest of the four thousand pounds excessive
circulation; and it will lose the whole expense of continually
collecting four thousand pounds in gold and silver, which will be
continually going out of its coffers as fast as they are brought into
them.

Had every particular banking company always understood and attended
to its own particular interest, the circulation never could have been
overstocked with paper money. But every particular banking company has
not always understood or attended to its own particular interest, and
the circulation has frequently been overstocked with paper money.

By issuing too great a quantity of paper, of which the excess was
continually returning, in order to be exchanged for gold and silver, the
Bank of England was for many years together obliged to coin gold to the
extent of between eight hundred thousand pounds and a million a-year;
or, at an average, about eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. For
this great coinage, the bank (inconsequence of the worn and degraded
state into which the gold coin had fallen a few years ago) was
frequently obliged to purchase gold bullion at the high price of four
pounds an ounce, which it soon after issued in coin at £3:17:10 1/2 an
ounce, losing in this manner between two and a half and three per cent.
upon the coinage of so very large a sum. Though the bank, therefore,
paid no seignorage, though the government was properly at the expense of
this coinage, this liberality of government did not prevent altogether
the expense of the bank.

The Scotch banks, in consequence of an excess of the same kind, were all
obliged to employ constantly agents at London to collect money for them,
at an expense which was seldom below one and a half or two per cent.
This money was sent down by the waggon, and insured by the carriers at
an additional expense of three quarters per cent. or fifteen shillings
on the hundred pounds. Those agents were not always able to replenish
the coffers of their employers so fast as they were emptied. In this
case, the resource of the banks was, to draw upon their correspondents
in London bills of exchange, to the extent of the sum which they wanted.
When those correspondents afterwards drew upon them for the payment
of this sum, together with the interest and commission, some of those
banks, from the distress into which their excessive circulation had
thrown them, had sometimes no other means of satisfying this draught,
but by drawing a second set of bills, either upon the same, or upon some
other correspondents in London; and the same sum, or rather bills for
the same sum, would in this manner make sometimes more than two or three
journeys; the debtor bank paying always the interest and commission
upon the whole accumulated sum. Even those Scotch banks which never
distinguished themselves by their extreme imprudence, were sometimes
obliged to employ this ruinous resource.

The gold coin which was paid out, either by the Bank of England or by
the Scotch banks, in exchange for that part of their paper which was
over and above what could be employed in the circulation of the
country, being likewise over and above what could be employed in that
circulation, was sometimes sent abroad in the shape of coin, sometimes
melted down and sent abroad in the shape of bullion, and sometimes
melted down and sold to the Bank of England at the high price of four
pounds an ounce. It was the newest, the heaviest, and the best pieces
only, which were carefully picked out of the whole coin, and either sent
abroad or melted down. At home, and while they remained in the shape of
coin, those heavy pieces were of no more value than the light; but they
were of more value abroad, or when melted down into bullion at home. The
Bank of England, notwithstanding their great annual coinage, found, to
their astonishment, that there was every year the same scarcity of coin
as there had been the year before; and that, notwithstanding the great
quantity of good and new coin which was every year issued from the bank,
the state of the coin, instead of growing better and better, became
every year worse and worse. Every year they found themselves under the
necessity of coining nearly the same quantity of gold as they had
coined the year before; and from the continual rise in the price of gold
bullion, in consequence of the continual wearing and clipping of the
coin, the expense of this great annual coinage became, every year,
greater and greater. The Bank of England, it is to be observed, by
supplying its own coffers with coin, is indirectly obliged to supply the
whole kingdom, into which coin is continually flowing from those coffers
in a great variety of ways. Whatever coin, therefore, was wanted to
support this excessive circulation both of Scotch and English paper
money, whatever vacuities this excessive circulation occasioned in the
necessary coin of the kingdom, the Bank of England was obliged to supply
them. The Scotch banks, no doubt, paid all of them very dearly for
their own imprudence and inattention: but the Bank of England paid
very dearly, not only for its own imprudence, but for the much greater
imprudence of almost all the Scotch banks.

The over-trading of some bold projectors in both parts of the united
kingdom, was the original cause of this excessive circulation of paper
money.

What a bank can with propriety advance to a merchant or undertaker of
any kind, is not either the whole capital with which he trades, or even
any considerable part of that capital; but that part of it only which he
would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed and in ready money,
for answering occasional demands. If the paper money which the bank
advances never exceeds this value, it can never exceed the value of
the gold and silver which would necessarily circulate in the country
if there was no paper money; it can never exceed the quantity which the
circulation of the country can easily absorb and employ.

When a bank discounts to a merchant a real bill of exchange, drawn by a
real creditor upon a real debtor, and which, as soon as it becomes due,
is really paid by that debtor; it only advances to him a part of the
value which he would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed and
in ready money, for answering occasional demands. The payment of the
bill, when it becomes due, replaces to the bank the value of what it had
advanced, together with the interest. The coffers of the bank, so far as
its dealings are confined to such customers, resemble a water-pond,
from which, though a stream is continually running out, yet another is
continually running in, fully equal to that which runs out; so that,
without any further care or attention, the pond keeps always equally, or
very near equally full. Little or no expense can ever be necessary for
replenishing the coffers of such a bank.

A merchant, without over-trading, may frequently have occasion for a
sum of ready money, even when he has no bills to discount. When a
bank, besides discounting his bills, advances him likewise, upon such
occasions, such sums upon his cash account, and accepts of a piece-meal
repayment, as the money comes in from the occasional sale of his goods,
upon the easy terms of the banking companies of Scotland; it dispenses
him entirely from the necessity of keeping any part of his stock by him
unemployed and in ready money for answering occasional demands. When
such demands actually come upon him, he can answer them sufficiently
from his cash account. The bank, however, in dealing with such
customers, ought to observe with great attention, whether, in the course
of some short period (of four, five, six, or eight months, for example),
the sum of the repayments which it commonly receives from them, is, or
is not, fully equal to that of the advances which it commonly makes
to them. If, within the course of such short periods, the sum of the
repayments from certain customers is, upon most occasions, fully equal
to that of the advances, it may safely continue to deal with such
customers. Though the stream which is in this case continually running
out from its coffers may be very large, that which is continually
running into them must be at least equally large, so that, without any
further care or attention, those coffers are likely to be always equally
or very near equally full, and scarce ever to require any extraordinary
expense to replenish them. If, on the contrary, the sum of the
repayments from certain other customers, falls commonly very much
short of the advances which it makes to them, it cannot with any safety
continue to deal with such customers, at least if they continue to deal
with it in this manner. The stream which is in this case continually
running out from its coffers, is necessarily much larger than that which
is continually running in; so that, unless they are replenished by
some great and continual effort of expense, those coffers must soon be
exhausted altogether.

The banking companies of Scotland, accordingly, were for a long time
very careful to require frequent and regular repayments from all their
customers, and did not care to deal with any person, whatever might be
his fortune or credit, who did not make, what they called, frequent and
regular operations with them. By this attention, besides saving almost
entirely the extraordinary expense of replenishing their coffers, they
gained two other very considerable advantages.

First, by this attention they were enabled to make some tolerable
judgment concerning the thriving or declining circumstances of their
debtors, without being obliged to look out for any other evidence
besides what their own books afforded them; men being, for the most
part, either regular or irregular in their repayments, according as
their circumstances are either thriving or declining. A private man who
lends out his money to perhaps half a dozen or a dozen of debtors, may,
either by himself or his agents, observe and inquire both constantly and
carefully into the conduct and situation of each of them. But a banking
company, which lends money to perhaps five hundred different people,
and of which the attention is continually occupied by objects of a very
different kind, can have no regular information concerning the conduct
and circumstances of the greater part of its debtors, beyond what its
own books afford it. In requiring frequent and regular repayments from
all their customers, the banking companies of Scotland had probably this
advantage in view.

Secondly, by this attention they secured themselves from the possibility
of issuing more paper money than what the circulation of the country
could easily absorb and employ. When they observed, that within moderate
periods of time, the repayments of a particular customer were, upon most
occasions, fully equal to the advances which they had made to him, they
might be assured that the paper money which they had advanced to him
had not, at any time, exceeded the quantity of gold and silver which
he would otherwise have been obliged to keep by him for answering
occasional demands; and that, consequently, the paper money, which they
had circulated by his means, had not at any time exceeded the quantity
of gold and silver which would have circulated in the country, had
there been no paper money. The frequency, regularity, and amount of
his repayments, would sufficiently demonstrate that the amount of their
advances had at no time exceeded that part of his capital which he would
otherwise have been obliged to keep by him unemployed, and in ready
money, for answering occasional demands; that is, for the purpose of
keeping the rest of his capital in constant employment. It is this
part of his capital only which, within moderate periods of time, is
continually returning to every dealer in the shape of money, whether
paper or coin, and continually going from him in the same shape. If the
advances of the bank had commonly exceeded this part of his capital, the
ordinary amount of his repayments could not, within moderate periods
of time, have equalled the ordinary amount of its advances. The stream
which, by means of his dealings, was continually running into the
coffers of the bank, could not have been equal to the stream which, by
means of the same dealings was continually running out. The advances of
the bank paper, by exceeding the quantity of gold and silver which, had
there been no such advances, he would have been obliged to keep by him
for answering occasional demands, might soon come to exceed the whole
quantity of gold and silver which ( the commerce being supposed the same
) would have circulated in the country, had there been no paper money;
and, consequently, to exceed the quantity which the circulation of the
country could easily absorb and employ; and the excess of this paper
money would immediately have returned upon the bank, in order to be
exchanged for gold and silver. This second advantage, though equally
real, was not, perhaps, so well understood by all the different banking
companies in Scotland as the first.

When, partly by the conveniency of discounting bills, and partly by that
of cash accounts, the creditable traders of any country can be
dispensed from the necessity of keeping any part of their stock by them
unemployed, and in ready money, for answering occasional demands, they
can reasonably expect no farther assistance from hanks and bankers,
who, when they have gone thus far, cannot, consistently with their own
interest and safety, go farther. A bank cannot, consistently with its
own interest, advance to a trader the whole, or even the greater part
of the circulating capital with which he trades; because, though that
capital is continually returning to him in the shape of money, and going
from him in the same shape, yet the whole of the returns is too distant
from the whole of the outgoings, and the sum of his repayments could not
equal the sum of his advances within such moderate periods of time
as suit the conveniency of a bank. Still less could a bank afford to
advance him any considerable part of his fixed capital; of the capital
which the undertaker of an iron forge, for example, employs in erecting
his forge and smelting-houses, his work-houses, and warehouses,
the dwelling-houses of his workmen, etc.; of the capital which the
undertaker of a mine employs in sinking his shafts, in erecting engines
for drawing out the water, in making roads and waggon-ways, etc.; of
the capital which the person who undertakes to improve land employs
in clearing, draining, inclosing, manuring, and ploughing waste and
uncultivated fields; in building farmhouses, with all their necessary
appendages of stables, granaries, etc. The returns of the fixed capital
are, in almost all cases, much slower than those of the circulating
capital: and such expenses, even when laid out with the greatest
prudence and judgment, very seldom return to the undertaker till after
a period of many years, a period by far too distant to suit the
conveniency of a bank. Traders and other undertakers may, no doubt with
great propriety, carry on a very considerable part of their projects
with borrowed money. In justice to their creditors, however, their own
capital ought in this case to be sufficient to insure, if I may say so,
the capital of those creditors; or to render it extremely improbable
that those creditors should incur any loss, even though the success
of the project should fall very much short of the expectation of the
projectors. Even with this precaution, too, the money which is borrowed,
and which it is meant should not be repaid till after a period of
several years, ought not to be borrowed of a bank, but ought to be
borrowed upon bond or mortgage, of such private people as propose
to live upon the interest of their money, without taking the trouble
themselves to employ the capital, and who are, upon that account,
willing to lend that capital to such people of good credit as are likely
to keep it for several years. A bank, indeed, which lends its money
without the expense of stamped paper, or of attorneys' fees for drawing
bonds and mortgages, and which accepts of repayment upon the easy
terms of the banking companies of Scotland, would, no doubt, be a very
convenient creditor to such traders and undertakers. But such traders
and undertakers would surely be most inconvenient debtors to such a
bank.

It is now more than five and twenty years since the paper money issued
by the different banking companies of Scotland was fully equal, or
rather was somewhat more than fully equal, to what the circulation of
the country could easily absorb and employ. Those companies, therefore,
had so long ago given all the assistance to the traders and other
undertakers of Scotland which it is possible for banks and bankers,
consistently with their own interest, to give. They had even done
somewhat more. They had over-traded a little, and had brought upon
themselves that loss, or at least that diminution of profit, which, in
this particular business, never fails to attend the smallest degree of
over-trading. Those traders and other undertakers, having got so much
assistance from banks and bankers, wished to get still more. The banks,
they seem to have thought, could extend their credits to whatever sum
might be wanted, without incurring any other expense besides that of
a few reams of paper. They complained of the contracted views and
dastardly spirit of the directors of those banks, which did not, they
said, extend their credits in proportion to the extension of the trade
of the country; meaning, no doubt, by the extension of that trade, the
extension of their own projects beyond what they could carry on either
with their own capital, or with what they had credit to borrow of
private people in the usual way of bond or mortgage. The banks, they
seem to have thought, were in honour bound to supply the deficiency, and
to provide them with all the capital which they wanted to trade with.
The banks, however, were of a different opinion; and upon their refusing
to extend their credits, some of those traders had recourse to an
expedient which, for a time, served their purpose, though at a much
greater expense, yet as effectually as the utmost extension of bank
credits could have done. This expedient was no other than the well known
shift of drawing and redrawing; the shift to which unfortunate traders
have sometimes recourse, when they are upon the brink of bankruptcy. The
practice of raising money in this manner had been long known in England;
and, during the course of the late war, when the high profits of trade
afforded a great temptation to over-trading, is said to have been
carried on to a very great extent. From England it was brought into
Scotland, where, in proportion to the very limited commerce, and to the
very moderate capital of the country, it was soon carried on to a much
greater extent than it ever had been in England.

The practice of drawing and redrawing is so well known to all men of
business, that it may, perhaps, be thought unnecessary to give any
account of it. But as this book may come into the hands of many people
who are not men of business, and as the effects of this practice upon
the banking trade are not, perhaps, generally understood, even by men of
business themselves, I shall endeavour to explain it as distinctly as I
can.

The customs of merchants, which were established when the barbarous laws
of Europe did not enforce the performance of their contracts, and which,
during the course of the two last centuries, have been adopted into the
laws of all European nations, have given such extraordinary privileges
to bills of exchange, that money is more readily advanced upon them
than upon any other species of obligation; especially when they are
made payable within so short a period as two or three months after their
date. If, when the bill becomes due, the acceptor does not pay it as
soon as it is presented, he becomes from that moment a bankrupt. The
bill is protested, and returns upon the drawer, who, if he does not
immediately pay it, becomes likewise a bankrupt. If, before it came to
the person who presents it to the acceptor for payment, it had passed
through the hands of several other persons, who had successively
advanced to one another the contents of it, either in money or goods,
and who, to express that each of them had in his turn received those
contents, had all of them in their order indorsed, that is, written
their names upon the back of the bill; each indorser becomes in his turn
liable to the owner of the bill for those contents, and, if he fails to
pay, he becomes too, from that moment, a bankrupt. Though the drawer,
acceptor, and indorsers of the bill, should all of them be persons
of doubtful credit; yet, still the shortness of the date gives some
security to the owner of the bill. Though all of them may be very likely
to become bankrupts, it is a chance if they all become so in so short
a time. The house is crazy, says a weary traveller to himself, and will
not stand very long; but it is a chance if it falls to-night, and I will
venture, therefore, to sleep in it to-night.

The trader A in Edinburgh, we shall suppose, draws a bill upon B in
London, payable two months after date. In reality B in London owes
nothing to A in Edinburgh; but he agrees to accept of A 's bill, upon
condition, that before the term of payment he shall redraw upon A in
Edinburgh for the same sum, together with the interest and a commission,
another bill, payable likewise two months after date. B accordingly,
before the expiration of the first two months, redraws this bill upon A
in Edinburgh; who, again before the expiration of the second two months,
draws a second bill upon B in London, payable likewise two months after
date; and before the expiration of the third two months, B in London
redraws upon A in Edinburgh another bill payable also two months after
date. This practice has sometimes gone on, not only for several months,
but for several years together, the bill always returning upon A in
Edinburgh with the accumulated interest and commission of all the former
bills. The interest was five per cent. in the year, and the commission
was never less than one half per cent. on each draught. This commission
being repeated more than six times in the year, whatever money A might
raise by this expedient might necessarily have cost him something more
than eight per cent. in the year and sometimes a great deal more, when
either the price of the commission happened to rise, or when he was
obliged to pay compound interest upon the interest and commission of
former bills. This practice was called raising money by circulation.

In a country where the ordinary profits of stock, in the greater part of
mercantile projects, are supposed to run between six and ten per cent.
it must have been a very fortunate speculation, of which the returns
could not only repay the enormous expense at which the money was thus
borrowed for carrying it on, but afford, besides, a good surplus profit
to the projector. Many vast and extensive projects, however, were
undertaken, and for several years carried on, without any other fund
to support them besides what was raised at this enormous expense. The
projectors, no doubt, had in their golden dreams the most distinct
vision of this great profit. Upon their awakening, however, either at
the end of their projects, or when they were no longer able to carry
them on, they very seldom, I believe, had the good fortune to find it.

{The method described in the text was by no means either the most common
or the most expensive one in which those adventurers sometimes raised
money by circulation. It frequently happened, that A in Edinburgh would
enable B in London to pay the first bill of exchange, by drawing, a few
days before it became due, a second bill at three months date upon the
same B in London. This bill, being payable to his own order, A sold in
Edinburgh at par; and with its contents purchased bills upon London,
payable at sight to the order of B, to whom he sent them by the post.
Towards the end of the late war, the exchange between Edinburgh and
London was frequently three per cent. against Edinburgh, and those bills
at sight must frequently have cost A that premium. This transaction,
therefore, being repeated at least four times in the year, and being
loaded with a commission of at least one half per cent. upon each
repetition, must at that period have cost A, at least, fourteen per
cent. in the year. At other times A would enable to discharge the first
bill of exchange, by drawing, a few days before it became due, a second
bill at two months date, not upon B, but upon some third person, C, for
example, in London. This other bill was made payable to the order of
B, who, upon its being accepted by C, discounted it with some banker in
London; and A enabled C to discharge it, by drawing, a few day's before
it became due, a third bill likewise at two months date, sometimes
upon his first correspondent B, and sometimes upon some fourth or fifth
person, D or E, for example. This third bill was made payable to the
order of C, who, as soon as it was accepted, discounted it in the same
manner with some banker in London. Such operations being repeated at
least six times in the year, and being loaded with a commission of at
least one half per cent. upon each repetition, together with the legal
interest of five per cent. this method of raising money, in the same
manner as that described in the text, must have cost A something more
than eight per cent. By saving, however, the exchange between Edinburgh
and London, it was less expensive than that mentioned in the foregoing
part of this note; but then it required an established credit with more
houses than one in London, an advantage which many of these adventurers
could not always find it easy to procure.}

The bills which A in Edinburgh drew upon B in London, he regularly
discounted two months before they were due, with some bank or banker in
Edinburgh; and the bills which B in London redrew upon A in Edinburgh,
he as regularly discounted, either with the Bank of England, or with
some other banker in London. Whatever was advanced upon such circulating
bills was in Edinburgh advanced in the paper of the Scotch banks; and in
London, when they were discounted at the Bank of England in the paper of
that bank. Though the bills upon which this paper had been advanced were
all of them repaid in their turn as soon as they became due, yet the
value which had been really advanced upon the first bill was never
really returned to the banks which advanced it; because, before each
bill became due, another bill was always drawn to somewhat a greater
amount than the bill which was soon to be paid: and the discounting of
this other bill was essentially necessary towards the payment of that
which was soon to be due. This payment, therefore, was altogether
fictitious. The stream which, by means of those circulating bills of
exchange, had once been made to run out from the coffers of the banks,
was never replaced by any stream which really ran into them.

The paper which was issued upon those circulating bills of exchange
amounted, upon many occasions, to the whole fund destined for carrying
on some vast and extensive project of agriculture, commerce, or
manufactures; and not merely to that part of it which, had there been
no paper money, the projector would have been obliged to keep by him
unemployed, and in ready money, for answering occasional demands. The
greater part of this paper was, consequently, over and above the value
of the gold and silver which would have circulated in the country, had
there been no paper money. It was over and above, therefore, what the
circulation of the country could easily absorb and employ, and upon that
account, immediately returned upon the banks, in order to be exchanged
for gold and silver, which they were to find as they could. It was a
capital which those projectors had very artfully contrived to draw from
those banks, not only without their knowledge or deliberate consent, but
for some time, perhaps, without their having the most distant suspicion
that they had really advanced it.

When two people, who are continually drawing and redrawing upon one
another, discount their bills always with the same banker, he must
immediately discover what they are about, and see clearly that they are
trading, not with any capital of their own, but with the capital which
he advances to them. But this discovery is not altogether so easy when
they discount their bills sometimes with one banker, and sometimes with
another, and when the two same persons do not constantly draw and redraw
upon one another, but occasionally run the round of a great circle of
projectors, who find it for their interest to assist one another in
this method of raising money and to render it, upon that account, as
difficult as possible to distinguish between a real and a fictitious
bill of exchange, between a bill drawn by a real creditor upon a real
debtor, and a bill for which there was properly no real creditor but the
bank which discounted it, nor any real debtor but the projector who made
use of the money. When a banker had even made this discovery, he
might sometimes make it too late, and might find that he had already
discounted the bills of those projectors to so great an extent, that,
by refusing to discount any more, he would necessarily make them all
bankrupts; and thus by ruining them, might perhaps ruin himself. For his
own interest and safety, therefore, he might find it necessary, in this
very perilous situation, to go on for some time, endeavouring, however,
to withdraw gradually, and, upon that account, making every day greater
and greater difficulties about discounting, in order to force these
projectors by degrees to have recourse, either to other bankers, or to
other methods of raising money: so as that he himself might, as soon as
possible, get out of the circle. The difficulties, accordingly, which
the Bank of England, which the principal bankers in London, and which
even the more prudent Scotch banks began, after a certain time, and when
all of them had already gone too far, to make about discounting, not
only alarmed, but enraged, in the highest degree, those projectors.
Their own distress, of which this prudent and necessary reserve of the
banks was, no doubt, the immediate occasion, they called the distress of
the country; and this distress of the country, they said, was altogether
owing to the ignorance, pusillanimity, and bad conduct of the
banks, which did not give a sufficiently liberal aid to the spirited
undertakings of those who exerted themselves in order to beautify,
improve, and enrich the country. It was the duty of the banks, they
seemed to think, to lend for as long a time, and to as great an extent,
as they might wish to borrow. The banks, however, by refusing in this
manner to give more credit to those to whom they had already given a
great deal too much, took the only method by which it was now possible
to save either their own credit, or the public credit of the country.

In the midst of this clamour and distress, a new bank was established
in Scotland, for the express purpose of relieving the distress of the
country. The design was generous; but the execution was imprudent, and
the nature and causes of the distress which it meant to relieve, were
not, perhaps, well understood. This bank was more liberal than any other
had ever been, both in granting cash-accounts, and in discounting bills
of exchange. With regard to the latter, it seems to have made scarce any
distinction between real and circulating bills, but to have discounted
all equally. It was the avowed principle of this bank to advance upon
any reasonable security, the whole capital which was to be employed in
those improvements of which the returns are the most slow and distant,
such as the improvements of land. To promote such improvements was even
said to be the chief of the public-spirited purposes for which it
was instituted. By its liberality in granting cash-accounts, and in
discounting bills of exchange, it, no doubt, issued great quantities of
its bank notes. But those bank notes being, the greater part of them,
over and above what the circulation of the country could easily absorb
and employ, returned upon it, in order to be exchanged for gold and
silver, as fast as they were issued. Its coffers were never well filled.
The capital which had been subscribed to this bank, at two different
subscriptions, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of
which eighty per cent. only was paid up. This sum ought to have
been paid in at several different instalments. A great part of the
proprietors, when they paid in their first instalment, opened a
cash-account with the bank; and the directors, thinking themselves
obliged to treat their own proprietors with the same liberality with
which they treated all other men, allowed many of them to borrow
upon this cash-account what they paid in upon all their subsequent
instalments. Such payments, therefore, only put into one coffer what had
the moment before been taken out of another. But had the coffers of
this bank been filled ever so well, its excessive circulation must have
emptied them faster than they could have been replenished by any other
expedient but the ruinous one of drawing upon London; and when the bill
became due, paying it, together with interest and commission, by another
draught upon the same place. Its coffers having been filled so very ill,
it is said to have been driven to this resource within a very few months
after it began to do business. The estates of the proprietors of this
bank were worth several millions, and, by their subscription to the
original bond or contract of the bank, were really pledged for answering
all its engagements. By means of the great credit which so great a
pledge necessarily gave it, it was, notwithstanding its too liberal
conduct, enabled to carry on business for more than two years. When
it was obliged to stop, it had in the circulation about two hundred
thousand pounds in bank notes. In order to support the circulation of
those notes, which were continually returning upon it as fast as they
were issued, it had been constantly in the practice of drawing bills
of exchange upon London, of which the number and value were continually
increasing, and, when it stopt, amounted to upwards of six hundred
thousand pounds. This bank, therefore, had, in little more than the
course of two years, advanced to different people upwards of eight
hundred thousand pounds at five per cent. Upon the two hundred thousand
pounds which it circulated in bank notes, this five per cent. might
perhaps be considered as a clear gain, without any other deduction
besides the expense of management. But upon upwards of six hundred
thousand pounds, for which it was continually drawing bills of exchange
upon London, it was paying, in the way of interest and commission,
upwards of eight per cent. and was consequently losing more than three
per cent. upon more than three fourths of all its dealings.

The operations of this bank seem to have produced effects quite opposite
to those which were intended by the particular persons who planned
and directed it. They seem to have intended to support the spirited
undertakings, for as such they considered them, which were at that time
carrying on in different parts of the country; and, at the same time,
by drawing the whole banking business to themselves, to supplant all the
other Scotch banks, particularly those established at Edinburgh, whose
backwardness in discounting bills of exchange had given some offence.
This bank, no doubt, gave some temporary relief to those projectors, and
enabled them to carry on their projects for about two years longer than
they could otherwise have done. But it thereby only enabled them to get
so much deeper into debt; so that, when ruin came, it fell so much the
heavier both upon them and upon their creditors. The operations of this
bank, therefore, instead of relieving, in reality aggravated in the
long-run the distress which those projectors had brought both upon
themselves and upon their country. It would have been much better for
themselves, their creditors, and their country, had the greater part of
them been obliged to stop two years sooner than they actually did. The
temporary relief, however, which this bank afforded to those projectors,
proved a real and permanent relief to the other Scotch banks. All the
dealers in circulating bills of exchange, which those other banks had
become so backward in discounting, had recourse to this new bank, where
they were received with open arms. Those other banks, therefore, were
enabled to get very easily out of that fatal circle, from which they
could not otherwise have disengaged themselves without incurring a
considerable loss, and perhaps, too, even some degree of discredit.

In the long-run, therefore, the operations of this bank increased the
real distress of the country, which it meant to relieve; and effectually
relieved, from a very great distress, those rivals whom it meant to
supplant.

At the first setting out of this bank, it was the opinion of some
people, that how fast soever its coffers might be emptied, it might
easily replenish them, by raising money upon the securities of those to
whom it had advanced its paper. Experience, I believe, soon convinced
them that this method of raising money was by much too slow to answer
their purpose; and that coffers which originally were so ill filled, and
which emptied themselves so very fast, could be replenished by no other
expedient but the ruinous one of drawing bills upon London, and when
they became due, paying them by other draughts on the same place, with
accumulated interest and commission. But though they had been able by
this method to raise money as fast as they wanted it, yet, instead of
making a profit, they must have suffered a loss of every such operation;
so that in the long-run they must have ruined themselves as a mercantile
company, though perhaps not so soon as by the more expensive practice
of drawing and redrawing. They could still have made nothing by the
interest of the paper, which, being over and above what the circulation
of the country could absorb and employ, returned upon them in order to
be exchanged for gold and silver, as fast as they issued it; and for
the payment of which they were themselves continually obliged to
borrow money. On the contrary, the whole expense of this borrowing,
of employing agents to look out for people who had money to lend,
of negotiating with those people, and of drawing the proper bond or
assignment, must have fallen upon them, and have been so much clear loss
upon the balance of their accounts. The project of replenishing their
coffers in this manner may be compared to that of a man who had a
water-pond from which a stream was continually running out, and into
which no stream was continually running, but who proposed to keep it
always equally full, by employing a number of people to go continually
with buckets to a well at some miles distance, in order to bring water
to replenish it.

But though this operation had proved not only practicable, but
profitable to the bank, as a mercantile company; yet the country could
have derived no benefit front it, but, on the contrary, must have
suffered a very considerable loss by it. This operation could not
augment, in the smallest degree, the quantity of money to be lent. It
could only have erected this bank into a sort of general loan office for
the whole country. Those who wanted to borrow must have applied to this
bank, instead of applying to the private persons who had lent it their
money. But a bank which lends money, perhaps to five hundred different
people, the greater part of whom its directors can know very little
about, is not likely to be more judicious in the choice of its debtors
than a private person who lends out his money among a few people whom
he knows, and in whose sober and frugal conduct he thinks he has good
reason to confide. The debtors of such a bank as that whose conduct I
have been giving some account of were likely, the greater part of them,
to be chimerical projectors, the drawers and redrawers of circulating
bills of exchange, who would employ the money in extravagant
undertakings, which, with all the assistance that could be given them,
they would probably never be able to complete, and which, if they should
be completed, would never repay the expense which they had really cost,
would never afford a fund capable of maintaining a quantity of labour
equal to that which had been employed about them. The sober and frugal
debtors of private persons, on the contrary, would be more likely to
employ the money borrowed in sober undertakings which were proportioned
to their capitals, and which, though they might have less of the grand
and the marvellous, would have more of the solid and the profitable;
which would repay with a large profit whatever had been laid out upon
them, and which would thus afford a fund capable of maintaining a much
greater quantity of labour than that which had been employed about them.
The success of this operation, therefore, without increasing in the
smallest degree the capital of the country, would only have transferred
a great part of it from prudent and profitable to imprudent and
unprofitable undertakings.

That the industry of Scotland languished for want of money to employ
it, was the opinion of the famous Mr Law. By establishing a bank of a
particular kind, which he seems to have imagined might issue paper
to the amount of the whole value of all the lands in the country, he
proposed to remedy this want of money. The parliament of Scotland, when
he first proposed his project, did not think proper to adopt it. It was
afterwards adopted, with some variations, by the Duke of Orleans, at
that time regent of France. The idea of the possibility of multiplying
paper money to almost any extent was the real foundation of what is
called the Mississippi scheme, the most extravagant project, both
of banking and stock-jobbing, that perhaps the world ever saw. The
different operations of this scheme are explained so fully, so clearly,
and with so much order and distinctness, by Mr Du Verney, in his
Examination of the Political Reflections upon commerce and finances of
Mr Du Tot, that I shall not give any account of them. The principles
upon which it was founded are explained by Mr Law himself, in a
discourse concerning money and trade, which he published in Scotland
when he first proposed his project. The splendid but visionary
ideas which are set forth in that and some other works upon the same
principles, still continue to make an impression upon many people, and
have, perhaps, in part, contributed to that excess of banking, which has
of late been complained of, both in Scotland and in other places.

The Bank of England is the greatest bank of circulation in Europe. It
was incorporated, in pursuance of an act of parliament, by a charter
under the great seal, dated the 27th of July 1694. It at that time
advanced to government the sum of £1,200,000 for an annuity of £100,000,
or for £ 96,000 a-year, interest at the rate of eight per cent. and
£4,000 year for the expense of management. The credit of the new
government, established by the Revolution, we may believe, must have
been very low, when it was obliged to borrow at so high an interest.

In 1697, the bank was allowed to enlarge its capital stock, by an
ingraftment of £1,001,171:10s. Its whole capital stock, therefore,
amounted at this time to £2,201,171: 10s. This ingraftment is said to
have been for the support of public credit. In 1696, tallies had been
at forty, and fifty, and sixty, per cent. discount, and bank notes at
twenty per cent. {James Postlethwaite's History of the Public Revenue,
p.301.} During the great re-coinage of the silver, which was going on at
this time, the bank had thought proper to discontinue the payment of its
notes, which necessarily occasioned their discredit.

In pursuance of the 7th Anne, c. 7, the bank advanced and paid into
the exchequer the sum of £400,000; making in all the sum of £1,600,000,
which it had advanced upon its original annuity of £96,000 interest,
and £4,000 for expense of management. In 1708, therefore, the credit of
government was as good as that of private persons, since it could borrow
at six per cent. interest, the common legal and market rate of those
times. In pursuance of the same act, the bank cancelled exchequer bills
to the amount of £ 1,775,027: 17s: 10½d. at six per cent. interest, and
was at the same time allowed to take in subscriptions for doubling
its capital. In 1703, therefore, the capital of the bank amounted
to £4,402,343; and it had advanced to government the sum of
£3,375,027:17:10½d.

By a call of fifteen per cent. in 1709, there was paid in, and made
stock, £ 656,204:1:9d.; and by another of ten per cent. in 1710,
£501,448:12:11d. In consequence of those two calls, therefore, the bank
capital amounted to £ 5,559,995:14:8d.

In pursuance of the 3rd George I. c.8, the bank delivered up two
millions of exchequer Bills to be cancelled. It had at this time,
therefore, advanced to government £5,375,027:17 10d. In pursuance of the
8th George I. c.21, the bank purchased of the South-sea company,
stock to the amount of £4,000,000: and in 1722, in consequence of
the subscriptions which it had taken in for enabling it to make this
purchase, its capital stock was increased by £ 3,400,000. At this time,
therefore, the bank had advanced to the public £ 9,375,027 17s. 10½d.;
and its capital stock amounted only to £ 8,959,995:14:8d. It was upon
this occasion that the sum which the bank had advanced to the public,
and for which it received interest, began first to exceed its capital
stock, or the sum for which it paid a dividend to the proprietors of
bank stock; or, in other words, that the bank began to have an undivided
capital, over and above its divided one. It has continued to have an
undivided capital of the same kind ever since. In 1746, the bank had,
upon different occasions, advanced to the public £11,686,800, and its
divided capital had been raised by different calls and subscriptions to
£ 10,780,000. The state of those two sums has continued to be the same
ever since. In pursuance of the 4th of George III. c.25, the bank agreed
to pay to government for the renewal of its charter £110,000, without
interest or re-payment. This sum, therefore did not increase either of
those two other sums.

The dividend of the bank has varied according to the variations in the
rate of the interest which it has, at different times, received for
the money it had advanced to the public, as well as according to other
circumstances. This rate of interest has gradually been reduced from
eight to three per cent. For some years past, the bank dividend has been
at five and a half per cent.

The stability of the bank of England is equal to that of the British
government. All that it has advanced to the public must be lost before
its creditors can sustain any loss. No other banking company in England
can be established by act of parliament, or can consist of more than six
members. It acts, not only as an ordinary bank, but as a great engine of
state. It receives and pays the greater part of the annuities which are
due to the creditors of the public; it circulates exchequer bills; and
it advances to government the annual amount of the land and malt taxes,
which are frequently not paid up till some years thereafter. In these
different operations, its duty to the public may sometimes have obliged
it, without any fault of its directors, to overstock the circulation
with paper money. It likewise discounts merchants' bills, and has,
upon several different occasions, supported the credit of the principal
houses, not only of England, but of Hamburgh and Holland. Upon one
occasion, in 1763, it is said to have advanced for this purpose, in
one week, about £1,600,000, a great part of it in bullion. I do not,
however, pretend to warrant either the greatness of the sum, or the
shortness of the time. Upon other occasions, this great company has been
reduced to the necessity of paying in sixpences.

It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a
greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise
be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the
industry of the country. That part of his capital which a dealer is
obliged to keep by him unemployed and in ready money, for answering
occasional demands, is so much dead stock, which, so long as it remains
in this situation, produces nothing, either to him or to his country.
The judicious operations of banking enable him to convert this dead
stock into active and productive stock; into materials to work upon;
into tools to work with; and into provisions and subsistence to work
for; into stock which produces something both to himself and to his
country. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country,
and by means of which, the produce of its land and labour is annually
circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, is, in the same
manner as the ready money of the dealer, all dead stock. It is a very
valuable part of the capital of the country, which produces nothing to
the country. The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper
in the room of a great part of this gold and silver, enable the country
to convert a great part of this dead stock into active and productive
stock; into stock which produces something to the country. The gold
and silver money which circulates in any country may very properly be
compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries to market
all the grass and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile
of either. The judicious operations of banking, by providing, if I may
be allowed so violent a metaphor, a sort of waggon-way through the air,
enable the country to convert, as it were, a great part of its highways
into good pastures, and corn fields, and thereby to increase, very
considerably, the annual produce of its land and labour. The commerce
and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though
they may be somewhat augmented, cannot be altogether so secure, when
they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper
money, as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and
silver. Over and above the accidents to which they are exposed from the
unskilfulness of the conductors of this paper money, they are liable to
several others, from which no prudence or skill of those conductors can
guard them.

An unsuccessful war, for example, in which the enemy got possession
of the capital, and consequently of that treasure which supported the
credit of the paper money, would occasion a much greater confusion in a
country where the whole circulation was carried on by paper, than in
one where the greater part of it was carried on by gold and silver. The
usual instrument of commerce having lost its value, no exchanges could
be made but either by barter or upon credit. All taxes having been
usually paid in paper money, the prince would not have wherewithal
either to pay his troops, or to furnish his magazines; and the state of
the country would be much more irretrievable than if the greater part of
its circulation had consisted in gold and silver. A prince, anxious to
maintain his dominions at all times in the state in which he can most
easily defend them, ought upon this account to guard not only against
that excessive multiplication of paper money which ruins the very banks
which issue it, but even against that multiplication of it which enables
them to fill the greater part of the circulation of the country with it.

The circulation of every country may be considered as divided into two
different branches; the circulation of the dealers with one another, and
the circulation between the dealers and the consumers. Though the same
pieces of money, whether paper or metal, may be employed sometimes
in the one circulation and sometimes in the other; yet as both are
constantly going on at the same time, each requires a certain stock of
money, of one kind or another, to carry it on. The value of the goods
circulated between the different dealers never can exceed the value
of those circulated between the dealers and the consumers; whatever
is bought by the dealers being ultimately destined to be sold to the
consumers. The circulation between the dealers, as it is carried on by
wholesale, requires generally a pretty large sum for every particular
transaction. That between the dealers and the consumers, on the
contrary, as it is generally carried on by retail, frequently requires
but very small ones, a shilling, or even a halfpenny, being often
sufficient. But small sums circulate much faster than large ones. A
shilling changes masters more frequently than a guinea, and a halfpenny
more frequently than a shilling. Though the annual purchases of all the
consumers, therefore, are at least equal in value to those of all the
dealers, they can generally be transacted with a much smaller quantity
of money; the same pieces, by a more rapid circulation, serving as the
instrument of many more purchases of the one kind than of the other.

Paper money may be so regulated as either to confine itself very much
to the circulation between the different dealers, or to extend itself
likewise to a great part of that between the dealers and the consumers.
Where no bank notes are circulated under £10 value, as in London, paper
money confines itself very much to the circulation between the dealers.
When a ten pound bank note comes into the hands of a consumer, he is
generally obliged to change it at the first shop where he has occasion
to purchase five shillings worth of goods; so that it often returns into
the hands of a dealer before the consumer has spent the fortieth part of
the money. Where bank notes are issued for so small sums as 20s. as
in Scotland, paper money extends itself to a considerable part of the
circulation between dealers and consumers. Before the Act of parliament
which put a stop to the circulation of ten and five shilling notes, it
filled a still greater part of that circulation. In the currencies
of North America, paper was commonly issued for so small a sum as a
shilling, and filled almost the whole of that circulation. In some paper
currencies of Yorkshire, it was issued even for so small a sum as a
sixpence.

Where the issuing of bank notes for such very small sums is allowed, and
commonly practised, many mean people are both enabled and encouraged to
become bankers. A person whose promissory note for £5, or even for 20s.
would be rejected by every body, will get it to be received without
scruple when it is issued for so small a sum as a sixpence. But the
frequent bankruptcies to which such beggarly bankers must be liable, may
occasion a very considerable inconveniency, and sometimes even a very
great calamity, to many poor people who had received their notes in
payment.

It were better, perhaps, that no bank notes were issued in any part of
the kingdom for a smaller sum than £5. Paper money would then, probably,
confine itself, in every part of the kingdom, to the circulation between
the different dealers, as much as it does at present in London, where
no bank notes are issued under £10 value; £5 being, in most part of the
kingdom, a sum which, though it will purchase, perhaps, little more
than half the quantity of goods, is as much considered, and is as seldom
spent all at once, as £10 are amidst the profuse expense of London.

Where paper money, it is to be observed, is pretty much confined to the
circulation between dealers and dealers, as at London, there is always
plenty of gold and silver. Where it extends itself to a considerable
part of the circulation between dealers and consumers, as in Scotland,
and still more in North America, it banishes gold and silver almost
entirely from the country; almost all the ordinary transactions of its
interior commerce being thus carried on by paper. The suppression of ten
and five shilling bank notes, somewhat relieved the scarcity of gold and
silver in Scotland; and the suppression of twenty shilling notes will
probably relieve it still more. Those metals are said to have become
more abundant in America, since the suppression of some of their paper
currencies. They are said, likewise, to have been more abundant before
the institution of those currencies.

Though paper money should be pretty much confined to the circulation
between dealers and dealers, yet banks and bankers might still be able
to give nearly the same assistance to the industry and commerce of
the country, as they had done when paper money filled almost the whole
circulation. The ready money which a dealer is obliged to keep by
him, for answering occasional demands, is destined altogether for the
circulation between himself and other dealers of whom he buys goods. He
has no occasion to keep any by him for the circulation between himself
and the consumers, who are his customers, and who bring ready money to
him, instead of taking any from him. Though no paper money, therefore,
was allowed to be issued, but for such sums as would confine it pretty
much to the circulation between dealers and dealers; yet partly
by discounting real bills of exchange, and partly by lending upon
cash-accounts, banks and bankers might still be able to relieve
the greater part of those dealers from the necessity of keeping any
considerable part of their stock by them unemployed, and in ready money,
for answering occasional demands. They might still be able to give the
utmost assistance which banks and bankers can with propriety give to
traders of every kind.

To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment
the promissory notes of a banker for any sum, whether great or small,
when they themselves are willing to receive them; or, to restrain a
banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to
accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty, which
it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such
regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respect a violation
of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few
individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society,
are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the
most free, as well as or the most despotical. The obligation of building
party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a
violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the
regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.

A paper money, consisting in bank notes, issued by people of undoubted
credit, payable upon demand, without any condition, and, in fact, always
readily paid as soon as presented, is, in every respect, equal in value
to gold and silver money, since gold and silver money can at anytime
be had for it. Whatever is either bought or sold for such paper, must
necessarily be bought or sold as cheap as it could have been for gold
and silver.

The increase of paper money, it has been said, by augmenting the
quantity, and consequently diminishing the value, of the whole currency,
necessarily augments the money price of commodities. But as the quantity
of gold and silver, which is taken from the currency, is always equal
to the quantity of paper which is added to it, paper money does not
necessarily increase the quantity of the whole currency. From the
beginning of the last century to the present time, provisions never were
cheaper in Scotland than in 1759, though, from the circulation of ten
and five shilling bank notes, there was then more paper money in the
country than at present. The proportion between the price of provisions
in Scotland and that in England is the same now as before the great
multiplication of banking companies in Scotland. Corn is, upon most
occasions, fully as cheap in England as in France, though there is a
great deal of paper money in England, and scarce any in France. In 1751
and 1752, when Mr Hume published his Political Discourses, and soon
after the great multiplication of paper money in Scotland, there was a
very sensible rise in the price of provisions, owing, probably, to the
badness of the seasons, and not to the multiplication of paper money.

It would be otherwise, indeed, with a paper money, consisting in
promissory notes, of which the immediate payment depended, in any
respect, either upon the good will of those who issued them, or upon a
condition which the holder of the notes might not always have it in his
power to fulfil, or of which the payment was not exigible till after a
certain number of years, and which, in the mean time, bore no interest.
Such a paper money would, no doubt, fall more or less below the value of
gold and silver, according as the difficulty or uncertainty of obtaining
immediate payment was supposed to be greater or less, or according to
the greater or less distance of time at which payment was exigible.

Some years ago the different banking companies of Scotland were in
the practice of inserting into their bank notes, what they called an
optional clause; by which they promised payment to the bearer, either
as soon as the note should be presented, or, in the option of the
directors, six months after such presentment, together with the legal
interest for the said six months. The directors of some of those
banks sometimes took advantage of this optional clause, and sometimes
threatened those who demanded gold and silver in exchange for a
considerable number of their notes, that they would take advantage of
it, unless such demanders would content themselves with a part of
what they demanded. The promissory notes of those banking companies
constituted, at that time, the far greater part of the currency of
Scotland, which this uncertainty of payment necessarily degraded below
value of gold and silver money. During the continuance of this abuse
(which prevailed chiefly in 1762, 1763, and 1764), while the exchange
between London and Carlisle was at par, that between London and Dumfries
would sometimes be four per cent. against Dumfries, though this town is
not thirty miles distant from Carlisle. But at Carlisle, bills were paid
in gold and silver; whereas at Dumfries they were paid in Scotch bank
notes; and the uncertainty of getting these bank notes exchanged for
gold and silver coin, had thus degraded them four per cent. below the
value of that coin. The same act of parliament which suppressed ten and
five shilling bank notes, suppressed likewise this optional clause,
and thereby restored the exchange between England and Scotland to its
natural rate, or to what the course of trade and remittances might
happen to make it.

In the paper currencies of Yorkshire, the payment of so small a sum as
6d. sometimes depended upon the condition, that the holder of the note
should bring the change of a guinea to the person who issued it; a
condition which the holders of such notes might frequently find it very
difficult to fulfil, and which must have degraded this currency below
the value of gold and silver money. An act of parliament, accordingly,
declared all such clauses unlawful, and suppressed, in the same manner
as in Scotland, all promissory notes, payable to the bearer, under 20s.
value.

The paper currencies of North America consisted, not in bank notes
payable to the bearer on demand, but in a government paper, of which
the payment was not exigible till several years after it was issued; and
though the colony governments paid no interest to the holders of this
paper, they declared it to be, and in fact rendered it, a legal tender
of payment for the full value for which it was issued. But allowing the
colony security to be perfectly good, £100, payable fifteen years hence,
for example, in a country where interest is at six per cent., is worth
little more than £40 ready money. To oblige a creditor, therefore, to
accept of this as full payment for a debt of £100, actually paid down
in ready money, was an act of such violent injustice, as has scarce,
perhaps, been attempted by the government of any other country which
pretended to be free. It bears the evident marks of having originally
been, what the honest and downright Doctor Douglas assures us it was, a
scheme of fraudulent debtors to cheat their creditors. The government
of Pennsylvania, indeed, pretended, upon their first emission of paper
money, in 1722, to render their paper of equal value with gold and
silver, by enacting penalties against all those who made any difference
in the price of their goods when they sold them for a colony paper,
and when they sold them for gold and silver, a regulation equally
tyrannical, but much less, effectual, than that which it was meant
to support. A positive law may render a shilling a legal tender for a
guinea, because it may direct the courts of justice to discharge the
debtor who has made that tender; but no positive law can oblige a person
who sells goods, and who is at liberty to sell or not to sell as he
pleases, to accept of a shilling as equivalent to a guinea in the price
of them. Notwithstanding any regulation of this kind, it appeared,
by the course of exchange with Great Britain, that £100 sterling was
occasionally considered as equivalent, in some of the colonies, to £130,
and in others to so great a sum as £1100 currency; this difference in
the value arising from the difference in the quantity of paper emitted
in the different colonies, and in the distance and probability of the
term of its final discharge and redemption.

No law, therefore, could be more equitable than the act of parliament,
so unjustly complained of in the colonies, which declared, that no paper
currency to be emitted there in time coming, should be a legal tender of
payment.

Pennsylvania was always more moderate in its emissions of paper money
than any other of our colonies. Its paper currency, accordingly, is
said never to have sunk below the value of the gold and silver which
was current in the colony before the first emission of its paper money.
Before that emission, the colony had raised the denomination of its
coin, and had, by act of assembly, ordered 5s. sterling to pass in the
colonies for 6s:3d., and afterwards for 6s:8d. A pound, colony currency,
therefore, even when that currency was gold and silver, was more than
thirty per cent. below the value of £1 sterling; and when that currency
was turned into paper, it was seldom much more than thirty per cent.
below that value. The pretence for raising the denomination of the
coin was to prevent the exportation of gold and silver, by making equal
quantities of those metals pass for greater sums in the colony than they
did in the mother country. It was found, however, that the price of all
goods from the mother country rose exactly in proportion as they raised
the denomination of their coin, so that their gold and silver were
exported as fast as ever.

The paper of each colony being received in the payment of the provincial
taxes, for the full value for which it had been issued, it necessarily
derived from this use some additional value, over and above what it
would have had, from the real or supposed distance of the term of its
final discharge and redemption. This additional value was greater or
less, according as the quantity of paper issued was more or less above
what could be employed in the payment of the taxes of the particular
colony which issued it. It was in all the colonies very much above what
could be employed in this manner.

A prince, who should enact that a certain proportion of his taxes should
be paid in a paper money of a certain kind, might thereby give a certain
value to this paper money, even though the term of its final discharge
and redemption should depend altogether upon the will of the prince. If
the bank which issued this paper was careful to keep the quantity of it
always somewhat below what could easily be employed in this manner, the
demand for it might be such as to make it even bear a premium, or sell
for somewhat more in the market than the quantity of gold or silver
currency for which it was issued. Some people account in this manner for
what is called the agio of the bank of Amsterdam, or for the superiority
of bank money over current money, though this bank money, as they
pretend, cannot be taken out of the bank at the will of the owner. The
greater part of foreign bills of exchange must be paid in bank money,
that is, by a transfer in the books of the bank; and the directors of
the bank, they allege, are careful to keep the whole quantity of bank
money always below what this use occasions a demand for. It is upon this
account, they say, the bank money sells for a premium, or bears an agio
of four or five per cent. above the same nominal sum of the gold and
silver currency of the country. This account of the bank of Amsterdam,
however, it will appear hereafter, is in a great measure chimerical.

A paper currency which falls below the value of gold and silver coin,
does not thereby sink the value of those metals, or occasion equal
quantities of them to exchange for a smaller quantity of goods of any
other kind. The proportion between the value of gold and silver and that
of goods of any other kind, depends in all cases, not upon the nature
and quantity of any particular paper money, which may be current in any
particular country, but upon the richness or poverty of the mines,
which happen at any particular time to supply the great market of the
commercial world with those metals. It depends upon the proportion
between the quantity of labour which is necessary in order to bring
a certain quantity of gold and silver to market, and that which is
necessary in order to bring thither a certain quantity of any other sort
of goods.

If bankers are restrained from issuing any circulating bank notes, or
notes payable to the bearer, for less than a certain sum; and if they
are subjected to the obligation of an immediate and unconditional
payment of such bank notes as soon as presented, their trade may, with
safety to the public, be rendered in all other respects perfectly free.
The late multiplication of banking companies in both parts of the united
kingdom, an event by which many people have been much alarmed, instead
of diminishing, increases the security of the public. It obliges all
of them to be more circumspect in their conduct, and, by not extending
their currency beyond its due proportion to their cash, to guard
themselves against those malicious runs, which the rivalship of so
many competitors is always ready to bring upon them. It restrains the
circulation of each particular company within a narrower circle, and
reduces their circulating notes to a smaller number. By dividing the
whole circulation into a greater number of parts, the failure of any
one company, an accident which, in the course of things, must
sometimes happen, becomes of less consequence to the public. This
free competition, too, obliges all bankers to be more liberal in their
dealings with their customers, lest their rivals should carry them
away. In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be
advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition,
it will always be the more so.



CHAPTER III. OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, OR OF PRODUCTIVE AND
UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR.

There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon
which it is bestowed; there is another which has no such effect. The
former as it produces a value, may be called productive, the latter,
unproductive labour. {Some French authors of great learning and
ingenuity have used those words in a different sense. In the last
chapter of the fourth book, I shall endeavour to shew that their sense
is an improper one.} Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds generally
to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own
maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labour of a menial servant,
on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Though the manufacturer
has his wages advanced to him by his master, he in reality costs him
no expense, the value of those wages being generally restored, together
with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which his
labour is bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial servant never is
restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers; he
grows poor by maintaining a multitude or menial servants. The labour of
the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well
as that of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and
realizes itself in some particular subject or vendible commodity, which
lasts for some time at least after that labour is past. It is, as
it were, a certain quantity of labour stocked and stored up, to be
employed, if necessary, upon some other occasion. That subject, or,
what is the same thing, the price of that subject, can afterwards, if
necessary, put into motion a quantity of labour equal to that which
had originally produced it. The labour of the menial servant, on the
contrary, does not fix or realize itself in any particular subject or
vendible commodity. His services generally perish in the very instant of
their performance, and seldom leave any trace of value behind them, for
which an equal quantity of service could afterwards be procured.

The labour of some of the most respectable orders in the society is,
like that of menial servants, unproductive of any value, and does not
fix or realize itself in any permanent subject, or vendible commodity,
which endures after that labour is past, and for which an equal quantity
of labour could afterwards be procured. The sovereign, for example, with
all the officers both of justice and war who serve under him, the whole
army and navy, are unproductive labourers. They are the servants of
the public, and are maintained by a part of the annual produce of the
industry of other people. Their service, how honourable, how useful, or
how necessary soever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity
of service can afterwards be procured. The protection, security, and
defence, of the commonwealth, the effect of their labour this year,
will not purchase its protection, security, and defence, for the year
to come. In the same class must be ranked, some both of the gravest and
most important, and some of the most frivolous professions; churchmen,
lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons,
musicians, opera-singers, opera-dancers, etc. The labour of the meanest
of these has a certain value, regulated by the very same principles
which regulate that of every other sort of labour; and that of the
noblest and most useful, produces nothing which could afterwards
purchase or procure an equal quantity of labour. Like the declamation of
the actor, the harangue of the orator, or the tune of the musician, the
work of all of them perishes in the very instant of its production.

Both productive and unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour
at all, are all equally maintained by the annual produce of the land
and labour of the country. This produce, how great soever, can never
be infinite, but must have certain limits. According, therefore, as
a smaller or greater proportion of it is in any one year employed in
maintaining unproductive hands, the more in the one case, and the
less in the other, will remain for the productive, and the next year's
produce will be greater or smaller accordingly; the whole annual
produce, if we except the spontaneous productions of the earth, being
the effect of productive labour.

Though the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country
is no doubt ultimately destined for supplying the consumption of its
inhabitants, and for procuring a revenue to them; yet when it first
comes either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive
labourers, it naturally divides itself into two parts. One of them, and
frequently the largest, is, in the first place, destined for replacing
a capital, or for renewing the provisions, materials, and finished work,
which had been withdrawn from a capital; the other for constituting a
revenue either to the owner of this capital, as the profit of his stock,
or to some other person, as the rent of his land. Thus, of the produce
of land, one part replaces the capital of the farmer; the other pays his
profit and the rent of the landlord; and thus constitutes a revenue both
to the owner of this capital, as the profits of his stock, and to
some other person as the rent of his land. Of the produce of a great
manufactory, in the same manner, one part, and that always the largest,
replaces the capital of the undertaker of the work; the other pays his
profit, and thus constitutes a revenue to the owner of this capital.

That part of the annual produce of the land and labour of any country
which replaces a capital, never is immediately employed to maintain any
but productive hands. It pays the wages of productive labour only. That
which is immediately destined for constituting a revenue, either as
profit or as rent, may maintain indifferently either productive or
unproductive hands.

Whatever part of his stock a man employs as a capital, he always expects
it to be replaced to him with a profit. He employs it, therefore,
in maintaining productive hands only; and after having served in the
function of a capital to him, it constitutes a revenue to them. Whenever
he employs any part of it in maintaining unproductive hands of any kind,
that part is from that moment withdrawn from his capital, and placed in
his stock reserved for immediate consumption.

Unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all
maintained by revenue; either, first, by that part of the annual
produce which is originally destined for constituting a revenue to some
particular persons, either as the rent of land, or as the profits of
stock; or, secondly, by that part which, though originally destined for
replacing a capital, and for maintaining productive labourers only, yet
when it comes into their hands, whatever part of it is over and
above their necessary subsistence, may be employed in maintaining
indifferently either productive or unproductive hands. Thus, not only
the great landlord or the rich merchant, but even the common workman,
if his wages are considerable, may maintain a menial servant; or he may
sometimes go to a play or a puppet-show, and so contribute his share
towards maintaining one set of unproductive labourers; or he may pay
some taxes, and thus help to maintain another set, more honourable and
useful, indeed, but equally unproductive. No part of the annual produce,
however, which had been originally destined to replace a capital, is
ever directed towards maintaining unproductive hands, till after it has
put into motion its full complement of productive labour, or all that it
could put into motion in the way in which it was employed. The workman
must have earned his wages by work done, before he can employ any part
of them in this manner. That part, too, is generally but a small one. It
is his spare revenue only, of which productive labourers have seldom
a great deal. They generally have some, however; and in the payment of
taxes, the greatness of their number may compensate, in some measure,
the smallness of their contribution. The rent of land and the profits
of stock are everywhere, therefore, the principal sources from which
unproductive hands derive their subsistence. These are the two sorts
of revenue of which the owners have generally most to spare. They might
both maintain indifferently, either productive or unproductive hands.
They seem, however, to have some predilection for the latter. The
expense of a great lord feeds generally more idle than industrious
people. The rich merchant, though with his capital he maintains
industrious people only, yet by his expense, that is, by the employment
of his revenue, he feeds commonly the very same sort as the great lord.

The proportion, therefore, between the productive and unproductive
hands, depends very much in every country upon the proportion between
that part of the annual produce, which, as soon as it comes either from
the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, is destined
for replacing a capital, and that which is destined for constituting a
revenue, either as rent or as profit. This proportion is very different
in rich from what it is in poor countries.

Thus, at present, in the opulent countries of Europe, a very large,
frequently the largest, portion of the produce of the land, is destined
for replacing the capital of the rich and independent farmer; the other
for paying his profits, and the rent of the landlord. But anciently,
during the prevalency of the feudal government, a very small portion
of the produce was sufficient to replace the capital employed in
cultivation. It consisted commonly in a few wretched cattle, maintained
altogether by the spontaneous produce of uncultivated land, and which
might, therefore, be considered as a part of that spontaneous produce.
It generally, too, belonged to the landlord, and was by him advanced to
the occupiers of the land. All the rest of the produce properly belonged
to him too, either as rent for his land, or as profit upon this paltry
capital. The occupiers of land were generally bond-men, whose persons
and effects were equally his property. Those who were not bond-men were
tenants at will; and though the rent which they paid was often nominally
little more than a quit-rent, it really amounted to the whole produce
of the land. Their lord could at all times command their labour in
peace and their service in war. Though they lived at a distance from his
house, they were equally dependent upon him as his retainers who lived
in it. But the whole produce of the land undoubtedly belongs to him, who
can dispose of the labour and service of all those whom it maintains. In
the present state of Europe, the share of the landlord seldom exceeds a
third, sometimes not a fourth part of the whole produce of the land.
The rent of land, however, in all the improved parts of the country, has
been tripled and quadrupled since those ancient times; and this third
or fourth part of the annual produce is, it seems, three or four times
greater than the whole had been before. In the progress of improvement,
rent, though it increases in proportion to the extent, diminishes in
proportion to the produce of the land.

In the opulent countries of Europe, great capitals are at present
employed in trade and manufactures. In the ancient state, the little
trade that was stirring, and the few homely and coarse manufactures that
were carried on, required but very small capitals. These, however, must
have yielded very large profits. The rate of interest was nowhere less
than ten per cent. and their profits must have been sufficient to afford
this great interest. At present, the rate of interest, in the improved
parts of Europe, is nowhere higher than six per cent.; and in some of
the most improved, it is so low as four, three, and two per cent. Though
that part of the revenue of the inhabitants which is derived from the
profits of stock, is always much greater in rich than in poor countries,
it is because the stock is much greater; in proportion to the stock, the
profits are generally much less.

That part of the annual produce, therefore, which, as soon as it comes
either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers,
is destined for replacing a capital, is not only much greater in rich
than in poor countries, but bears a much greater proportion to that
which is immediately destined for constituting a revenue either as
rent or as profit. The funds destined for the maintenance of productive
labour are not only much greater in the former than in the latter,
but bear a much greater proportion to those which, though they may
be employed to maintain either productive or unproductive hands, have
generally a predilection for the latter.

The proportion between those different funds necessarily determines in
every country the general character of the inhabitants as to industry or
idleness. We are more industrious than our forefathers, because, in the
present times, the funds destined for the maintenance of industry are
much greater in proportion to those which are likely to be employed in
the maintenance of idleness, than they were two or three centuries
ago. Our ancestors were idle for want of a sufficient encouragement to
industry. It is better, says the proverb, to play for nothing, than
to work for nothing. In mercantile and manufacturing towns, where the
inferior ranks of people are chiefly maintained by the employment of
capital, they are in general industrious, sober, and thriving; as
in many English, and in most Dutch towns. In those towns which are
principally supported by the constant or occasional residence of a
court, and in which the inferior ranks of people are chiefly maintained
by the spending of revenue, they are in general idle, dissolute, and
poor; as at Rome, Versailles, Compeigne, and Fontainbleau. If you except
Rouen and Bourdeaux, there is little trade or industry in any of the
parliament towns of France; and the inferior ranks of people, being
chiefly maintained by the expense of the members of the courts of
justice, and of those who come to plead before them, are in general idle
and poor. The great trade of Rouen and Bourdeaux seems to be altogether
the effect of their situation. Rouen is necessarily the entrepot of
almost all the goods which are brought either from foreign countries, or
from the maritime provinces of France, for the consumption of the great
city of Paris. Bourdeaux is, in the same manner, the entrepot of the
wines which grow upon the banks of the Garronne, and of the rivers which
run into it, one of the richest wine countries in the world, and which
seems to produce the wine fittest for exportation, or best suited to
the taste of foreign nations. Such advantageous situations necessarily
attract a great capital by the great employment which they afford it;
and the employment of this capital is the cause of the industry of those
two cities. In the other parliament towns of France, very little more
capital seems to be employed than what is necessary for supplying their
own consumption; that is, little more than the smallest capital which
can be employed in them. The same thing may be said of Paris, Madrid,
and Vienna. Of those three cities, Paris is by far the most industrious,
but Paris itself is the principal market of all the manufactures
established at Paris, and its own consumption is the principal object of
all the trade which it carries on. London, Lisbon, and Copenhagen, are,
perhaps, the only three cities in Europe, which are both the constant
residence of a court, and can at the same time be considered as trading
cities, or as cities which trade not only for their own consumption, but
for that of other cities and countries. The situation of all the three
is extremely advantageous, and naturally fits them to be the entrepots
of a great part of the goods destined for the consumption of distant
places. In a city where a great revenue is spent, to employ with
advantage a capital for any other purpose than for supplying the
consumption of that city, is probably more difficult than in one in
which the inferior ranks of people have no other maintenance but what
they derive from the employment of such a capital. The idleness of the
greater part of the people who are maintained by the expense of
revenue, corrupts, it is probable, the industry of those who ought to
be maintained by the employment of capital, and renders it less
advantageous to employ a capital there than in other places. There was
little trade or industry in Edinburgh before the Union. When the Scotch
parliament was no longer to be assembled in it, when it ceased to be the
necessary residence of the principal nobility and gentry of Scotland, it
became a city of some trade and industry. It still continues, however,
to be the residence of the principal courts of justice in Scotland,
of the boards of customs and excise, etc. A considerable revenue,
therefore, still continues to be spent in it. In trade and industry,
it is much inferior to Glasgow, of which the inhabitants are chiefly
maintained by the employment of capital. The inhabitants of a large
village, it has sometimes been observed, after having made considerable
progress in manufactures, have become idle and poor, in consequence of a
great lord's having taken up his residence in their neighbourhood.

The proportion between capital and revenue, therefore, seems everywhere
to regulate the proportion between industry and idleness Wherever
capital predominates, industry prevails; wherever revenue, idleness.
Every increase or diminution of capital, therefore, naturally tends
to increase or diminish the real quantity of industry, the number of
productive hands, and consequently the exchangeable value of the annual
produce of the land and labour of the country, the real wealth and
revenue of all its inhabitants.

Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and
misconduct.

Whatever a person saves from his revenue he adds to his capital,
and either employs it himself in maintaining an additional number of
productive hands, or enables some other person to do so, by lending
it to him for an interest, that is, for a share of the profits. As the
capital of an individual can be increased only by what he saves from his
annual revenue or his annual gains, so the capital of a society, which
is the same with that of all the individuals who compose it, can be
increased only in the same manner.

Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase
of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony
accumulates; but whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not
save and store up, the capital would never be the greater.

Parsimony, by increasing the fund which is destined for the maintenance
of productive hands, tends to increase the number of those hands whose
labour adds to the value of the subject upon winch it is bestowed.
It tends, therefore, to increase the exchangeable value of the annual
produce of the land and labour of the country. It puts into motion an
additional quantity of industry, which gives an additional value to the
annual produce.

What is annually saved, is as regularly consumed as what is annually
spent, and nearly in the same time too: but it is consumed by a
different set of people. That portion of his revenue which a rich man
annually spends, is, in most cases, consumed by idle guests and menial
servants, who leave nothing behind them in return for their consumption.
That portion which he annually saves, as, for the sake of the profit,
it is immediately employed as a capital, is consumed in the same manner,
and nearly in the same time too, but by a different set of people: by
labourers, manufacturers, and artificers, who reproduce, with a profit,
the value of their annual consumption. His revenue, we shall suppose,
is paid him in money. Had he spent the whole, the food, clothing,
and lodging, which the whole could have purchased, would have been
distributed among the former set of people. By saving a part of it,
as that part is, for the sake of the profit, immediately employed as a
capital, either by himself or by some other person, the food, clothing,
and lodging, which may be purchased with it, are necessarily reserved
for the latter. The consumption is the same, but the consumers are
different.

By what a frugal man annually saves, he not only affords maintenance to
an additional number of productive hands, for that of the ensuing year,
but like the founder of a public work-house he establishes, as it were,
a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to
come. The perpetual allotment and destination of this fund, indeed, is
not always guarded by any positive law, by any trust-right or deed of
mortmain. It is always guarded, however, by a very powerful principle,
the plain and evident interest of every individual to whom any share of
it shall ever belong. No part of it can ever afterwards be employed to
maintain any but productive hands, without an evident loss to the person
who thus perverts it from its proper destination.

The prodigal perverts it in this manner: By not confining his expense
within his income, he encroaches upon his capital. Like him who perverts
the revenues of some pious foundation to profane purposes, he pays
the wages of idleness with those funds which the frugality of his
forefathers had, as it were, consecrated to the maintenance of industry.
By diminishing the funds destined for the employment of productive
labour, he necessarily diminishes, so far as it depends upon him, the
quantity of that labour which adds a value to the subject upon which it
is bestowed, and, consequently, the value of the annual produce of the
land and labour of the whole country, the real wealth and revenue of
its inhabitants. If the prodigality of some were not compensated by the
frugality of others, the conduct of every prodigal, by feeding the
idle with the bread of the industrious, would tend not only to beggar
himself, but to impoverish his country.

Though the expense of the prodigal should be altogether in home made,
and no part of it in foreign commodities, its effect upon the productive
funds of the society would still be the same. Every year there would
still be a certain quantity of food and clothing, which ought to have
maintained productive, employed in maintaining unproductive hands. Every
year, therefore, there would still be some diminution in what would
otherwise have been the value of the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country.

This expense, it may be said, indeed, not being in foreign goods, and
not occasioning any exportation of gold and silver, the same quantity of
money would remain in the country as before. But if the quantity of
food and clothing which were thus consumed by unproductive, had been
distributed among productive hands, they would have reproduced, together
with a profit, the full value of their consumption. The same quantity
of money would, in this case, equally have remained in the country,
and there would, besides, have been a reproduction of an equal value of
consumable goods. There would have been two values instead of one.

The same quantity of money, besides, can not long remain in any country
in which the value of the annual produce diminishes. The sole use of
money is to circulate consumable goods. By means of it, provisions,
materials, and finished work, are bought and sold, and distributed to
their proper consumers. The quantity of money, therefore, which can be
annually employed in any country, must be determined by the value of
the consumable goods annually circulated within it. These must consist,
either in the immediate produce of the land and labour of the country
itself, or in something which had been purchased with some part of that
produce. Their value, therefore, must diminish as the value of that
produce diminishes, and along with it the quantity of money which can
be employed in circulating them. But the money which, by this annual
diminution of produce, is annually thrown out of domestic circulation,
will not be allowed to lie idle. The interest of whoever possesses it
requires that it should be employed; but having no employment at home,
it will, in spite of all laws and prohibitions, be sent abroad, and
employed in purchasing consumable goods, which may be of some use at
home. Its annual exportation will, in this manner, continue for some
time to add something to the annual consumption of the country beyond
the value of its own annual produce. What in the days of its prosperity
had been saved from that annual produce, and employed in purchasing
gold and silver, will contribute, for some little time, to support its
consumption in adversity. The exportation of gold and silver is, in this
case, not the cause, but the effect of its declension, and may even, for
some little time, alleviate the misery of that declension.

The quantity of money, on the contrary, must in every country naturally
increase as the value of the annual produce increases. The value of the
consumable goods annually circulated within the society being greater,
will require a greater quantity of money to circulate them. A part
of the increased produce, therefore, will naturally be employed in
purchasing, wherever it is to be had, the additional quantity of gold
and silver necessary for circulating the rest. The increase of those
metals will, in this case, be the effect, not the cause, of the public
prosperity. Gold and silver are purchased everywhere in the same manner.
The food, clothing, and lodging, the revenue and maintenance, of all
those whose labour or stock is employed in bringing them from the mine
to the market, is the price paid for them in Peru as well as in England.
The country which has this price to pay, will never belong without the
quantity of those metals which it has occasion for; and no country will
ever long retain a quantity which it has no occasion for.

Whatever, therefore, we may imagine the real wealth and revenue of a
country to consist in, whether in the value of the annual produce of its
land and labour, as plain reason seems to dictate, or in the quantity
of the precious metals which circulate within it, as vulgar prejudices
suppose; in either view of the matter, every prodigal appears to be a
public enemy, and every frugal man a public benefactor.

The effects of misconduct are often the same as those of prodigality.
Every injudicious and unsuccessful project in agriculture, mines,
fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends in the same manner to diminish
the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. In every
such project, though the capital is consumed by productive hands only,
yet as, by the injudicious manner in which they are employed, they do
not reproduce the full value of their consumption, there must always be
some diminution in what would otherwise have been the productive funds
of the society.

It can seldom happen, indeed, that the circumstances of a great
nation can be much affected either by the prodigality or misconduct of
individuals; the profusion or imprudence of some being always more than
compensated by the frugality and good conduct of others.

With regard to profusion, the principle which prompts to expense is the
passion for present enjoyment; which, though sometimes violent and very
difficult to be restrained, is in general only momentary and occasional.
But the principle which prompts to save, is the desire of bettering
our condition; a desire which, though generally calm and dispassionate,
comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the
grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments, there is
scarce, perhaps, a single instance, in which any man is so perfectly and
completely satisfied with his situation, as to be without any wish of
alteration or improvement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the
means by which the greater part of men propose and wish to better their
condition. It is the means the most vulgar and the most obvious; and the
most likely way of augmenting their fortune, is to save and accumulate
some part of what they acquire, either regularly and annually, or upon
some extraordinary occasion. Though the principle of expense, therefore,
prevails in almost all men upon some occasions, and in some men upon
almost all occasions; yet in the greater part of men, taking the whole
course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality seems not
only to predominate, but to predominate very greatly.

With regard to misconduct, the number of prudent and successful
undertakings is everywhere much greater than that of injudicious
and unsuccessful ones. After all our complaints of the frequency of
bankruptcies, the unhappy men who fall into this misfortune, make but
a very small part of the whole number engaged in trade, and all other
sorts of business; not much more, perhaps, than one in a thousand.
Bankruptcy is, perhaps, the greatest and most humiliating calamity
which can befal an innocent man. The greater part of men, therefore, are
sufficiently careful to avoid it. Some, indeed, do not avoid it; as some
do not avoid the gallows.

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes
are by public prodigality and misconduct. The whole, or almost the
whole public revenue is, in most countries, employed in maintaining
unproductive hands. Such are the people who compose a numerous and
splendid court, a great ecclesiastical establishment, great fleets and
armies, who in time of peace produce nothing, and in time of war acquire
nothing which can compensate the expense of maintaining them, even while
the war lasts. Such people, as they themselves produce nothing, are
all maintained by the produce of other men's labour. When multiplied,
therefore, to an unnecessary number, they may in a particular year
consume so great a share of this produce, as not to leave a sufficiency
for maintaining the productive labourers, who should reproduce it next
year. The next year's produce, therefore, will be less than that of the
foregoing; and if the same disorder should continue, that of the third
year will be still less than that of the second. Those unproductive
hands who should be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of
the people, may consume so great a share of their whole revenue, and
thereby oblige so great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon
the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour, that
all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be able to
compensate the waste and degradation of produce occasioned by this
violent and forced encroachment.

This frugality and good conduct, however, is, upon most occasions, it
appears from experience, sufficient to compensate, not only the private
prodigality and misconduct of individuals, but the public extravagance
of government. The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of
every man to better his condition, the principle from which public
and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is
frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things
towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government,
and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle
of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the
constitution, in spite not only of the disease, but of the absurd
prescriptions of the doctor.

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased
in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of
its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers
who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers,
it is evident, can never be much increased, but in consequence of an
increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The
productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased,
but in consequence either of some addition and improvement to those
machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labour, or of
more proper division and distribution of employment. In either case,
an additional capital is almost always required. It is by means of an
additional capital only, that the undertaker of any work can either
provide his workmen with better machinery, or make a more proper
distribution of employment among them. When the work to be done consists
of a number of parts, to keep every man constantly employed in one way,
requires a much greater capital than where every man is occasionally
employed in every different part of the work. When we compare,
therefore, the state of a nation at two different periods, and find that
the annual produce of its land and labour is evidently greater at the
latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its
manufactures more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade more
extensive; we may be assured that its capital must have increased during
the interval between those two periods, and that more must have been
added to it by the good conduct of some, than had been taken from
it either by the private misconduct of others, or by the public
extravagance of government. But we shall find this to have been the case
of almost all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times,
even of those who have not enjoyed the most prudent and parsimonious
governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the
state of the country at periods somewhat distant from one another.
The progress is frequently so gradual, that, at near periods, the
improvement is not only not sensible, but, from the declension either
of certain branches of industry, or of certain districts of the country,
things which sometimes happen, though the country in general is in great
prosperity, there frequently arises a suspicion, that the riches and
industry of the whole are decaying.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, for example, is
certainly much greater than it was a little more than a century ago, at
the restoration of Charles II. Though at present few people, I believe,
doubt of this, yet during this period five years have seldom passed
away, in which some book or pamphlet has not been published, written,
too, with such abilities as to gain some authority with the public,
and pretending to demonstrate that the wealth of the nation was fast
declining; that the country was depopulated, agriculture neglected,
manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have these publications
been all party pamphlets, the wretched offspring of falsehood and
venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very
intelligent people, who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no
other reason but because they believed it.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, again, was
certainly much greater at the Restoration than we can suppose it to have
been about a hundred years before, at the accession of Elizabeth. At
this period, too, we have all reason to believe, the country was much
more advanced in improvement, than it had been about a century before,
towards the close of the dissensions between the houses of York and
Lancaster. Even then it was, probably, in a better condition than it had
been at the Norman conquest: and at the Norman conquest, than during
the confusion of the Saxon heptarchy. Even at this early period, it was
certainly a more improved country than at the invasion of Julius Caesar,
when its inhabitants were nearly in the same state with the savages in
North America.

In each of those periods, however, there was not only much private and
public profusion, many expensive and unnecessary wars, great perversion
of the annual produce from maintaining productive to maintain
unproductive hands; but sometimes, in the confusion of civil discord,
such absolute waste and destruction of stock, as might be supposed, not
only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural accumulation of riches,
but to have left the country, at the end of the period, poorer than at
the beginning. Thus, in the happiest and most fortunate period of them
all, that which has passed since the Restoration, how many disorders
and misfortunes have occurred, which, could they have been foreseen, not
only the impoverishment, but the total ruin of the country would have
been expected from them? The fire and the plague of London, the two
Dutch wars, the disorders of the revolution, the war in Ireland, the
four expensive French wars of 1688, 1701, 1742, and 1756, together with
the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the course of the four French
wars, the nation has contracted more than £145,000,000 of debt, over and
above all the other extraordinary annual expense which they occasioned;
so that the whole cannot be computed at less than £200,000,000. So great
a share of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country,
has, since the Revolution, been employed upon different occasions, in
maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive hands. But had not
those wars given this particular direction to so large a capital, the
greater part of it would naturally have been employed in maintaining
productive hands, whose labour would have replaced, with a profit, the
whole value of their consumption. The value of the annual produce of the
land and labour of the country would have been considerably increased by
it every year, and every years increase would have augmented still more
that of the following year. More houses would have been built, more
lands would have been improved, and those which had been improved before
would have been better cultivated; more manufactures would have been
established, and those which had been established before would have been
more extended; and to what height the real wealth and revenue of the
country might by this time have been raised, it is not perhaps very easy
even to imagine.

But though the profusion of government must undoubtedly have retarded
the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has
not been able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour
is undoubtedly much greater at present than it was either at the
Restoration or at the Revolution. The capital, therefore, annually
employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour,
must likewise be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions of
government, this capital has been silently and gradually accumulated
by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their
universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own
condition. It is this effort, protected by law, and allowed by liberty
to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has
maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement in
almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all
future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a
very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the
characteristic virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence
and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch
over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense,
either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign
luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the
greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own
expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their
own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of the subject never
will.

As frugality increases, and prodigality diminishes, the public capital,
so the conduct of those whose expense just equals their revenue, without
either accumulating or encroaching, neither increases nor diminishes it.
Some modes of expense, however, seem to contribute more to the growth of
public opulence than others.

The revenue of an individual may be spent, either in things which
are consumed immediately, and in which one day's expense can neither
alleviate nor support that of another; or it may be spent in things mere
durable, which can therefore be accumulated, and in which every day's
expense may, as he chooses, either alleviate, or support and heighten,
the effect of that of the following day. A man of fortune, for example,
may either spend his revenue in a profuse and sumptuous table, and in
maintaining a great number of menial servants, and a multitude of
dogs and horses; or, contenting himself with a frugal table, and few
attendants, he may lay out the greater part of it in adorning his house
or his country villa, in useful or ornamental buildings, in useful or
ornamental furniture, in collecting books, statues, pictures; or in
things more frivolous, jewels, baubles, ingenious trinkets of different
kinds; or, what is most trifling of all, in amassing a great wardrobe of
fine clothes, like the favourite and minister of a great prince who died
a few years ago. Were two men of equal fortune to spend their revenue,
the one chiefly in the one way, the other in the other, the magnificence
of the person whose expense had been chiefly in durable commodities,
would be continually increasing, every day's expense contributing
something to support and heighten the effect of that of the following
day; that of the other, on the contrary, would be no greater at the end
of the period than at the beginning. The former too would, at the end of
the period, be the richer man of the two. He would have a stock of goods
of some kind or other, which, though it might not be worth all that
it cost, would always be worth something. No trace or vestige of the
expense of the latter would remain, and the effects of ten or twenty
years' profusion would be as completely annihilated as if they had never
existed.

As the one mode of expense is more favourable than the other to the
opulence of an individual, so is it likewise to that of a nation. The
houses, the furniture, the clothing of the rich, in a little time,
become useful to the inferior and middling ranks of people. They are
able to purchase them when their superiors grow weary of them; and the
general accommodation of the whole people is thus gradually improved,
when this mode of expense becomes universal among men of fortune.
In countries which have long been rich, you will frequently find the
inferior ranks of people in possession both of houses and furniture
perfectly good and entire, but of which neither the one could have been
built, nor the other have been made for their use. What was formerly
a seat of the family of Seymour, is now an inn upon the Bath road. The
marriage-bed of James I. of Great Britain, which his queen brought
with her from Denmark, as a present fit for a sovereign to make to
a sovereign, was, a few years ago, the ornament of an alehouse at
Dunfermline. In some ancient cities, which either have been long
stationary, or have gone somewhat to decay, you will sometimes scarce
find a single house which could have been built for its present
inhabitants. If you go into those houses, too, you will frequently find
many excellent, though antiquated pieces of furniture, which are still
very fit for use, and which could as little have been made for them.
Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collections of books, statues,
pictures, and other curiosities, are frequently both an ornament and an
honour, not only to the neighbourhood, but to the whole country to which
they belong. Versailles is an ornament and an honour to France, Stowe
and Wilton to England. Italy still continues to command some sort of
veneration, by the number of monuments of this kind which it possesses,
though the wealth which produced them has decayed, and though the genius
which planned them seems to be extinguished, perhaps from not having the
same employment.

The expense, too, which is laid out in durable commodities, is
favourable not only to accumulation, but to frugality. If a person
should at any time exceed in it, he can easily reform without exposing
himself to the censure of the public. To reduce very much the number
of his servants, to reform his table from great profusion to great
frugality, to lay down his equipage after he has once set it up, are
changes which cannot escape the observation of his neighbours, and which
are supposed to imply some acknowledgment of preceding bad conduct. Few,
therefore, of those who have once been so unfortunate as to launch
out too far into this sort of expense, have afterwards the courage to
reform, till ruin and bankruptcy oblige them. But if a person has, at
any time, been at too great an expense in building, in furniture, in
books, or pictures, no imprudence can be inferred from his changing
his conduct. These are things in which further expense is frequently
rendered unnecessary by former expense; and when a person stops short,
he appears to do so, not because he has exceeded his fortune, but
because he has satisfied his fancy.

The expense, besides, that is laid out in durable commodities, gives
maintenance, commonly, to a greater number of people than that which is
employed in the most profuse hospitality. Of two or three hundred weight
of provisions, which may sometimes be served up at a great festival, one
half, perhaps, is thrown to the dunghill, and there is always a great
deal wasted and abused. But if the expense of this entertainment had
been employed in setting to work masons, carpenters, upholsterers,
mechanics, etc. a quantity of provisions of equal value would have
been distributed among a still greater number of people, who would
have bought them in pennyworths and pound weights, and not have lost
or thrown away a single ounce of them. In the one way, besides, this
expense maintains productive, in the other unproductive hands. In the
one way, therefore, it increases, in the other it does not increase the
exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the
country.

I would not, however, by all this, be understood to mean, that the one
species of expense always betokens a more liberal or generous spirit
than the other. When a man of fortune spends his revenue chiefly in
hospitality, he shares the greater part of it with his friends
and companions; but when he employs it in purchasing such durable
commodities, he often spends the whole upon his own person, and gives
nothing to any body without an equivalent. The latter species of
expense, therefore, especially when directed towards frivolous objects,
the little ornaments of dress and furniture, jewels, trinkets, gew-gaws,
frequently indicates, not only a trifling, but a base and selfish
disposition. All that I mean is, that the one sort of expense, as it
always occasions some accumulation of valuable commodities, as it is
more favourable to private frugality, and, consequently, to the increase
of the public capital, and as it maintains productive rather than
unproductive hands, conduces more than the other to the growth of public
opulence.



CHAPTER IV. OF STOCK LENT AT INTEREST.

The stock which is lent at interest is always considered as a capital by
the lender. He expects that in due time it is to be restored to him, and
that, in the mean time, the borrower is to pay him a certain annual rent
for the use of it. The borrower may use it either as a capital, or as a
stock reserved for immediate consumption. If he uses it as a capital, he
employs it in the maintenance of productive labourers, who reproduce the
value, with a profit. He can, in this case, both restore the capital,
and pay the interest, without alienating or encroaching upon any other
source of revenue. If he uses it as a stock reserved for immediate
consumption, he acts the part of a prodigal, and dissipates, in the
maintenance of the idle, what was destined for the support of the
industrious. He can, in this case, neither restore the capital nor pay
the interest, without either alienating or encroaching upon some other
source of revenue, such as the property or the rent of land.

The stock which is lent at interest is, no doubt, occasionally employed
in both these ways, but in the former much more frequently than in the
latter. The man who borrows in order to spend will soon be ruined, and
he who lends to him will generally have occasion to repent of his folly.
To borrow or to lend for such a purpose, therefore, is, in all cases,
where gross usury is out of the question, contrary to the interest of
both parties; and though it no doubt happens sometimes, that people do
both the one and the other, yet, from the regard that all men have for
their own interest, we may be assured, that it cannot happen so very
frequently as we are sometimes apt to imagine. Ask any rich man of
common prudence, to which of the two sorts of people he has lent
the greater part of his stock, to those who he thinks will employ it
profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at
you for proposing the question. Even among borrowers, therefore, not the
people in the world most famous for frugality, the number of the frugal
and industrious surpasses considerably that of the prodigal and idle.

The only people to whom stock is commonly lent, without their being
expected to make any very profitable use of it, are country gentlemen,
who borrow upon mortgage. Even they scarce ever borrow merely to spend.
What they borrow, one may say, is commonly spent before they borrow it.
They have generally consumed so great a quantity of goods, advanced
to them upon credit by shop-keepers and tradesmen, that they find it
necessary to borrow at interest, in order to pay the debt. The capital
borrowed replaces the capitals of those shop-keepers and tradesmen which
the country gentlemen could not have replaced from the rents of their
estates. It is not properly borrowed in order to be spent, but in order
to replace a capital which had been spent before.

Almost all loans at interest are made in money, either of paper, or of
gold and silver; but what the borrower really wants, and what the lender
readily supplies him with, is not the money, but the money's worth, or
the goods which it can purchase. If he wants it as a stock for immediate
consumption, it is those goods only which he can place in that stock. If
he wants it as a capital for employing industry, it is from those goods
only that the industrious can be furnished with the tools, materials,
and maintenance necessary for carrying on their work. By means of the
loan, the lender, as it were, assigns to the borrower his right to a
certain portion of the annual produce of the land and labour of the
country, to be employed as the borrower pleases.

The quantity of stock, therefore, or, as it is commonly expressed, of
money, which can be lent at interest in any country, is not regulated
by the value of the money, whether paper or coin, which serves as the
instrument of the different loans made in that country, but by the value
of that part of the annual produce, which, as soon as it comes either
from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, is
destined, not only for replacing a capital, but such a capital as the
owner does not care to be at the trouble of employing himself. As such
capitals are commonly lent out and paid back in money, they constitute
what is called the monied interest. It is distinct, not only from the
landed, but from the trading and manufacturing interests, as in these
last the owners themselves employ their own capitals. Even in the monied
interest, however, the money is, as it were, but the deed of assignment,
which conveys from one hand to another those capitals which the owners
do not care to employ themselves. Those capitals may be greater, in
almost any proportion, than the amount of the money which serves as the
instrument of their conveyance; the same pieces of money successively
serving for many different loans, as well as for many different
purchases. A, for example, lends to W £1000, with which W immediately
purchases of B £1000 worth of goods. B having no occasion for the money
himself, lends the identical pieces to X, with which X immediately
purchases of C another £1000 worth of goods. C, in the same manner, and
for the same reason, lends them to Y, who again purchases goods with
them of D. In this manner, the same pieces, either of coin or of paper,
may, in the course of a few days, serve as the Instrument of three
different loans, and of three different purchases, each of which is, in
value, equal to the whole amount of those pieces. What the three monied
men, A, B, and C, assigned to the three borrowers, W, X, and Y, is the
power of making those purchases. In this power consist both the value
and the use of the loans. The stock lent by the three monied men is
equal to the value of the goods which can be purchased with it, and is
three times greater than that of the money with which the purchases are
made. Those loans, however, may be all perfectly well secured, the goods
purchased by the different debtors being so employed as, in due time,
to bring back, with a profit, an equal value either of coin or of paper.
And as the same pieces of money can thus serve as the instrument of
different loans to three, or, for the same reason, to thirty times their
value, so they may likewise successively serve as the instrument of
repayment.

A capital lent at interest may, in this manner, be considered as an
assignment, from the lender to the borrower, of a certain considerable
portion of the annual produce, upon condition that the burrower in
return shall, during the continuance of the loan, annually assign to the
lender a small portion, called the interest; and, at the end of it,
a portion equally considerable with that which had originally been
assigned to him, called the repayment. Though money, either coin or
paper, serves generally as the deed of assignment, both to the smaller
and to the more considerable portion, it is itself altogether different
from what is assigned by it.

In proportion as that share of the annual produce which, as soon as
it comes either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive
labourers, is destined for replacing a capital, increases in any
country, what is called the monied interest naturally increases with it.
The increase of those particular capitals from which the owners wish
to derive a revenue, without being at the trouble of employing them
themselves, naturally accompanies the general increase of capitals; or,
in other words, as stock increases, the quantity of stock to be lent at
interest grows gradually greater and greater.

As the quantity of stock to be lent at interest increases, the interest,
or the price which must be paid for the use of that stock, necessarily
diminishes, not only from those general causes which make the market
price of things commonly diminish as their quantity increases, but from
other causes which are peculiar to this particular case. As capitals
increase in any country, the profits which can be made by employing them
necessarily diminish. It becomes gradually more and more difficult
to find within the country a profitable method of employing any new
capital. There arises, in consequence, a competition between different
capitals, the owner of one endeavouring to get possession of that
employment which is occupied by another; but, upon most occasions, he
can hope to justle that other out of this employment by no other means
but by dealing upon more reasonable terms. He must not only sell what
he deals in somewhat cheaper, but, in order to get it to sell, he must
sometimes, too, buy it dearer. The demand for productive labour, by the
increase of the funds which are destined for maintaining it, grows
every day greater and greater. Labourers easily find employment; but the
owners of capitals find it difficult to get labourers to employ. Their
competition raises the wages of labour, and sinks the profits of stock.
But when the profits which can be made by the use of a capital are in
this manner diminished, as it were, at both ends, the price which can be
paid for the use of it, that is, the rate of interest, must necessarily
be diminished with them.

Mr Locke, Mr Lawe, and Mr Montesquieu, as well as many other writers,
seem to have imagined that the increase of the quantity of gold and
silver, in consequence of the discovery of the Spanish West Indies,
was the real cause of the lowering of the rate of interest through the
greater part of Europe. Those metals, they say, having become of less
value themselves, the use of any particular portion of them necessarily
became of less value too, and, consequently, the price which could be
paid for it. This notion, which at first sight seems so plausible, has
been so fully exposed by Mr Hume, that it is, perhaps, unnecessary
to say any thing more about it. The following very short and plain
argument, however, may serve to explain more distinctly the fallacy
which seems to have misled those gentlemen.

Before the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, ten per cent. seems
to have been the common rate of interest through the greater part of
Europe. It has since that time, in different countries, sunk to six,
five, four, and three per cent. Let us suppose, that in every particular
country the value of silver has sunk precisely in the same proportion
as the rate of interest; and that in those countries, for example, where
interest has been reduced from ten to five per cent. the same quantity
of silver can now purchase just half the quantity of goods which it
could have purchased before. This supposition will not, I believe, be
found anywhere agreeable to the truth; but it is the most favourable
to the opinion which we are going to examine; and, even upon this
supposition, it is utterly impossible that the lowering of the value of
silver could have the smallest tendency to lower the rate of interest.
If £100 are in those countries now of no more value than £50 were then,
£10 must now be of no more value than £5 were then. Whatever were the
causes which lowered the value of the capital, the same must necessarily
have lowered that of the interest, and exactly in the same proportion.
The proportion between the value of the capital and that of the interest
must have remained the same, though the rate had never been altered.
By altering the rate, on the contrary, the proportion between those two
values is necessarily altered. If £100 now are worth no more than
£50 were then, £5 now can be worth no more than £2:10s. were then. By
reducing the rate of interest, therefore, from ten to five per cent. we
give for the use of a capital, which is supposed to be equal to one half
of its former value, an interest which is equal to one fourth only of
the value of the former interest.

An increase in the quantity of silver, while that of the commodities
circulated by means of it remained the same, could have no other effect
than to diminish the value of that metal. The nominal value of all sorts
of goods would be greater, but their real value would be precisely the
same as before. They would be exchanged for a greater number of pieces
of silver; but the quantity of labour which they could command, the
number of people whom they could maintain and employ, would be precisely
the same. The capital of the country would be the same, though a greater
number of pieces might be requisite for conveying any equal portion
of it from one hand to another. The deeds of assignment, like the
conveyances of a verbose attorney, would be more cumbersome; but the
thing assigned would be precisely the same as before, and could produce
only the same effects. The funds for maintaining productive labour
being the same, the demand for it would be the same. Its price or wages,
therefore, though nominally greater, would really be the same. They
would be paid in a greater number of pieces of silver, but they would
purchase only the same quantity of goods. The profits of stock would be
the same, both nominally and really. The wages of labour are commonly
computed by the quantity of silver which is paid to the labourer. When
that is increased, therefore, his wages appear to be increased, though
they may sometimes be no greater than before. But the profits of stock
are not computed by the number of pieces of silver with which they are
paid, but by the proportion which those pieces bear to the whole capital
employed. Thus, in a particular country, 5s. a-week are said to be the
common wages of labour, and ten per cent. the common profits of stock;
but the whole capital of the country being the same as before, the
competition between the different capitals of individuals into which it
was divided would likewise be the same. They would all trade with the
same advantages and disadvantages. The common proportion between capital
and profit, therefore, would be the same, and consequently the common
interest of money; what can commonly be given for the use of money being
necessarily regulated by what can commonly be made by the use of it.

Any increase in the quantity of commodities annually circulated within
the country, while that of the money which circulated them remained
the same, would, on the contrary, produce many other important effects,
besides that of raising the value of the money. The capital of the
country, though it might nominally be the same, would really be
augmented. It might continue to be expressed by the same quantity of
money, but it would command a greater quantity of labour. The quantity
of productive labour which it could maintain and employ would be
increased, and consequently the demand for that labour. Its wages would
naturally rise with the demand, and yet might appear to sink. They might
be paid with a smaller quantity of money, but that smaller quantity
might purchase a greater quantity of goods than a greater had done
before. The profits of stock would be diminished, both really and
in appearance. The whole capital of the country being augmented, the
competition between the different capitals of which it was composed
would naturally be augmented along with it. The owners of those
particular capitals would be obliged to content themselves with a
smaller proportion of the produce of that labour which their respective
capitals employed. The interest of money, keeping pace always with the
profits of stock, might, in this manner, be greatly diminished, though
the value of money, or the quantity of goods which any particular sum
could purchase, was greatly augmented.

In some countries the interest of money has been prohibited by law. But
as something can everywhere be made by the use of money, something ought
everywhere to be paid for the use of it. This regulation, instead of
preventing, has been found from experience to increase the evil of
usury. The debtor being obliged to pay, not only for the use of
the money, but for the risk which his creditor runs by accepting a
compensation for that use, he is obliged, if one may say so, to insure
his creditor from the penalties of usury.

In countries where interest is permitted, the law in order to prevent
the extortion of usury, generally fixes the highest rate which can be
taken without incurring a penalty. This rate ought always to be somewhat
above the lowest market price, or the price which is commonly paid for
the use of money by those who can give the most undoubted security.
If this legal rate should be fixed below the lowest market rate, the
effects of this fixation must be nearly the same as those of a total
prohibition of interest. The creditor will not lend his money for less
than the use of it is worth, and the debtor must pay him for the risk
which he runs by accepting the full value of that use. If it is fixed
precisely at the lowest market price, it ruins, with honest people who
respect the laws of their country, the credit of all those who cannot
give the very best security, and obliges them to have recourse to
exorbitant usurers. In a country such as Great Britain, where money is
lent to government at three per cent. and to private people, upon good
security, at four and four and a-half, the present legal rate, five per
cent. is perhaps as proper as any.

The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat
above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal
rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as
eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which was to be
lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be
willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the
use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the
use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great part of the
capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were
most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown
into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the
legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little
above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as
borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets
nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the
latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of
people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the
country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be
employed with advantage.

No law can reduce the common rate of interest below the lowest ordinary
market rate at the time when that law is made. Notwithstanding the
edict of 1766, by which the French king attempted to reduce the rate
of interest from five to four per cent. money continued to be lent in
France at five per cent. the law being evaded in several different ways.

The ordinary market price of land, it is to be observed, depends
everywhere upon the ordinary market rate of interest. The person who has
a capital from which he wishes to derive a revenue, without taking the
trouble to employ it himself, deliberates whether he should buy land
with it, or lend it out at interest. The superior security of land,
together with some other advantages which almost everywhere attend upon
this species of property, will generally dispose him to content himself
with a smaller revenue from land, than what he might have by lending out
his money at interest. These advantages are sufficient to compensate
a certain difference of revenue; but they will compensate a certain
difference only; and if the rent of land should fall short of the
interest of money by a greater difference, nobody would buy land, which
would soon reduce its ordinary price. On the contrary, if the advantages
should much more than compensate the difference, everybody would buy
land, which again would soon raise its ordinary price. When interest
was at ten per cent. land was commonly sold for ten or twelve years
purchase. As interest sunk to six, five, and four per cent. the price
of land rose to twenty, five-and-twenty, and thirty years purchase. The
market rate of interest is higher in France than in England, and the
common price of land is lower. In England it commonly sells at thirty,
in France at twenty years purchase.



CHAPTER V. OF THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF CAPITALS.

Though all capitals are destined for the maintenance of productive
labour only, yet the quantity of that labour which equal capitals
are capable of putting into motion, varies extremely according to the
diversity of their employment; as does likewise the value which that
employment adds to the annual produce of the land and labour of the
country.

A capital may be employed in four different ways; either, first, in
procuring the rude produce annually required for the use and consumption
of the society; or, secondly, in manufacturing and preparing that rude
produce for immediate use and consumption; or, thirdly in transporting
either the rude or manufactured produce from the places where they
abound to those where they are wanted; or, lastly, in dividing
particular portions of either into such small parcels as suit the
occasional demands of those who want them. In the first way are employed
the capitals of all those who undertake improvement or cultivation
of lands, mines, or fisheries; in the second, those of all master
manufacturers; in the third, those of all wholesale merchants; and in
the fourth, those of all retailers. It is difficult to conceive that
a capital should be employed in any way which may not be classed under
some one or other of those four.

Each of those four methods of employing a capital is essentially
necessary, either to the existence or extension of the other three, or
to the general conveniency of the society.

Unless a capital was employed in furnishing rude produce to a certain
degree of abundance, neither manufactures nor trade of any kind could
exist.

Unless a capital was employed in manufacturing that part of the rude
produce which requires a good deal of preparation before it can be fit
for use and consumption, it either would never be produced, because
there could be no demand for it; or if it was produced spontaneously, it
would be of no value in exchange, and could add nothing to the wealth of
the society.

Unless a capital was employed in transporting either the rude or
manufactured produce from the places where it abounds to those where it
is wanted, no more of either could be produced than was necessary
for the consumption of the neighbourhood. The capital of the merchant
exchanges the surplus produce of one place for that of another, and thus
encourages the industry, and increases the enjoyments of both.

Unless a capital was employed in breaking and dividing certain portions
either of the rude or manufactured produce into such small parcels as
suit the occasional demands of those who want them, every man would be
obliged to purchase a greater quantity of the goods he wanted than his
immediate occasions required. If there was no such trade as a butcher,
for example, every man would be obliged to purchase a whole ox or a
whole sheep at a time. This would generally be inconvenient to the rich,
and much more so to the poor. If a poor workman was obliged to purchase
a month's or six months' provisions at a time, a great part of the stock
which he employs as a capital in the instruments of his trade, or in
the furniture of his shop, and which yields him a revenue, he would
be forced to place in that part of his stock which is reserved for
immediate consumption, and which yields him no revenue. Nothing can
be more convenient for such a person than to be able to purchase his
subsistence from day to day, or even from hour to hour, as he wants it.
He is thereby enabled to employ almost his whole stock as a capital. He
is thus enabled to furnish work to a greater value; and the profit which
he makes by it in this way much more than compensates the additional
price which the profit of the retailer imposes upon the goods. The
prejudices of some political writers against shopkeepers and tradesmen
are altogether without foundation. So far is it from being necessary
either to tax them, or to restrict their numbers, that they can never be
multiplied so as to hurt the public, though they may so as to hurt one
another. The quantity of grocery goods, for example, which can be sold
in a particular town, is limited by the demand of that town and its
neighbourhood. The capital, therefore, which can be employed in the
grocery trade, cannot exceed what is sufficient to purchase that
quantity. If this capital is divided between two different grocers,
their competition will tend to make both of them sell cheaper than if
it were in the hands of one only; and if it were divided among twenty,
their competition would be just so much the greater, and the chance of
their combining together, in order to raise the price, just so much the
less. Their competition might, perhaps, ruin some of themselves; but to
take care of this, is the business of the parties concerned, and it
may safely be trusted to their discretion. It can never hurt either
the consumer or the producer; on the contrary, it must tend to make the
retailers both sell cheaper and buy dearer, than if the whole trade was
monopolized by one or two persons. Some of them, perhaps, may sometimes
decoy a weak customer to buy what he has no occasion for. This evil,
however, is of too little importance to deserve the public attention,
nor would it necessarily be prevented by restricting their numbers. It
is not the multitude of alehouses, to give the must suspicious example,
that occasions a general disposition to drunkenness among the common
people; but that disposition, arising from other causes, necessarily
gives employment to a multitude of alehouses.

The persons whose capitals are employed in any of those four ways, are
themselves productive labourers. Their labour, when properly directed,
fixes and realizes itself in the subject or vendible commodity upon
which it is bestowed, and generally adds to its price the value at least
of their own maintenance and consumption. The profits of the farmer, of
the manufacturer, of the merchant, and retailer, are all drawn from the
price of the goods which the two first produce, and the two last buy and
sell. Equal capitals, however, employed in each of those four different
ways, will immediately put into motion very different quantities of
productive labour; and augment, too, in very different proportions, the
value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the society to
which they belong.

The capital of the retailer replaces, together with its profits, that
of the merchant of whom he purchases goods, and thereby enables him
to continue his business. The retailer himself is the only productive
labourer whom it immediately employs. In his profit consists the whole
value which its employment adds to the annual produce of the land and
labour of the society.

The capital of the wholesale merchant replaces, together with their
profits, the capital's of the farmers and manufacturers of whom he
purchases the rude and manufactured produce which he deals in, and
thereby enables them to continue their respective trades. It is by this
service chiefly that he contributes indirectly to support the productive
labour of the society, and to increase the value of its annual produce.
His capital employs, too, the sailors and carriers who transport his
goods from one place to another; and it augments the price of those
goods by the value, not only of his profits, but of their wages. This is
all the productive labour which it immediately puts into motion, and all
the value which it immediately adds to the annual produce. Its operation
in both these respects is a good deal superior to that of the capital of
the retailer.

Part of the capital of the master manufacturer is employed as a fixed
capital in the instruments of his trade, and replaces, together with its
profits, that of some other artificer of whom he purchases them. Part
of his circulating capital is employed in purchasing materials, and
replaces, with their profits, the capitals of the farmers and miners
of whom he purchases them. But a great part of it is always, either
annually, or in a much shorter period, distributed among the different
workmen whom he employs. It augments the value of those materials by
their wages, and by their masters' profits upon the whole stock of
wages, materials, and instruments of trade employed in the business.
It puts immediately into motion, therefore, a much greater quantity of
productive labour, and adds a much greater value to the annual produce
of the land and labour of the society, than an equal capital in the
hands of any wholesale merchant.

No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive
labour than that of the farmer. Not only his labouring servants, but his
labouring cattle, are productive labourers. In agriculture, too, Nature
labours along with man; and though her labour costs no expense, its
produce has its value, as well as that of the most expensive workmen.
The most important operations of agriculture seem intended, not so much
to increase, though they do that too, as to direct the fertility of
Nature towards the production of the plants most profitable to man.
A field overgrown with briars and brambles, may frequently produce as
great a quantity of vegetables as the best cultivated vineyard or corn
field. Planting and tillage frequently regulate more than they animate
the active fertility of Nature; and after all their labour, a great
part of the work always remains to be done by her. The labourers and
labouring cattle, therefore, employed in agriculture, not only occasion,
like the workmen in manufactures, the reproduction of a value equal to
their own consumption, or to the capital which employs them, together
with its owner's profits, but of a much greater value. Over and above
the capital of the farmer, and all its profits, they regularly
occasion the reproduction of the rent of the landlord. This rent may be
considered as the produce of those powers of Nature, the use of which
the landlord lends to the farmer. It is greater or smaller, according
to the supposed extent of those powers, or, in other words, according to
the supposed natural or improved fertility of the land. It is the work
of Nature which remains, after deducting or compensating every thing
which can be regarded as the work of man. It is seldom less than a
fourth, and frequently more than a third, of the whole produce. No
equal quantity of productive labour employed in manufactures, can ever
occasion so great reproduction. In them Nature does nothing; man does
all; and the reproduction must always be in proportion to the strength
of the agents that occasion it. The capital employed in agriculture,
therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity of productive
labour than any equal capital employed in manufactures; but in
proportion, too, to the quantity of productive labour which it employs,
it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land
and labour of the country, to the real wealth and revenue of its
inhabitants. Of all the ways in which a capital can be employed, it is
by far the most advantageous to society.

The capitals employed in the agriculture and in the retail trade of any
society, must always reside within that society. Their employment is
confined almost to a precise spot, to the farm, and to the shop of the
retailer. They must generally, too, though there are some exceptions to
this, belong to resident members of the society.

The capital of a wholesale merchant, on the contrary, seems to have no
fixed or necessary residence anywhere, but may wander about from place
to place, according as it can either buy cheap or sell dear.

The capital of the manufacturer must, no doubt, reside where the
manufacture is carried on; but where this shall be, is not always
necessarily determined. It may frequently be at a great distance,
both from the place where the materials grow, and from that where the
complete manufacture is consumed. Lyons is very distant, both from the
places which afford the materials of its manufactures, and from those
which consume them. The people of fashion in Sicily are clothed in silks
made in other countries, from the materials which their own produces.
Part of the wool of Spain is manufactured in Great Britain, and some
part of that cloth is afterwards sent back to Spain.

Whether the merchant whose capital exports the surplus produce of any
society, be a native or a foreigner, is of very little importance. If he
is a foreigner, the number of their productive labourers is necessarily
less than if he had been a native, by one man only; and the value of
their annual produce, by the profits of that one man. The sailors or
carriers whom he employs, may still belong indifferently either to his
country, or to their country, or to some third country, in the same
manner as if he had been a native. The capital of a foreigner gives
a value to their surplus produce equally with that of a native, by
exchanging it for something for which there is a demand at home. It
as effectually replaces the capital of the person who produces that
surplus, and as effectually enables him to continue his business, the
service by which the capital of a wholesale merchant chiefly contributes
to support the productive labour, and to augment the value of the annual
produce of the society to which he belongs.

It is of more consequence that the capital of the manufacturer should
reside within the country. It necessarily puts into motion a greater
quantity of productive labour, and adds a greater value to the annual
produce of the land and labour of the society. It may, however, be
very useful to the country, though it should not reside within it. The
capitals of the British manufacturers who work up the flax and hemp
annually imported from the coasts of the Baltic, are surely very useful
to the countries which produce them. Those materials are a part of
the surplus produce of those countries, which, unless it was annually
exchanged for something which is in demand here, would be of no value,
and would soon cease to be produced. The merchants who export it,
replace the capitals of the people who produce it, and thereby encourage
them to continue the production; and the British manufacturers replace
the capitals of those merchants.

A particular country, in the same manner as a particular person, may
frequently not have capital sufficient both to improve and cultivate
all its lands, to manufacture and prepare their whole rude produce for
immediate use and consumption, and to transport the surplus part either
of the rude or manufactured produce to those distant markets, where it
can be exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. The
inhabitants of many different parts of Great Britain have not capital
sufficient to improve and cultivate all their lands. The wool of the
southern counties of Scotland is, a great part of it, after a long land
carriage through very bad roads, manufactured in Yorkshire, for want of
a capital to manufacture it at home. There are many little manufacturing
towns in Great Britain, of which the inhabitants have not capital
sufficient to transport the produce of their own industry to those
distant markets where there is demand and consumption for it. If there
are any merchants among them, they are, properly, only the agents of
wealthier merchants who reside in some of the great commercial cities.

When the capital of any country is not sufficient for all those
three purposes, in proportion as a greater share of it is employed in
agriculture, the greater will be the quantity of productive labour which
it puts into motion within the country; as will likewise be the value
which its employment adds to the annual produce of the land and labour
of the society. After agriculture, the capital employed in manufactures
puts into motion the greatest quantity of productive labour, and adds
the greatest value to the annual produce. That which is employed in the
trade of exportation has the least effect of any of the three.

The country, indeed, which has not capital sufficient for all those
three purposes, has not arrived at that degree of opulence for which it
seems naturally destined. To attempt, however, prematurely, and with an
insufficient capital, to do all the three, is certainly not the shortest
way for a society, no more than it would be for an individual, to
acquire a sufficient one. The capital of all the individuals of a nation
has its limits, in the same manner as that of a single individual, and
is capable of executing only certain purposes. The capital of all the
individuals of a nation is increased in the same manner as that of a
single individual, by their continually accumulating and adding to it
whatever they save out of their revenue. It is likely to increase the
fastest, therefore, when it is employed in the way that affords the
greatest revenue to all the inhabitants or the country, as they will
thus be enabled to make the greatest savings. But the revenue of all the
inhabitants of the country is necessarily in proportion to the value of
the annual produce of their land and labour.

It has been the principal cause of the rapid progress of our American
colonies towards wealth and greatness, that almost their whole capitals
have hitherto been employed in agriculture. They have no manufactures,
those household and coarser manufactures excepted, which necessarily
accompany the progress of agriculture, and which are the work of the
women and children in every private family. The greater part, both of
the exportation and coasting trade of America, is carried on by the
capitals of merchants who reside in Great Britain. Even the stores and
warehouses from which goods are retailed in some provinces, particularly
in Virginia and Maryland, belong many of them to merchants who reside
in the mother country, and afford one of the few instances of the retail
trade of a society being carried on by the capitals of those who are not
resident members of it. Were the Americans, either by combination, or
by any other sort of violence, to stop the importation of European
manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own
countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable
part of their capital into this employment, they would retard, instead
of accelerating, the further increase in the value of their annual
produce, and would obstruct, instead of promoting, the progress of their
country towards real wealth and greatness. This would be still more
the case, were they to attempt, in the same manner, to monopolize to
themselves their whole exportation trade.

The course of human prosperity, indeed, seems scarce ever to have been
of so long continuance as to unable any great country to acquire capital
sufficient for all those three purposes; unless, perhaps, we give credit
to the wonderful accounts of the wealth and cultivation of China, of
those of ancient Egypt, and of the ancient state of Indostan. Even those
three countries, the wealthiest, according to all accounts, that
ever were in the world, are chiefly renowned for their superiority in
agriculture and manufactures. They do not appear to have been eminent
for foreign trade. The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy
to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the
Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce. The
greater part of the surplus produce of all those three countries seems
to have been always exported by foreigners, who gave in exchange for it
something else, for which they found a demand there, frequently gold and
silver.

It is thus that the same capital will in any country put into motion a
greater or smaller quantity of productive labour, and add a greater or
smaller value to the annual produce of its land and labour, according
to the different proportions in which it is employed in agriculture,
manufactures, and wholesale trade. The difference, too, is very great,
according to the different sorts of wholesale trade in which any part of
it is employed.

All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale,
maybe reduced to three different sorts: the home trade, the foreign
trade of consumption, and the carrying trade. The home trade is employed
in purchasing in one part of the same country, and selling in another,
the produce of the industry of that country. It comprehends both the
inland and the coasting trade. The foreign trade of consumption is
employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption. The carrying
trade is employed in transacting the commerce of foreign countries, or
in carrying the surplus produce of one to another.

The capital which is employed in purchasing in one part of the country,
in order to sell in another, the produce of the industry of that
country, generally replaces, by every such operation, two distinct
capitals, that had both been employed in the agriculture or manufactures
of that country, and thereby enables them to continue that employment.
When it sends out from the residence of the merchant a certain value of
commodities, it generally brings hack in return at least an equal value
of other commodities. When both are the produce of domestic industry,
it necessarily replaces, by every such operation, two distinct capitals,
which had both been employed in supporting productive labour, and
thereby enables them to continue that support. The capital which
sends Scotch manufactures to London, and brings back English corn
and manufactures to Edinburgh, necessarily replaces, by every such
operation, two British capitals, which had both been employed in the
agriculture or manufactures of Great Britain.

The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption,
when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry,
replaces, too, by every such operation, two distinct capitals; but one
of them only is employed in supporting domestic industry. The capital
which sends British goods to Portugal, and brings back Portuguese goods
to Great Britain, replaces, by every such operation, only one British
capital. The other is a Portuguese one. Though the returns, therefore,
of the foreign trade of consumption, should be as quick as those of the
home trade, the capital employed in it will give but one half of the
encouragement to the industry or productive labour of the country.

But the returns of the foreign trade of consumption are very seldom
so quick as those of the home trade. The returns of the home trade
generally come in before the end of the year, and sometimes three or
four times in the year. The returns of the foreign trade of consumption
seldom come in before the end of the year, and sometimes not till after
two or three years. A capital, therefore, employed in the home trade,
will sometimes make twelve operations, or be sent out and returned
twelve times, before a capital employed in the foreign trade of
consumption has made one. If the capitals are equal, therefore, the one
will give four-and-twenty times more encouragement and support to the
industry of the country than the other.

The foreign goods for home consumption may sometimes be purchased, not
with the produce of domestic industry but with some other foreign goods.
These last, however, must have been purchased, either immediately with
the produce of domestic industry, or with something else that had been
purchased with it; for, the case of war and conquest excepted, foreign
goods can never be acquired, but in exchange for something that had been
produced at home, either immediately, or after two or more different
exchanges. The effects, therefore, of a capital employed in such a
round-about foreign trade of consumption, are, in every respect, the
same as those of one employed in the most direct trade of the same kind,
except that the final returns are likely to be still more distant,
as they must depend upon the returns of two or three distinct foreign
trades. If the hemp and flax of Riga are purchased with the tobacco
of Virginia, which had been purchased with British manufactures, the
merchant must wait for the returns of two distinct foreign trades,
before he can employ the same capital in repurchasing a like quantity of
British manufactures. If the tobacco of Virginia had been purchased, not
with British manufactures, but with the sugar and rum of Jamaica, which
had been purchased with those manufactures, he must wait for the returns
of three. If those two or three distinct foreign trades should happen
to be carried on by two or three distinct merchants, of whom the second
buys the goods imported by the first, and the third buys those imported
by the second, in order to export them again, each merchant, indeed,
will, in this case, receive the returns of his own capital more quickly;
but the final returns of the whole capital employed in the trade will be
just as slow as ever. Whether the whole capital employed in such a round
about trade belong to one merchant or to three, can make no difference
with regard to the country, though it may with regard to the particular
merchants. Three times a greater capital must in both cases be employed,
in order to exchange a certain value of British manufactures for a
certain quantity of flax and hemp, than would have been necessary, had
the manufactures and the flax and hemp been directly exchanged for one
another. The whole capital employed, therefore, in such a round-about
foreign trade of consumption, will generally give less encouragement and
support to the productive labour of the country, than an equal capital
employed in a more direct trade of the same kind.

Whatever be the foreign commodity with which the foreign goods for home
consumption are purchased, it can occasion no essential difference,
either in the nature of the trade, or in the encouragement and support
which it can give to the productive labour of the country from which
it is carried on. If they are purchased with the gold of Brazil, for
example, or with the silver of Peru, this gold and silver, like the
tobacco of Virginia, must have been purchased with something that
either was the produce of the industry of the country, or that had been
purchased with something else that was so. So far, therefore, as the
productive labour of the country is concerned, the foreign trade of
consumption, which is carried on by means of gold and silver, has
all the advantages and all the inconveniencies of any other equally
round-about foreign trade of consumption; and will replace, just as
fast, or just as slow, the capital which is immediately employed in
supporting that productive labour. It seems even to have one advantage
over any other equally round-about foreign trade. The transportation of
those metals from one place to another, on account of their small bulk
and great value, is less expensive than that of almost any other foreign
goods of equal value. Their freight is much less, and their insurance
not greater; and no goods, besides, are less liable to suffer by the
carriage. An equal quantity of foreign goods, therefore, may frequently
be purchased with a smaller quantity of the produce of domestic
industry, by the intervention of gold and silver, than by that of any
other foreign goods. The demand of the country may frequently, in this
manner, be supplied more completely, and at a smaller expense, than
in any other. Whether, by the continual exportation of those metals, a
trade of this kind is likely to impoverish the country from which it is
carried on in any other way, I shall have occasion to examine at great
length hereafter.

That part of the capital of any country which is employed in the
carrying trade, is altogether withdrawn from supporting the productive
labour of that particular country, to support that of some foreign
countries. Though it may replace, by every operation, two distinct
capitals, yet neither of them belongs to that particular country. The
capital of the Dutch merchant, which carries the corn of Poland to
Portugal, and brings back the fruits and wines of Portugal to Poland,
replaces by every such operation two capitals, neither of which had been
employed in supporting the productive labour of Holland; but one of
them in supporting that of Poland, and the other that of Portugal.
The profits only return regularly to Holland, and constitute the whole
addition which this trade necessarily makes to the annual produce of the
land and labour of that country. When, indeed, the carrying trade of
any particular country is carried on with the ships and sailors of that
country, that part of the capital employed in it which pays the
freight is distributed among, and puts into motion, a certain number of
productive labourers of that country. Almost all nations that have had
any considerable share of the carrying trade have, in fact, carried it
on in this manner. The trade itself has probably derived its name from
it, the people of such countries being the carriers to other countries.
It does not, however, seem essential to the nature of the trade that it
should be so. A Dutch merchant may, for example, employ his capital in
transacting the commerce of Poland and Portugal, by carrying part of the
surplus produce of the one to the other, not in Dutch, but in British
bottoms. It maybe presumed, that he actually does so upon some
particular occasions. It is upon this account, however, that the
carrying trade has been supposed peculiarly advantageous to such a
country as Great Britain, of which the defence and security depend upon
the number of its sailors and shipping. But the same capital may
employ as many sailors and shipping, either in the foreign trade of
consumption, or even in the home trade, when carried on by coasting
vessels, as it could in the carrying trade. The number of sailors and
shipping which any particular capital can employ, does not depend upon
the nature of the trade, but partly upon the bulk of the goods, in
proportion to their value, and partly upon the distance of the ports
between which they are to be carried; chiefly upon the former of those
two circumstances. The coal trade from Newcastle to London, for example,
employs more shipping than all the carrying trade of England, though the
ports are at no great distance. To force, therefore, by extraordinary
encouragements, a larger share of the capital of any country into the
carrying trade, than what would naturally go to it, will not always
necessarily increase the shipping of that country.

The capital, therefore, employed in the home trade of any country,
will generally give encouragement and support to a greater quantity of
productive labour in that country, and increase the value of its annual
produce, more than an equal capital employed in the foreign trade of
consumption; and the capital employed in this latter trade has, in both
these respects, a still greater advantage over an equal capital employed
in the carrying trade. The riches, and so far as power depends upon
riches, the power of every country must always be in proportion to
the value of its annual produce, the fund from which all taxes must
ultimately be paid. But the great object of the political economy of
every country, is to increase the riches and power of that country. It
ought, therefore, to give no preference nor superior encouragement
to the foreign trade of consumption above the home trade, nor to the
carrying trade above either of the other two. It ought neither to force
nor to allure into either of those two channels a greater share of the
capital of the country, than what would naturally flow into them of its
own accord.

Each of those different branches of trade, however, is not only
advantageous, but necessary and unavoidable, when the course of things,
without any constraint or violence, naturally introduces it.

When the produce of any particular branch of industry exceeds what the
demand of the country requires, the surplus must be sent abroad, and
exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. Without
such exportation, a part of the productive labour of the country must
cease, and the value of its annual produce diminish. The land and labour
of Great Britain produce generally more corn, woollens, and hardware,
than the demand of the home market requires. The surplus part of them,
therefore, must be sent abroad, and exchanged for something for which
there is a demand at home. It is only by means of such exportation, that
this surplus can acquired value sufficient to compensate the labour and
expense of producing it. The neighbourhood of the sea-coast, and the
banks of all navigable rivers, are advantageous situations for industry,
only because they facilitate the exportation and exchange of such
surplus produce for something else which is more in demand there.

When the foreign goods which are thus purchased with the surplus produce
of domestic industry exceed the demand of the home market, the surplus
part of them must be sent abroad again, and exchanged for something
more in demand at home. About 96,000 hogsheads of tobacco are annually
purchased in Virginia and Maryland with a part of the surplus produce
of British industry. But the demand of Great Britain does not require,
perhaps, more than 14,000. If the remaining 82,000, therefore, could not
be sent abroad, and exchanged for something more in demand at home, the
importation of them must cease immediately, and with it the productive
labour of all those inhabitants of Great Britain who are at present
employed in preparing the goods with which these 82,000 hogsheads are
annually purchased. Those goods, which are part of the produce of the
land and labour of Great Britain, having no market at home, and being
deprived of that which they had abroad, must cease to be produced. The
most round-about foreign trade of consumption, therefore, may, upon some
occasions, be as necessary for supporting the productive labour of the
country, and the value of its annual produce, as the most direct.

When the capital stock of any country is increased to such a degree that
it cannot be all employed in supplying the consumption, and supporting
the productive labour of that particular country, the surplus part of it
naturally disgorges itself into the carrying trade, and is employed in
performing the same offices to other countries. The carrying trade is
the natural effect and symptom of great national wealth; but it does
not seem to be the natural cause of it. Those statesmen who have been
disposed to favour it with particular encouragement, seem to have
mistaken the effect and symptom for the cause. Holland, in proportion
to the extent of the land and the number of it's inhabitants, by far
the richest country in Europe, has accordingly the greatest share of the
carrying trade of Europe. England, perhaps the second richest country of
Europe, is likewise supposed to have a considerable share in it; though
what commonly passes for the carrying trade of England will frequently,
perhaps, be found to be no more than a round-about foreign trade of
consumption. Such are, in a great measure, the trades which carry
the goods of the East and West Indies and of America to the different
European markets. Those goods are generally purchased, either
immediately with the produce of British industry, or with something else
which had been purchased with that produce, and the final returns of
those trades are generally used or consumed in Great Britain. The trade
which is carried on in British bottoms between the different ports of
the Mediterranean, and some trade of the same kind carried on by British
merchants between the different ports of India, make, perhaps, the
principal branches of what is properly the carrying trade of Great
Britain.

The extent of the home trade, and of the capital which can be employed
in it, is necessarily limited by the value of the surplus produce of all
those distant places within the country which have occasion to exchange
their respective productions with one another; that of the foreign
trade of consumption, by the value of the surplus produce of the whole
country, and of what can be purchased with it; that of the carrying
trade, by the value of the surplus produce of all the different
countries in the world. Its possible extent, therefore, is in a manner
infinite in comparison of that of the other two, and is capable of
absorbing the greatest capitals.

The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which
determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture,
in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail
trade. The different quantities of productive labour which it may put
into motion, and the different values which it may add to the annual
produce of the land and labour of the society, according as it is
employed in one or other of those different ways, never enter into
his thoughts. In countries, therefore, where agriculture is the most
profitable of all employments, and farming and improving the most direct
roads to a splendid fortune, the capitals of individuals will naturally
be employed in the manner most advantageous to the whole society. The
profits of agriculture, however, seem to have no superiority over those
of other employments in any part of Europe. Projectors, indeed, in every
corner of it, have, within these few years, amused the public with most
magnificent accounts of the profits to be made by the cultivation and
improvement of land. Without entering into any particular discussion of
their calculations, a very simple observation may satisfy us that the
result of them must be false. We see, every day, the most splendid
fortunes, that have been acquired in the course of a single life, by
trade and manufactures, frequently from a very small capital, sometimes
from no capital. A single instance of such a fortune, acquired by
agriculture in the same time, and from such a capital, has not, perhaps,
occurred in Europe, during the course of the present century. In all
the great countries of Europe, however, much good land still remains
uncultivated; and the greater part of what is cultivated, is far from
being improved to the degree of which it is capable. Agriculture,
therefore, is almost everywhere capable of absorbing a much greater
capital than has ever yet been employed in it. What circumstances in the
policy of Europe have given the trades which are carried on in towns so
great an advantage over that which is carried on in the country, that
private persons frequently find it more for their advantage to employ
their capitals in the most distant carrying trades of Asia and America
than in the improvement and cultivation of the most fertile fields in
their own neighbourhood, I shall endeavour to explain at full length in
the two following books.



BOOK III. OF THE DIFFERENT PROGRESS OF OPULENCE IN DIFFERENT NATIONS

CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURAL PROGRESS OF OPULENCE.

The great commerce of every civilized society is that carried on between
the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. It consists in the
exchange of rude for manufactured produce, either immediately, or by the
intervention of money, or of some sort of paper which represents money.
The country supplies the town with the means of subsistence and the
materials of manufacture. The town repays this supply, by sending back a
part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country.
The town, in which there neither is nor can be any reproduction of
substances, may very properly be said to gain its whole wealth and
subsistence from the country. We must not, however, upon this account,
imagine that the gain of the town is the loss of the country. The gains
of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the division of labour is in
this, as in all other cases, advantageous to all the different persons
employed in the various occupations into which it is subdivided. The
inhabitants of the country purchase of the town a greater quantity of
manufactured goods with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their
own labour, than they must have employed had they attempted to prepare
them themselves. The town affords a market for the surplus produce
of the country, or what is over and above the maintenance of the
cultivators; and it is there that the inhabitants of the country
exchange it for something else which is in demand among them. The
greater the number and revenue of the inhabitants of the town, the more
extensive is the market which it affords to those of the country; and
the more extensive that market, it is always the more advantageous to
a great number. The corn which grows within a mile of the town, sells
there for the same price with that which comes from twenty miles
distance. But the price of the latter must, generally, not only pay the
expense of raising it and bringing it to market, but afford, too, the
ordinary profits of agriculture to the farmer. The proprietors and
cultivators of the country, therefore, which lies in the neighbourhood
of the town, over and above the ordinary profits of agriculture, gain,
in the price of what they sell, the whole value of the carriage of the
like produce that is brought from more distant parts; and they save,
besides, the whole value of this carriage in the price of what they
buy. Compare the cultivation of the lands in the neighbourhood of any
considerable town, with that of those which lie at some distance
from it, and you will easily satisfy yourself bow much the country is
benefited by the commerce of the town. Among all the absurd speculations
that have been propagated concerning the balance of trade, it has never
been pretended that either the country loses by its commerce with the
town, or the town by that with the country which maintains it.

As subsistence is, in the nature of things, prior to conveniency and
luxury, so the industry which procures the former, must necessarily
be prior to that which ministers to the latter. The cultivation and
improvement of the country, therefore, which affords subsistence, must,
necessarily, be prior to the increase of the town, which furnishes only
the means of conveniency and luxury. It is the surplus produce of
the country only, or what is over and above the maintenance of the
cultivators, that constitutes the subsistence of the town, which can
therefore increase only with the increase of the surplus produce. The
town, indeed, may not always derive its whole subsistence from the
country in its neighbourhood, or even from the territory to which it
belongs, but from very distant countries; and this, though it forms no
exception from the general rule, has occasioned considerable variations
in the progress of opulence in different ages and nations.

That order of things which necessity imposes, in general, though not in
every particular country, is in every particular country promoted by the
natural inclinations of man. If human institutions had never thwarted
those natural inclinations, the towns could nowhere have increased
beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which
they were situated could support; till such time, at least, as the whole
of that territory was completely cultivated and improved. Upon equal,
or nearly equal profits, most men will choose to employ their capitals,
rather in the improvement and cultivation of land, than either in
manufactures or in foreign trade. The man who employs his capital in
land, has it more under his view and command; and his fortune is
much less liable to accidents than that of the trader, who is obliged
frequently to commit it, not only to the winds and the waves, but to the
more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving great
credits, in distant countries, to men with whose character and situation
he can seldom be thoroughly acquainted. The capital of the landlord, on
the contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, seems to be
as well secured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The
beauty of the country, besides, the pleasure of a country life, the
tranquillity of mind which it promises, and, wherever the injustice
of human laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really
affords, have charms that, more or less, attract everybody; and as to
cultivate the ground was the original destination of man, so, in every
stage of his existence, he seems to retain a predilection for this
primitive employment.

Without the assistance of some artificers, indeed, the cultivation of
land cannot be carried on, but with great inconveniency and continual
interruption. Smiths, carpenters, wheelwrights and ploughwrights, masons
and bricklayers, tanners, shoemakers, and tailors, are people whose
service the farmer has frequent occasion for. Such artificers, too,
stand occasionally in need of the assistance of one another; and as
their residence is not, like that of the farmer, necessarily tied down
to a precise spot, they naturally settle in the neighbourhood of one
another, and thus form a small town or village. The butcher, the brewer,
and the baker, soon join them, together with many other artificers and
retailers, necessary or useful for supplying their occasional wants, and
who contribute still further to augment the town. The inhabitants of
the town, and those of the country, are mutually the servants of
one another. The town is a continual fair or market, to which the
inhabitants of the country resort, in order to exchange their rude for
manufactured produce. It is this commerce which supplies the inhabitants
of the town, both with the materials of their work, and the means of
their subsistence. The quantity of the finished work which they sell to
the inhabitants of the country, necessarily regulates the quantity of
the materials and provisions which they buy. Neither their employment
nor subsistence, therefore, can augment, but in proportion to the
augmentation of the demand from the country for finished work; and this
demand can augment only in proportion to the extension of improvement
and cultivation. Had human institutions, therefore, never disturbed the
natural course of things, the progressive wealth and increase of the
towns would, in every political society, be consequential, and in
proportion to the improvement and cultivation of the territory of
country.

In our North American colonies, where uncultivated land is still to be
had upon easy terms, no manufactures for distant sale have ever yet
been established in any of their towns. When an artificer has acquired a
little more stock than is necessary for carrying on his own business
in supplying the neighbouring country, he does not, in North America,
attempt to establish with it a manufacture for more distant sale, but
employs it in the purchase and improvement of uncultivated land. From
artificer he becomes planter; and neither the large wages nor the easy
subsistence which that country affords to artificers, can bribe him
rather to work for other people than for himself. He feels that an
artificer is the servant of his customers, from whom he derives his
subsistence; but that a planter who cultivates his own land, and derives
his necessary subsistence from the labour of his own family, is really a
master, and independent of all the world.

In countries, on the contrary, where there is either no uncultivated
land, or none that can be had upon easy terms, every artificer who has
acquired more stock than he can employ in the occasional jobs of the
neighbourhood, endeavours to prepare work for more distant sale. The
smith erects some sort of iron, the weaver some sort of linen or woollen
manufactory. Those different manufactures come, in process of time, to
be gradually subdivided, and thereby improved and refined in a great
variety of ways, which may easily be conceived, and which it is
therefore unnecessary to explain any farther.

In seeking for employment to a capital, manufactures are, upon equal or
nearly equal profits, naturally preferred to foreign commerce, for the
same reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures. As
the capital of the landlord or farmer is more secure than that of the
manufacturer, so the capital of the manufacturer, being at all times
more within his view and command, is more secure than that of the
foreign merchant. In every period, indeed, of every society, the surplus
part both of the rude and manufactured produce, or that for which there
is no demand at home, must be sent abroad, in order to be exchanged
for something for which there is some demand at home. But whether the
capital which carries this surplus produce abroad be a foreign or a
domestic one, is of very little importance. If the society has not
acquired sufficient capital, both to cultivate all its lands, and to
manufacture in the completest manner the whole of its rude produce,
there is even a considerable advantage that the rude produce should
be exported by a foreign capital, in order that the whole stock of the
society may be employed in more useful purposes. The wealth of ancient
Egypt, that of China and Indostan, sufficiently demonstrate that a
nation may attain a very high degree of opulence, though the greater
part of its exportation trade be carried on by foreigners. The progress
of our North American and West Indian colonies, would have been much
less rapid, had no capital but what belonged to themselves been employed
in exporting their surplus produce.

According to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater
part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to
agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and, last of all, to foreign
commerce. This order of things is so very natural, that in every society
that had any territory, it has always, I believe, been in some degree
observed. Some of their lands must have been cultivated before any
considerable towns could be established, and some sort of coarse
industry of the manufacturing kind must have been carried on in those
towns, before they could well think of employing themselves in foreign
commerce.

But though this natural order of things must have taken place in some
degree in every such society, it has, in all the modern states of
Europe, been in many respects entirely inverted. The foreign commerce
of some of their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or
such as were fit for distant sale; and manufactures and foreign commerce
together have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture.
The manners and customs which the nature of their original government
introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly
altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde
order.



CHAPTER II. OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF
EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

When the German and Scythian nations overran the western provinces of
the Roman empire, the confusions which followed so great a revolution
lasted for several centuries. The rapine and violence which the
barbarians exercised against the ancient inhabitants, interrupted the
commerce between the towns and the country. The towns were deserted, and
the country was left uncultivated; and the western provinces of Europe,
which had enjoyed a considerable degree of opulence under the Roman
empire, sunk into the lowest state of poverty and barbarism. During the
continuance of those confusions, the chiefs and principal leaders of
those nations acquired, or usurped to themselves, the greater part of
the lands of those countries. A great part of them was uncultivated; but
no part of them, whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without
a proprietor. All of them were engrossed, and the greater part by a few
great proprietors.

This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might
have been but a transitory evil. They might soon have been divided
again, and broke into small parcels, either by succession or by
alienation. The law of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by
succession; the introduction of entails prevented their being broke into
small parcels by alienation.

When land, like moveables, is considered as the means only of
subsistence and enjoyment, the natural law of succession divides it,
like them, among all the children of the family; of all of whom the
subsistence and enjoyment may be supposed equally dear to the father.
This natural law of succession, accordingly, took place among the Romans
who made no more distinction between elder and younger, between male and
female, in the inheritance of lands, than we do in the distribution of
moveables. But when land was considered as the means, not of subsistence
merely, but of power and protection, it was thought better that it
should descend undivided to one. In those disorderly times, every great
landlord was a sort of petty prince. His tenants were his subjects.
He was their judge, and in some respects their legislator in peace
and their leader in war. He made war according to his own discretion,
frequently against his neighbours, and sometimes against his sovereign.
The security of a landed estate, therefore, the protection which
its owner could afford to those who dwelt on it, depended upon its
greatness. To divide it was to ruin it, and to expose every part of it
to be oppressed and swallowed up by the incursions of its neighbours.
The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to take place, not immediately
indeed, but in process of time, in the succession of landed estates, for
the same reason that it has generally taken place in that of monarchies,
though not always at their first institution. That the power, and
consequently the security of the monarchy, may not be weakened by
division, it must descend entire to one of the children. To which of
them so important a preference shall be given, must be determined
by some general rule, founded not upon the doubtful distinctions of
personal merit, but upon some plain and evident difference which can
admit of no dispute. Among the children of the same family there can be
no indisputable difference but that of sex, and that of age. The male
sex is universally preferred to the female; and when all other things
are equal, the elder everywhere takes place of the younger. Hence the
origin of the right of primogeniture, and of what is called lineal
succession.

Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances
which first gave occasion to them, and which could alone render them
reasonable, are no more. In the present state of Europe, the proprietor
of a single acre of land is as perfectly secure in his possession as
the proprietor of 100,000. The right of primogeniture, however, still
continues to be respected; and as of all institutions it is the fittest
to support the pride of family distinctions, it is still likely to
endure for many centuries. In every other respect, nothing can be more
contrary to the real interest of a numerous family, than a right which,
in order to enrich one, beggars all the rest of the children.

Entails are the natural consequences of the law of primogeniture. They
were introduced to preserve a certain lineal succession, of which the
law of primogeniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the
original estate from being carried out of the proposed line, either
by gift, or device, or alienation; either by the folly, or by the
misfortune of any of its successive owners. They were altogether unknown
to the Romans. Neither their substitutions, nor fidei commisses, bear
any resemblance to entails, though some French lawyers have thought
proper to dress the modern institution in the language and garb of those
ancient ones.

When great landed estates were a sort of principalities, entails might
not be unreasonable. Like what are called the fundamental laws of some
monarchies, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from
being endangered by the caprice or extravagance of one man. But in the
present state of Europe, when small as well as great estates derive
their security from the laws of their country, nothing can be more
completely absurd. They are founded upon the most absurd of all
suppositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men
have not an equal right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but
that the property of the present generation should be restrained and
regulated according to the fancy of those who died, perhaps five hundred
years ago. Entails, however, are still respected, through the greater
part of Europe; In those countries, particularly, in which noble birth
is a necessary qualification for the enjoyment either of civil or
military honours. Entails are thought necessary for maintaining this
exclusive privilege of the nobility to the great offices and honours of
their country; and that order having usurped one unjust advantage over
the rest of their fellow-citizens, lest their poverty should render it
ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they should have another. The
common law of England, indeed, is said to abhor perpetuities, and
they are accordingly more restricted there than in any other European
monarchy; though even England is not altogether without them. In
Scotland, more than one fifth, perhaps more than one third part of the
whole lands in the country, are at present supposed to be under strict
entail.

Great tracts of uncultivated land were in this manner not only engrossed
by particular families, but the possibility of their being divided again
was as much as possible precluded for ever. It seldom happens, however,
that a great proprietor is a great improver. In the disorderly times
which gave birth to those barbarous institutions, the great proprietor
was sufficiently employed in defending his own territories, or in
extending his jurisdiction and authority over those of his neighbours.
He had no leisure to attend to the cultivation and improvement of land.
When the establishment of law and order afforded him this leisure, he
often wanted the inclination, and almost always the requisite abilities.
If the expense of his house and person either equalled or exceeded his
revenue, as it did very frequently, he had no stock to employ in this
manner. If he was an economist, he generally found it more profitable
to employ his annual savings in new purchases than in the improvement of
his old estate. To improve land with profit, like all other commercial
projects, requires an exact attention to small savings and small gains,
of which a man born to a great fortune, even though naturally frugal, is
very seldom capable. The situation of such a person naturally disposes
him to attend rather to ornament, which pleases his fancy, than to
profit, for which he has so little occasion. The elegance of his dress,
of his equipage, of his house and household furniture, are objects
which, from his infancy, he has been accustomed to have some anxiety
about. The turn of mind which this habit naturally forms, follows him
when he comes to think of the improvement of land. He embellishes,
perhaps, four or five hundred acres in the neighbourhood of his
house, at ten times the expense which the land is worth after all his
improvements; and finds, that if he was to improve his whole estate in
the same manner, and he has little taste for any other, he would be
a bankrupt before he had finished the tenth part of it. There still
remain, in both parts of the united kingdom, some great estates which
have continued, without interruption, in the hands of the same family
since the times of feudal anarchy. Compare the present condition of
those estates with the possessions of the small proprietors in their
neighbourhood, and you will require no other argument to convince you
how unfavourable such extensive property is to improvement.

If little improvement was to be expected from such great proprietors,
still less was to be hoped for from those who occupied the land under
them. In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all
tenants at will. They were all, or almost all, slaves, but their slavery
was of a milder kind than that known among the ancient Greeks and
Romans, or even in our West Indian colonies. They were supposed to
belong more directly to the land than to their master. They could,
therefore, be sold with it, but not separately. They could marry,
provided it was with the consent of their master; and he could not
afterwards dissolve the marriage by selling the man and wife to
different persons. If he maimed or murdered any of them, he was liable
to some penalty, though generally but to a small one. They were not,
however, capable of acquiring property. Whatever they acquired was
acquired to their master, and he could take it from them at pleasure.
Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by means of
such slaves, was properly carried on by their master. It was at his
expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry, were
all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing
but their daily maintenance. It was properly the proprietor himself,
therefore, that in this case occupied his own lands, and cultivated them
by his own bondmen. This species of slavery still subsists in Russia,
Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany. It is
only in the western and south-western provinces of Europe that it has
gradually been abolished altogether.

But if great improvements are seldom to be expected from great
proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ
slaves for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I
believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to
cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person
who can acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as
much and to labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond
what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out
of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient
Italy, how much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable
it became to the master, when it fell under the management of slaves, is
remarked both by Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle, it had
not been much better in ancient Greece. Speaking of the ideal republic
described in the laws of Plato, to maintain 5000 idle men (the number of
warriors supposed necessary for its defence), together with their women
and servants, would require, he says, a territory of boundless extent
and fertility, like the plains of Babylon.

The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies
him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors.
Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it,
therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of
freemen. The planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of
slave cultivation. The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times,
cannot. In the English colonies, of which the principal produce is corn,
the far greater part of the work is done by freemen. The late resolution
of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, to set at liberty all their negro
slaves, may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they
made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could
never have been agreed to. In our sugar colonies., on the contrary, the
whole work is done by slaves, and in our tobacco colonies a very great
part of it. The profits of a sugar plantation in any of our West Indian
colonies, are generally much greater than those of any other cultivation
that is known either in Europe or America; and the profits of a tobacco
plantation, though inferior to those of sugar, are superior to those of
corn, as has already been observed. Both can afford the expense of
slave cultivation but sugar can afford it still better than tobacco. The
number of negroes, accordingly, is much greater, in proportion to that
of whites, in our sugar than in our tobacco colonies.

To the slave cultivators of ancient times gradually succeeded a species
of farmers, known at present in France by the name of metayers. They are
called in Latin Coloni Partiarii. They have been so long in disuse in
England, that at present I know no English name for them. The proprietor
furnished them with the seed, cattle, and instruments of husbandry, the
whole stock, in short, necessary for cultivating the farm. The produce
was divided equally between the proprietor and the farmer, after setting
aside what was judged necessary for keeping up the stock, which was
restored to the proprietor, when the farmer either quitted or was turned
out of the farm.

Land occupied by such tenants is properly cultivated at the expense of
the proprietors, as much as that occupied by slaves. There is, however,
one very essential difference between them. Such tenants, being freemen,
are capable of acquiring property; and having a certain proportion
of the produce of the land, they have a plain interest that the
whole produce should be as great as possible, in order that their own
proportion may be so. A slave, on the contrary, who can acquire nothing
but his maintenance, consults his own ease, by making the land produce
as little as possible over and above that maintenance. It is probable
that it was partly upon account of this advantage, and partly upon
account of the encroachments which the sovereigns, always jealous of
the great lords, gradually encouraged their villains to make upon their
authority, and which seem, at least, to have been such as rendered this
species of servitude altogether inconvenient, that tenure in villanage
gradually wore out through the greater part of Europe. The time and
manner, however, in which so important a revolution was brought about,
is one of the most obscure points in modern history. The church of
Rome claims great merit in it; and it is certain, that so early as
the twelfth century, Alexander III. published a bull for the general
emancipation of slaves. It seems, however, to have been rather a pious
exhortation, than a law to which exact obedience was required from the
faithful. Slavery continued to take place almost universally for several
centuries afterwards, till it was gradually abolished by the joint
operation of the two interests above mentioned; that of the proprietor
on the one hand, and that of the sovereign on the other. A villain,
enfranchised, and at the same time allowed to continue in possession of
the land, having no stock of his own, could cultivate it only by means
of what the landlord advanced to him, and must therefore have been what
the French call a metayer.

It could never, however, be the interest even of this last species of
cultivators, to lay out, in the further improvement of the land, any
part of the little stock which they might save from their own share of
the produce; because the landlord, who laid out nothing, was to get one
half of whatever it produced. The tithe, which is but a tenth of the
produce, is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax,
therefore, which amounted to one half, must have been an effectual bar
to it. It might be the interest of a metayer to make the land produce
as much as could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished
by the proprietor; but it could never be his interest to mix any part
of his own with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the whole
kingdom are said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators,
the proprietors complain, that their metayers take every opportunity of
employing their master's cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation;
because, in the one case, they get the whole profits to themselves, in
the other they share them with their landlord. This species of tenants
still subsists in some parts of Scotland. They are called steel-bow
tenants. Those ancient English tenants, who are said by Chief-Baron
Gilbert and Dr Blackstone to have been rather bailiffs of the landlord
than farmers, properly so called, were probably of the same kind.

To this species of tenantry succeeded, though by very slow degrees,
farmers, properly so called, who cultivated the land with their own
stock, paying a rent certain to the landlord. When such farmers have a
lease for a term of years, they may sometimes find it for their interest
to lay out part of their capital in the further improvement of the farm;
because they may sometimes expect to recover it, with a large profit,
before the expiration of the lease. The possession, even of such
farmers, however, was long extremely precarious, and still is so in many
parts of Europe. They could, before the expiration of their term, be
legally ousted of their leases by a new purchaser; in England, even,
by the fictitious action of a common recovery. If they were turned out
illegally by the violence of their master, the action by which they
obtained redress was extremely imperfect. It did not always reinstate
them in the possession of the land, but gave them damages, which never
amounted to a real loss. Even in England, the country, perhaps of
Europe, where the yeomanry has always been most respected, it was not
till about the 14th of Henry VII. that the action of ejectment
was invented, by which the tenant recovers, not damages only, but
possession, and in which his claim is not necessarily concluded by the
uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has been found so
effectual a remedy, that, in the modern practice, when the landlord has
occasion to sue for the possession of the land, he seldom makes use
of the actions which properly belong to him as a landlord, the writ of
right or the writ of entry, but sues in the name of his tenant, by the
writ of ejectment. In England, therefore the security of the tenant is
equal to that of the proprietor. In England, besides, a lease for life
of forty shillings a-year value is a freehold, and entitles the lessee
to a vote for a member of parliament; and as a great part of the
yeomanry have freeholds of this kind, the whole order becomes
respectable to their landlords, on account of the political
consideration which this gives them. There is, I believe, nowhere in
Europe, except in England, any instance of the tenant building upon
the land of which he had no lease, and trusting that the honour of his
landlord would take no advantage of so important an improvement.
Those laws and customs, so favourable to the yeomanry, have perhaps
contributed more to the present grandeur of England, than all their
boasted regulations of commerce taken together.

The law which secures the longest leases against successors of every
kind, is, so far as I know, peculiar to Great Britain. It was introduced
into Scotland so early as 1449, by a law of James II. Its beneficial
influence, however, has been much obstructed by entails; the heirs of
entail being generally restrained from letting leases for any long term
of years, frequently for more than one year. A late act of parliament
has, in this respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are
still by much too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no leasehold gives a
vote for a member of parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less
respectable to their landlords than in England.

In other parts of Europe, after it was found convenient to secure
tenants both against heirs and purchasers, the term of their security
was still limited to a very short period; in France, for example, to
nine years from the commencement of the lease. It has in that country,
indeed, been lately extended to twentyseven, a period still too short
to encourage the tenant to make the most important improvements. The
proprietors of land were anciently the legislators of every part of
Europe. The laws relating to land, therefore, were all calculated
for what they supposed the interest of the proprietor. It was for
his interest, they had imagined, that no lease granted by any of his
predecessors should hinder him from enjoying, during a long term of
years, the full value of his land. Avarice and injustice are always
short-sighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must
obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt, in the long-run, the real
interest of the landlord.

The farmers, too, besides paying the rent, were anciently, it was
supposed, bound to perform a great number of services to the landlord,
which were seldom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any
precise rule, but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These
services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary, subjected the
tenant to many vexations. In Scotland the abolition of all services not
precisely stipulated in the lease, has, in the course of a few years,
very much altered for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that
country.

The public services to which the yeomanry were bound, were not less
arbitrary than the private ones. To make and maintain the high roads,
a servitude which still subsists, I believe, everywhere, though with
different degrees of oppression in different countries, was not the only
one. When the king's troops, when his household, or his officers of any
kind, passed through any part of the country, the yeomanry were bound
to provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price
regulated by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I believe, the only
monarchy in Europe where the oppression of purveyance has been entirely
abolished. It still subsists in France and Germany.

The public taxes, to which they were subject, were as irregular and
oppressive as the services. The ancient lords, though extremely unwilling
to grant, themselves, any pecuniary aid to their sovereign, easily
allowed him to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and had not
knowledge enough to foresee how much this must, in the end, affect their
own revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in France may serve as an
example of those ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits
of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock that he has upon the
farm. It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little as
possible, and consequently to employ as little as possible in its
cultivation, and none in its improvement. Should any stock happen to
accumulate in the hands of a French farmer, the taille is almost equal
to a prohibition of its ever being employed upon the land. This tax,
besides, is supposed to dishonour whoever is subject to it, and to
degrade him below, not only the rank of a gentleman, but that of a
burgher; and whoever rents the lands of another becomes subject to it.
No gentleman, nor even any burgher, who has stock, will submit to this
degradation. This tax, therefore, not only hinders the stock which
accumulates upon the land from being employed in its improvement, but
drives away all other stock from it. The ancient tenths and fifteenths,
so usual in England in former times, seem, so far as they affected the
land, to have been taxes of the same nature with the taille.

Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected
from the occupiers of land. That order of people, with all the liberty
and security which law can give, must always improve under great
disadvantage. The farmer, compared with the proprietor, is as a merchant
who trades with burrowed money, compared with one who trades with his
own. The stock of both may improve; but that of the one, with only equal
good conduct, must always improve more slowly than that of the other,
on account of the large share of the profits which is consumed by the
interest of the loan. The lands cultivated by the farmer must, in the
same manner, with only equal good conduct, be improved more slowly than
those cultivated by the proprietor, on account of the large share of the
produce which is consumed in the rent, and which, had the farmer been
proprietor, he might have employed in the further improvement of the
land. The station of a farmer, besides, is, from the nature of things,
inferior to that of a proprietor. Through the greater part of Europe,
the yeomanry are regarded as an inferior rank of people, even to the
better sort of tradesmen and mechanics, and in all parts of Europe to
the great merchants and master manufacturers. It can seldom happen,
therefore, that a man of any considerable stock should quit the
superior, in order to place himself in an inferior station. Even in the
present state of Europe, therefore, little stock is likely to go from
any other profession to the improvement of land in the way of farming.
More does, perhaps, in Great Britain than in any other country, though
even there the great stocks which are in some places employed in
farming, have generally been acquired by fanning, the trade, perhaps,
in which, of all others, stock is commonly acquired most slowly. After
small proprietors, however, rich and great farmers are in every country
the principal improvers. There are more such, perhaps, in England
than in any other European monarchy. In the republican governments of
Holland, and of Berne in Switzerland, the farmers are said to be not
inferior to those of England.

The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavourable
to the improvement and cultivation of land, whether carried on by the
proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the
exportation of corn, without a special licence, which seems to have been
a very universal regulation; and, secondly, by the restraints which were
laid upon the inland commerce, not only of corn, but of almost every
other part of the produce of the farm, by the absurd laws against
engrossers, regraters, and forestallers, and by the privileges of fairs
and markets. It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition
of the exportation of corn, together with some encouragement given to
the importation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient
Italy, naturally the most fertile country in Europe, and at that time
the seat of the greatest empire in the world. To what degree such
restraints upon the inland commerce of this commodity, joined to
the general prohibition of exportation, must have discouraged
the cultivation of countries less fertile, and less favourably
circumstanced, it is not, perhaps, very easy to imagine.



CHAPTER III. OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF CITIES AND TOWNS, AFTER THE
FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The inhabitants of cities and towns were, after the fall of the Roman
empire, not more favoured than those of the country. They consisted,
indeed, of a very different order of people from the first inhabitants
of the ancient republics of Greece and Italy. These last were composed
chiefly of the proprietors of lands, among whom the public territory was
originally divided, and who found it convenient to build their houses in
the neighbourhood of one another, and to surround them with a wall, for
the sake of common defence. After the fall of the Roman empire, on
the contrary, the proprietors of land seem generally to have lived in
fortified castles on their own estates, and in the midst of their own
tenants and dependants. The towns were chiefly inhabited by tradesmen
and mechanics, who seem, in those days, to have been of servile, or very
nearly of servile condition. The privileges which we find granted by
ancient charters to the inhabitants of some of the principal towns in
Europe, sufficiently show what they were before those grants. The people
to whom it is granted as a privilege, that they might give away their
own daughters in marriage without the consent of their lord, that upon
their death their own children, and not their lord, should succeed to
their goods, and that they might dispose of their own effects by will,
must, before those grants, have been either altogether, or very nearly,
in the same state of villanage with the occupiers of land in the
country.

They seem, indeed, to have been a very poor, mean set of people, who
seemed to travel about with their goods from place to place, and from
fair to fair, like the hawkers and pedlars of the present times. In all
the different countries of Europe then, in the same manner as in several
of the Tartar governments of Asia at present, taxes used to be levied
upon the persons and goods of travellers, when they passed through
certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when they carried
about their goods from place to place in a fair, when they erected in
it a booth or stall to sell them in. These different taxes were known
in England by the names of passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage.
Sometimes the king, sometimes a great lord, who had, it seems, upon some
occasions, authority to do this, would grant to particular traders, to
such particularly as lived in their own demesnes, a general exemption
from such taxes. Such traders, though in other respects of servile, or
very nearly of servile condition, were upon this account called free
traders. They, in return, usually paid to their protector a sort of
annual poll-tax. In those days protection was seldom granted without
a valuable consideration, and this tax might perhaps be considered as
compensation for what their patrons might lose by their exemption from
other taxes. At first, both those poll-taxes and those exemptions seem
to have been altogether personal, and to have affected only particular
individuals, during either their lives, or the pleasure of their
protectors. In the very imperfect accounts which have been published
from Doomsday-book, of several of the towns of England, mention is
frequently made, sometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid,
each of them, either to the king, or to some other great lord, for this
sort of protection, and sometimes of the general amount only of all
those taxes. {see Brady's Historical Treatise of Cities and Boroughs, p.
3. etc.}

But how servile soever may have been originally the condition of the
inhabitants of the towns, it appears evidently, that they arrived at
liberty and independency much earlier than the occupiers of land in
the country. That part of the king's revenue which arose from such
poll-taxes in any particular town, used commonly to be let in farm,
during a term of years, for a rent certain, sometimes to the sheriff
of the county, and sometimes to other persons. The burghers themselves
frequently got credit enough to be admitted to farm the revenues of
this sort winch arose out of their own town, they becoming jointly and
severally answerable for the whole rent. {See Madox, Firma Burgi, p.
18; also History of the Exchequer, chap. 10, sect. v, p. 223, first
edition.} To let a farm in this manner, was quite agreeable to the usual
economy of, I believe, the sovereigns of all the different countries of
Europe, who used frequently to let whole manors to all the tenants of
those manors, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the
whole rent; but in return being allowed to collect it in their own
way, and to pay it into the king's exchequer by the hands of their
own bailiff, and being thus altogether freed from the insolence of
the king's officers; a circumstance in those days regarded as of the
greatest importance.

At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the
same manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years
only. In process of time, however, it seems to have become the general
practice to grant it to them in fee, that is for ever, reserving a
rent certain, never afterwards to be augmented. The payment having thus
become perpetual, the exemptions, in return, for which it was made,
naturally became perpetual too. Those exemptions, therefore, ceased
to be personal, and could not afterwards be considered as belonging
to individuals, as individuals, but as burghers of a particular burgh,
which, upon this account, was called a free burgh, for the same reason
that they had been called free burghers or free traders.

Along with this grant, the important privileges, above mentioned,
that they might give away their own daughters in marriage, that their
children should succeed to them, and that they might dispose of their
own effects by will, were generally bestowed upon the burghers of the
town to whom it was given. Whether such privileges had before been
usually granted, along with the freedom of trade, to particular
burghers, as individuals, I know not. I reckon it not improbable that
they were, though I cannot produce any direct evidence of it. But
however this may have been, the principal attributes of villanage and
slavery being thus taken away from them, they now at least became really
free, in our present sense of the word freedom.

Nor was this all. They were generally at the same time erected into a
commonalty or corporation, with the privilege of having magistrates
and a town-council of their own, of making bye-laws for their own
government, of building walls for their own defence, and of reducing all
their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline, by obliging them
to watch and ward; that is, as anciently understood, to guard and defend
those walls against all attacks and surprises, by night as well as by
day. In England they were generally exempted from suit to the hundred
and county courts: and all such pleas as should arise among them, the
pleas of the crown excepted, were left to the decision of their own
magistrates. In other countries, much greater and more extensive
jurisdictions were frequently granted to them. {See Madox, Firma Burgi.
See also Pfeffel in the Remarkable events under Frederick II. and his
Successors of the House of Suabia.}

It might, probably, be necessary to grant to such towns as were admitted
to farm their own revenues, some sort of compulsive jurisdiction to
oblige their own citizens to make payment. In those disorderly times,
it might have been extremely inconvenient to have left them to seek this
sort of justice from any other tribunal. But it must seem extraordinary,
that the sovereigns of all the different countries of Europe should have
exchanged in this manner for a rent certain, never more to be augmented,
that branch of their revenue, which was, perhaps, of all others, the
most likely to be improved by the natural course of things, without
either expense or attention of their own; and that they should, besides,
have in this manner voluntarily erected a sort of independent republics
in the heart of their own dominions.

In order to understand this, it must be remembered, that, in those
days, the sovereign of perhaps no country in Europe was able to protect,
through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his
subjects from the oppression of the great lords. Those whom the law
could not protect, and who were not strong enough to defend themselves,
were obliged either to have recourse to the protection of some great
lord, and in order to obtain it, to become either his slaves or vassals;
or to enter into a league of mutual defence for the common protection of
one another. The inhabitants of cities and burghs, considered as single
individuals, had no power to defend themselves; but by entering into
a league of mutual defence with their neighbours, they were capable of
making no contemptible resistance. The lords despised the burghers,
whom they considered not only as a different order, but as a parcel of
emancipated slaves, almost of a different species from themselves.
The wealth of the burghers never failed to provoke their envy and
indignation, and they plundered them upon every occasion without mercy
or remorse. The burghers naturally hated and feared the lords. The king
hated and feared them too; but though, perhaps, he might despise, he
had no reason either to hate or fear the burghers. Mutual interest,
therefore, disposed them to support the king, and the king to support
them against the lords. They were the enemies of his enemies, and it was
his interest to render them as secure and independent of those enemies
as he could. By granting them magistrates of their own, the privilege
of making bye-laws for their own government, that of building walls for
their own defence, and that of reducing all their inhabitants under a
sort of military discipline, he gave them all the means of security and
independency of the barons which it was in his power to bestow. Without
the establishment of some regular government of this kind, without some
authority to compel their inhabitants to act according to some certain
plan or system, no voluntary league of mutual defence could either have
afforded them any permanent security, or have enabled them to give the
king any considerable support. By granting them the farm of their own
town in fee, he took away from those whom he wished to have for his
friends, and, if one may say so, for his allies, all ground of jealousy
and suspicion, that he was ever afterwards to oppress them, either by
raising the farm-rent of their town, or by granting it to some other
farmer.

The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons, seem
accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants of this kind to
their burghs. King John of England, for example, appears to have been
a most munificent benefactor to his towns. {See Madox.} Philip I. of
France lost all authority over his barons. Towards the end of his reign,
his son Lewis, known afterwards by the name of Lewis the Fat, consulted,
according to Father Daniel, with the bishops of the royal demesnes,
concerning the most proper means of restraining the violence of the
great lords. Their advice consisted of two different proposals. One was
to erect a new order of jurisdiction, by establishing magistrates and a
town-council in every considerable town of his demesnes. The other was
to form a new militia, by making the inhabitants of those towns, under
the command of their own magistrates, march out upon proper occasions
to the assistance of the king. It is from this period, according to
the French antiquarians, that we are to date the institution of
the magistrates and councils of cities in France. It was during the
unprosperous reigns of the princes of the house of Suabia, that the
greater part of the free towns of Germany received the first grants
of their privileges, and that the famous Hanseatic league first became
formidable. {See Pfeffel.}

The militia of the cities seems, in those times, not to have been
inferior to that of the country; and as they could be more readily
assembled upon any sudden occasion, they frequently had the advantage in
their disputes with the neighbouring lords. In countries such as Italy
or Switzerland, in which, on account either of their distance from the
principal seat of government, of the natural strength of the country
itself, or of some other reason, the sovereign came to lose the whole
of his authority; the cities generally became independent republics, and
conquered all the nobility in their neighbourhood; obliging them to pull
down their castles in the country, and to live, like other peaceable
inhabitants, in the city. This is the short history of the republic of
Berne, as well as of several other cities in Switzerland. If you except
Venice, for of that city the history is somewhat different, it is the
history of all the considerable Italian republics, of which so great
a number arose and perished between the end of the twelfth and the
beginning of the sixteenth century.

In countries such as France and England, where the authority of the
sovereign, though frequently very low, never was destroyed altogether,
the cities had no opportunity of becoming entirely independent. They
became, however, so considerable, that the sovereign could impose no tax
upon them, besides the stated farm-rent of the town, without their
own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the
general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join
with the clergy and the barons in granting, upon urgent occasions, some
extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favourable to
his power, their deputies seem sometimes to have been employed by him
as a counterbalance in those assemblies to the authority of the
great lords. Hence the origin of the representation of burghs in the
states-general of all great monarchies in Europe.

Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security
of individuals, were in this manner established in cities, at a time
when the occupiers of land in the country, were exposed to every sort of
violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves
with their necessary subsistence; because, to acquire more, might only
tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the contrary, when they are
secure of enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it
to better their condition, and to acquire not only the necessaries,
but the conveniencies and elegancies of life. That industry, therefore,
which aims at something more than necessary subsistence, was established
in cities long before it was commonly practised by the occupiers of land
in the country. If, in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with
the servitude of villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he
would naturally conceal it with great care from his master, to whom it
would otherwise have belonged, and take the first opportunity of running
away to a town. The law was at that time so indulgent to the inhabitants
of towns, and so desirous of diminishing the authority of the lords over
those of the country, that if he could conceal himself there from the
pursuit of his lord for a year, he was free for ever. Whatever stock,
therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the
inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in cities, as the only
sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it.

The inhabitants of a city, it is true, must always ultimately derive
their subsistence, and the whole materials and means of their industry,
from the country. But those of a city, situated near either the
sea-coast or the banks of a navigable river, are not necessarily
confined to derive them from the country in their neighbourhood. They
have a much wider range, and may draw them from the most remote corners
of the world, either in exchange for the manufactured produce of their
own industry, or by performing the office of carriers between distant
countries, and exchanging the produce of one for that of another. A city
might, in this manner, grow up to great wealth and splendour, while not
only the country in its neighbourhood, but all those to which it traded,
were in poverty and wretchedness. Each of those countries, perhaps,
taken singly, could afford it but a small part, either of its
subsistence or of its employment; but all of them taken together, could
afford it both a great subsistence and a great employment. There were,
however, within the narrow circle of the commerce of those times, some
countries that were opulent and industrious. Such was the Greek empire
as long as it subsisted, and that of the Saracens during the reigns of
the Abassides. Such, too, was Egypt till it was conquered by the Turks,
some part of the coast of Barbary, and all those provinces of Spain
which were under the government of the Moors.

The cities of Italy seem to have been the first in Europe which were
raised by commerce to any considerable degree of opulence. Italy lay in
the centre of what was at that time the improved and civilized part of
the world. The crusades, too, though, by the great waste of stock and
destruction of inhabitants which they occasioned, they must necessarily
have retarded the progress of the greater part of Europe, were extremely
favourable to that of some Italian cities. The great armies which
marched from all parts to the conquest of the Holy Land, gave
extraordinary encouragement to the shipping of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa,
sometimes in transporting them thither, and always in supplying them
with provisions. They were the commissaries, if one may say so, of those
armies; and the most destructive frenzy that ever befel the European
nations, was a source of opulence to those republics.

The inhabitants of trading cities, by importing the improved
manufactures and expensive luxuries of richer countries, afforded some
food to the vanity of the great proprietors, who eagerly purchased
them with great quantities of the rude produce of their own lands.
The commerce of a great part of Europe in those times, accordingly,
consisted chiefly in the exchange of their own rude, for the
manufactured produce of more civilized nations. Thus the wool of England
used to be exchanged for the wines of France, and the fine cloths of
Flanders, in the same manner as the corn in Poland is at this day,
exchanged for the wines and brandies of France, and for the silks and
velvets of France and Italy.

A taste for the finer and more improved manufactures was, in this
manner, introduced by foreign commerce into countries where no such
works were carried on. But when this taste became so general as to
occasion a considerable demand, the merchants, in order to save
the expense of carriage, naturally endeavoured to establish some
manufactures of the same kind in their own country. Hence the origin
of the first manufactures for distant sale, that seem to have been
established in the western provinces of Europe, after the fall of the
Roman empire.

No large country, it must be observed, ever did or could subsist without
some sort of manufactures being carried on in it; and when it is said
of any such country that it has no manufactures, it must always be
understood of the finer and more improved, or of such as are fit for
distant sale. In every large country both the clothing and household
furniture or the far greater part of the people, are the produce of
their own industry. This is even more universally the case in those poor
countries which are commonly said to have no manufactures, than in
those rich ones that are said to abound in them. In the latter you
will generally find, both in the clothes and household furniture of the
lowest rank of people, a much greater proportion of foreign productions
than in the former.

Those manufactures which are fit for distant sale, seem to have been
introduced into different countries in two different ways.

Sometimes they have been introduced in the manner above mentioned, by
the violent operation, if one may say so, of the stocks of particular
merchants and undertakers, who established them in imitation of some
foreign manufactures of the same kind. Such manufactures, therefore,
are the offspring of foreign commerce; and such seem to have been the
ancient manufactures of silks, velvets, and brocades, which flourished
in Lucca during the thirteenth century. They were banished from thence
by the tyranny of one of Machiavel's heroes, Castruccio Castracani. In
1310, nine hundred families were driven out of Lucca, of whom thirty-one
retired to Venice, and offered to introduce there the silk manufacture.
{See Sandi Istoria civile de Vinezia, part 2 vol. i, page 247 and 256.}
Their offer was accepted, many privileges were conferred upon them, and
they began the manufacture with three hundred workmen. Such, too, seem
to have been the manufactures of fine cloths that anciently flourished
in Flanders, and which were introduced into England in the beginning of
the reign of Elizabeth, and such are the present silk manufactures
of Lyons and Spitalfields. Manufactures introduced in this manner are
generally employed upon foreign materials, being imitations of foreign
manufactures. When the Venetian manufacture was first established, the
materials were all brought from Sicily and the Levant. The more ancient
manufacture of Lucca was likewise carried on with foreign materials. The
cultivation of mulberry trees, and the breeding of silk-worms, seem not
to have been common in the northern parts of Italy before the sixteenth
century. Those arts were not introduced into France till the reign of
Charles IX. The manufactures of Flanders were carried on chiefly with
Spanish and English wool. Spanish wool was the material, not of the
first woollen manufacture of England, but of the first that was fit for
distant sale. More than one half the materials of the Lyons manufacture
is at this day foreign silk; when it was first established, the whole,
or very nearly the whole, was so. No part of the materials of the
Spitalfields manufacture is ever likely to be the produce of England.
The seat of such manufactures, as they are generally introduced by the
scheme and project of a few individuals, is sometimes established in
a maritime city, and sometimes in an inland town, according as their
interest, judgment, or caprice, happen to determine.

At other times, manufactures for distant sale grow up naturally, and
as it were of their own accord, by the gradual refinement of those
household and coarser manufactures which must at all times be carried
on even in the poorest and rudest countries. Such manufactures are
generally employed upon the materials which the country produces, and
they seem frequently to have been first refined and improved in
such inland countries as were not, indeed, at a very great, but at a
considerable distance from the sea-coast, and sometimes even from
all water carriage. An inland country, naturally fertile and easily
cultivated, produces a great surplus of provisions beyond what is
necessary for maintaining the cultivators; and on account of the
expense of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it
may frequently be difficult to send this surplus abroad. Abundance,
therefore, renders provisions cheap, and encourages a great number of
workmen to settle in the neighbourhood, who find that their industry
can there procure them more of the necessaries and conveniencies of life
than in other places. They work up the materials of manufacture which
the land produces, and exchange their finished work, or, what is the
same thing, the price of it, for more materials and provisions. They
give a new value to the surplus part of the rude produce, by saving the
expense of carrying it to the water-side, or to some distant market; and
they furnish the cultivators with something in exchange for it that is
either useful or agreeable to them, upon easier terms than they could
have obtained it before. The cultivators get a better price for their
surplus produce, and can purchase cheaper other conveniencies which they
have occasion for. They are thus both encouraged and enabled to increase
this surplus produce by a further improvement and better cultivation
of the land; and as the fertility of she land had given birth to the
manufacture, so the progress of the manufacture reacts upon the land,
and increases still further it's fertility. The manufacturers first
supply the neighbourhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and
refines, more distant markets. For though neither the rude produce, nor
even the coarse manufacture, could, without the greatest difficulty,
support the expense of a considerable land-carriage, the refined and
improved manufacture easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains
the price of a great quantity of rude produce. A piece of fine cloth,
for example which weighs only eighty pounds, contains in it the price,
not only of eighty pounds weight of wool, but sometimes of several
thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the different working
people, and of their immediate employers. The corn which could with
difficulty have been carried abroad in its own shape, is in this manner
virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may easily
be sent to the remotest corners of the world. In this manner have grown
up naturally, and, as it were, of their own accord, the manufactures
of Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. Such
manufactures are the offspring of agriculture. In the modern history of
Europe, their extension and improvement have generally been posterior
to those which were the offspring of foreign commerce. England was noted
for the manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool, more than
a century before any of those which now flourish in the places above
mentioned were fit for foreign sale. The extension and improvement of
these last could not take place but in consequence of the extension
and improvement of agriculture, the last and greatest effect of foreign
commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it, and
which I shall now proceed to explain.



CHAPTER IV. HOW THE COMMERCE OF TOWNS CONTRIBUTED TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
THE COUNTRY.

The increase and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns
contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the countries to which
they belonged, in three different ways:

First, by affording a great and ready market for the rude produce of
the country, they gave encouragement to its cultivation and further
improvement. This benefit was not even confined to the countries in
which they were situated, but extended more or less to all those with
which they had any dealings. To all of them they afforded a market
for some part either of their rude or manufactured produce, and,
consequently, gave some encouragement to the industry and improvement
of all. Their own country, however, on account of its neighbourhood,
necessarily derived the greatest benefit from this market. Its rude
produce being charged with less carriage, the traders could pay the
growers a better price for it, and yet afford it as cheap to the
consumers as that of more distant countries.

Secondly, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of cities was
frequently employed in purchasing such lands as were to be sold, of
which a great part would frequently be uncultivated. Merchants are
commonly ambitious of becoming country gentlemen, and, when they do,
they are generally the best of all improvers. A merchant is accustomed
to employ his money chiefly in profitable projects; whereas a mere
country gentleman is accustomed to employ it chiefly in expense. The one
often sees his money go from him, and return to him again with a profit;
the other, when once he parts with it, very seldom expects to see any
more of it. Those different habits naturally affect their temper and
disposition in every sort of business. The merchant is commonly a bold,
a country gentleman a timid undertaker. The one is not afraid to lay out
at once a large capital upon the improvement of his land, when he has
a probable prospect of raising the value of it in proportion to the
expense; the other, if he has any capital, which is not always the case,
seldom ventures to employ it in this manner. If he improves at all, it
is commonly not with a capital, but with what he can save out or his
annual revenue. Whoever has had the fortune to live in a mercantile
town, situated in an unimproved country, must have frequently observed
how much more spirited the operations of merchants were in this way,
than those of mere country gentlemen. The habits, besides, of order,
economy, and attention, to which mercantile business naturally forms a
merchant, render him much fitter to execute, with profit and success,
any project of improvement.

Thirdly, and lastly, commerce and manufactures gradually introduced
order and good government, and with them the liberty and security of
individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived
almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of servile
dependency upon their superiors. This, though it has been the least
observed, is by far the most important of all their effects. Mr Hume is
the only writer who, so far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it.

In a country which has neither foreign commerce nor any of the finer
manufactures, a great proprietor, having nothing for which he can
exchange the greater part of the produce of his lands which is over and
above the maintenance of the cultivators, consumes the whole in rustic
hospitality at home. If this surplus produce is sufficient to maintain a
hundred or a thousand men, he can make use of it in no other way than by
maintaining a hundred or a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore,
surrounded with a multitude of retainers and dependants, who, having
no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being fed
entirely by his bounty, must obey him, for the same reason that soldiers
must obey the prince who pays them. Before the extension of commerce and
manufactures in Europe, the hospitality of the rich and the great, from
the sovereign down to the smallest baron, exceeded every thing which, in
the present times, we can easily form a notion of Westminster-hall was
the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps, not be
too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in
Thomas Becket, that he strewed the floor of his hall with clean hay or
rushes in the season, in order that the knights and squires, who could
not get seats, might not spoil their fine clothes when they sat down on
the floor to eat their dinner. The great Earl of Warwick is said to
have entertained every day, at his different manors, 30,000 people; and
though the number here may have been exaggerated, it must, however, have
been very great to admit of such exaggeration. A hospitality nearly of
the same kind was exercised not many years ago in many different parts
of the Highlands of Scotland. It seems to be common in all nations
to whom commerce and manufactures are little known. I have seen, says
Doctor Pocock, an Arabian chief dine in the streets of a town where
he had come to sell his cattle, and invite all passengers, even common
beggars, to sit down with him and partake of his banquet.

The occupiers of land were in every respect as dependent upon the great
proprietor as his retainers. Even such of them as were not in a state
of villanage, were tenants at will, who paid a rent in no respect
equivalent to the subsistence which the land afforded them. A crown,
half a crown, a sheep, a lamb, was some years ago, in the Highlands of
Scotland, a common rent for lands which maintained a family. In some
places it is so at this day; nor will money at present purchase a
greater quantity of commodities there than in other places. In a country
where the surplus produce of a large estate must be consumed upon the
estate itself, it will frequently be more convenient for the proprietor,
that part of it be consumed at a distance from his own house, provided
they who consume it are as dependent upon him as either his retainers
or his menial servants. He is thereby saved from the embarrassment of
either too large a company, or too large a family. A tenant at will, who
possesses land sufficient to maintain his family for little more than
a quit-rent, is as dependent upon the proprietor as any servant or
retainer whatever, and must obey him with as little reserve. Such a
proprietor, as he feeds his servants and retainers at his own house, so
he feeds his tenants at their houses. The subsistence of both is derived
from his bounty, and its continuance depends upon his good pleasure.

Upon the authority which the great proprietors necessarily had, in such
a state of things, over their tenants and retainers, was founded the
power of the ancient barons. They necessarily became the judges in
peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their estates.
They could maintain order, and execute the law, within their respective
demesnes, because each of them could there turn the whole force of all
the inhabitants against the injustice of anyone. No other person had
sufficient authority to do this. The king, in particular, had not. In
those ancient times, he was little more than the greatest proprietor
in his dominions, to whom, for the sake of common defence against their
common enemies, the other great proprietors paid certain respects.
To have enforced payment of a small debt within the lands of a great
proprietor, where all the inhabitants were armed, and accustomed to
stand by one another, would have cost the king, had he attempted it by
his own authority, almost the same effort as to extinguish a civil war.
He was, therefore, obliged to abandon the administration of justice,
through the greater part of the country, to those who were capable of
administering it; and, for the same reason, to leave the command of the
country militia to those whom that militia would obey.

It is a mistake to imagine that those territorial jurisdictions took
their origin from the feudal law. Not only the highest jurisdictions,
both civil and criminal, but the power of levying troops, of coining
money, and even that of making bye-laws for the government of their own
people, were all rights possessed allodially by the great proprietors of
land, several centuries before even the name of the feudal law was known
in Europe. The authority and jurisdiction of the Saxon lords in England
appear to have been as great before the Conquest as that of any of the
Norman lords after it. But the feudal law is not supposed to have
become the common law of England till after the Conquest. That the most
extensive authority and jurisdictions were possessed by the great lords
in France allodially, long before the feudal law was introduced
into that country, is a matter of fact that admits of no doubt. That
authority, and those jurisdictions, all necessarily flowed from the
state of property and manners just now described. Without remounting to
the remote antiquities of either the French or English monarchies, we
may find, in much later times, many proofs that such effects must always
flow from such causes. It is not thirty years ago since Mr Cameron of
Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochaber in Scotland, without any legal warrant
whatever, not being what was then called a lord of regality, nor even a
tenant in chief, but a vassal of the Duke of Argyll, and with out being
so much as a justice of peace, used, notwithstanding, to exercise the
highest criminal jurisdictions over his own people. He is said to have
done so with great equity, though without any of the formalities of
justice; and it is not improbable that the state of that part of the
country at that time made it necessary for him to assume this authority,
in order to maintain the public peace. That gentleman, whose rent never
exceeded £500 a-year, carried, in 1745, 800 of his own people into the
rebellion with him.

The introduction of the feudal law, so far from extending, may be
regarded as an attempt to moderate, the authority of the great allodial
lords. It established a regular subordination, accompanied with a
long train of services and duties, from the king down to the smallest
proprietor. During the minority of the proprietor, the rent, together
with the management of his lands, fell into the hands of his immediate
superior; and, consequently, those of all great proprietors into the
hands of the king, who was charged with the maintenance and education of
the pupil, and who, from his authority as guardian, was supposed to have
a right of disposing of him in marriage, provided it was in a manner not
unsuitable to his rank. But though this institution necessarily tended
to strengthen the authority of the king, and to weaken that of the great
proprietors, it could not do either sufficiently for establishing order
and good government among the inhabitants of the country; because it
could not alter sufficiently that state of property and manners from
which the disorders arose. The authority of government still continued
to be, as before, too weak in the head, and too strong in the inferior
members; and the excessive strength of the inferior members was the
cause of the weakness of the head. After the institution of feudal
subordination, the king was as incapable of restraining the violence of
the great lords as before. They still continued to make war according
to their own discretion, almost continually upon one another, and very
frequently upon the king; and the open country still continued to be a
scene of violence, rapine, and disorder.

But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have
effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and
manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the
great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole
surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves,
without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. All for ourselves,
and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have
been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. As soon, therefore, as
they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents
themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other
persons. For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as
frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or, what is the
same thing, the price of the maintenance of 1000 men for a year, and
with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them. The
buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature
was to have any share of them; whereas, in the more ancient method
of expense, they must have shared with at least 1000 people. With
the judges that were to determine the preference, this difference
was perfectly decisive; and thus, for the gratification of the most
childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities they
gradually bartered their whole power and authority.

In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer
manufactures, a man of £10,000 a-year cannot well employ his revenue in
any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, 1000 families, who are all
of them necessarily at his command. In the present state of Europe, a
man of £10,000 a-year can spend his whole revenue, and he generally does
so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command
more than ten footmen, not worth the commanding. Indirectly, perhaps,
he maintains as great, or even a greater number of people, than he could
have done by the ancient method of expense. For though the quantity of
precious productions for which he exchanges his whole revenue be very
small, the number of workmen employed in collecting and preparing it
must necessarily have been very great. Its great price generally arises
from the wages of their labour, and the profits of all their immediate
employers. By paying that price, he indirectly pays all those wages and
profits, and thus indirectly contributes to the maintenance of all the
workmen and their employers. He generally contributes, however, but a
very small proportion to that of each; to a very few, perhaps, not a
tenth, to many not a hundredth, and to some not a thousandth, or even
a ten thousandth part of their whole annual maintenance. Though he
contributes, therefore, to the maintenance of them all, they are all
more or less independent of him, because generally they can all be
maintained without him.

When the great proprietors of land spend their rents in maintaining
their tenants and retainers, each of them maintains entirely all his
own tenants and all his own retainers. But when they spend them in
maintaining tradesmen and artificers, they may, all of them taken
together, perhaps maintain as great, or, on account of the waste which
attends rustic hospitality, a greater number of people than before. Each
of them, however, taken singly, contributes often but a very small
share to the maintenance of any individual of this greater number. Each
tradesman or artificer derives his subsistence from the employment, not
of one, but of a hundred or a thousand different customers. Though
in some measure obliged to them all, therefore, he is not absolutely
dependent upon any one of them.

The personal expense of the great proprietors having in this manner
gradually increased, it was impossible that the number of their
retainers should not as gradually diminish, till they were at last
dismissed altogether. The same cause gradually led them to dismiss
the unnecessary part of their tenants. Farms were enlarged, and the
occupiers of land, notwithstanding the complaints of depopulation,
reduced to the number necessary for cultivating it, according to the
imperfect state of cultivation and improvement in those times. By the
removal of the unnecessary mouths, and by exacting from the farmer the
full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or, what is the same thing,
the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor, which
the merchants and manufacturers soon furnished him with a method of
spending upon his own person, in the same manner as he had done the
rest. The cause continuing to operate, he was desirous to raise his
rents above what his lands, in the actual state of their improvement,
could afford. His tenants could agree to this upon one condition only,
that they should be secured in their possession for such a term of years
as might give them time to recover, with profit, whatever they should
lay not in the further improvement of the land. The expensive vanity of
the landlord made him willing to accept of this condition; and hence the
origin of long leases.

Even a tenant at will, who pays the full value of the land, is not
altogether dependent upon the landlord. The pecuniary advantages which
they receive from one another are mutual and equal, and such a tenant
will expose neither his life nor his fortune in the service of the
proprietor. But if he has a lease for along term of years, he is
altogether independent; and his landlord must not expect from him even
the most trifling service, beyond what is either expressly stipulated
in the lease, or imposed upon him by the common and known law of the
country.

The tenants having in this manner become independent, and the retainers
being dismissed, the great proprietors were no longer capable of
interrupting the regular execution of justice, or of disturbing the
peace of the country. Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau,
for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but, in the
wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the
playthings of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became
as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesmen in a city.
A regular government was established in the country as well as in the
city, nobody having sufficient power to disturb its operations in the
one, any more than in the other.

It does not, perhaps, relate to the present subject, but I cannot
help remarking it, that very old families, such as have possessed some
considerable estate from father to son for many successive generations,
are very rare in commercial countries. In countries which have little
commerce, on the contrary, such as Wales, or the Highlands of Scotland,
they are very common. The Arabian histories seem to be all full of
genealogies; and there is a history written by a Tartar Khan, which
has been translated into several European languages, and which contains
scarce any thing else; a proof that ancient families are very common
among those nations. In countries where a rich man can spend his revenue
in no other way than by maintaining as many people as it can maintain,
he is apt to run out, and his benevolence, it seems, is seldom so
violent as to attempt to maintain more than he can afford. But where he
can spend the greatest revenue upon his own person, he frequently has
no bounds to his expense, because he frequently has no bounds to his
vanity, or to his affection for his own person. In commercial countries,
therefore, riches, in spite of the most violent regulations of law to
prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain long in the same family.
Among simple nations, on the contrary, they frequently do, without any
regulations of law; for among nations of shepherds, such as the Tartars
and Arabs, the consumable nature of their property necessarily renders
all such regulations impossible.

A revolution of the greatest importance to the public happiness, was in
this manner brought about by two different orders of people, who had not
the least intention to serve the public. To gratify the most childish
vanity was the sole motive of the great proprietors. The merchants and
artificers, much less ridiculous, acted merely from a view to their
own interest, and in pursuit of their own pedlar principle of turning
a penny wherever a penny was to be got. Neither of them had either
knowledge or foresight of that great revolution which the folly of the
one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringing about.

It was thus, that, through the greater part of Europe, the commerce and
manufactures of cities, instead of being the effect, have been the cause
and occasion of the improvement and cultivation of the country.

This order, however, being contrary to the natural course of things, is
necessarily both slow and uncertain. Compare the slow progress of those
European countries of which the wealth depends very much upon their
commerce and manufactures, with the rapid advances of our North American
colonies, of which the wealth is founded altogether in agriculture.
Through the greater part of Europe, the number of inhabitants is not
supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In several of
our North American colonies, it is found to double in twenty or
five-and-twenty years. In Europe, the law of primogeniture, and
perpetuities of different kinds, prevent the division of great estates,
and thereby hinder the multiplication of small proprietors. A small
proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, views
it with all the affection which property, especially small property,
naturally inspires, and who upon that account takes pleasure, not only
in cultivating, but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the
most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful. The
same regulations, besides, keep so much land out of the market, that
there are always more capitals to buy than there is land to sell, so
that what is sold always sells at a monopoly price. The rent never
pays the interest of the purchase-money, and is, besides, burdened with
repairs and other occasional charges, to which the interest of money
is not liable. To purchase land, is, everywhere in Europe, a most
unprofitable employment of a small capital. For the sake of the superior
security, indeed, a man of moderate circumstances, when he retires from
business, will sometimes choose to lay out his little capital in land.
A man of profession, too whose revenue is derived from another source
often loves to secure his savings in the same way. But a young man,
who, instead of applying to trade or to some profession, should employ a
capital of two or three thousand pounds in the purchase and cultivation
of a small piece of land, might indeed expect to live very happily and
very independently, but must bid adieu for ever to all hope of either
great fortune or great illustration, which, by a different employment
of his stock, he might have had the same chance of acquiring with
other people. Such a person, too, though he cannot aspire at being a
proprietor, will often disdain to be a farmer. The small quantity of
land, therefore, which is brought to market, and the high price of
what is brought thither, prevents a great number of capitals from being
employed in its cultivation and improvement, which would otherwise have
taken that direction. In North America, on the contrary, fifty or sixty
pounds is often found a sufficient stock to begin a plantation with.
The purchase and improvement of uncultivated land is there the most
profitable employment of the smallest as well as of the greatest
capitals, and the most direct road to all the fortune and illustration
which can be required in that country. Such land, indeed, is in North
America to be had almost for nothing, or at a price much below the value
of the natural produce; a thing impossible in Europe, or indeed in
any country where all lands have long been private property. If landed
estates, however, were divided equally among all the children, upon the
death of any proprietor who left a numerous family, the estate would
generally be sold. So much land would come to market, that it could no
longer sell at a monopoly price. The free rent of the land would go no
nearer to pay the interest of the purchase-money, and a small capital
might be employed in purchasing land as profitable as in any other way.

England, on account of the natural fertility of the soil, of the great
extent of the sea-coast in proportion to that of the whole country,
and of the many navigable rivers which run through it, and afford the
conveniency of water carriage to some of the most inland parts of it,
is perhaps as well fitted by nature as any large country in Europe to be
the seat of foreign commerce, of manufactures for distant sale, and of
all the improvements which these can occasion. From the beginning of
the reign of Elizabeth, too, the English legislature has been peculiarly
attentive to the interest of commerce and manufactures, and in reality
there is no country in Europe, Holland itself not excepted, of which
the law is, upon the whole, more favourable to this sort of industry.
Commerce and manufactures have accordingly been continually advancing
during all this period. The cultivation and improvement of the country
has, no doubt, been gradually advancing too; but it seems to have
followed slowly, and at a distance, the more rapid progress of commerce
and manufactures. The greater part of the country must probably have
been cultivated before the reign of Elizabeth; and a very great part of
it still remains uncultivated, and the cultivation of the far greater
part much inferior to what it might be, The law of England, however,
favours agriculture, not only indirectly, by the protection of commerce,
but by several direct encouragements. Except in times of scarcity, the
exportation of corn is not only free, but encouraged by a bounty. In
times of moderate plenty, the importation of foreign corn is loaded with
duties that amount to a prohibition. The importation of live cattle,
except from Ireland, is prohibited at all times; and it is but of
late that it was permitted from thence. Those who cultivate the land,
therefore, have a monopoly against their countrymen for the two greatest
and most important articles of land produce, bread and butcher's meat.
These encouragements, although at bottom, perhaps, as I shall endeavour
to show hereafter, altogether illusory, sufficiently demonstrate at
least the good intention of the legislature to favour agriculture.
But what is of much more importance than all of them, the yeomanry of
England are rendered as secure, as independent, and as respectable,
as law can make them. No country, therefore, which the right of
primogeniture takes place, which pays tithes, and where perpetuities,
though contrary to the spirit of the law, are admitted in some cases,
can give more encouragement to agriculture than England. Such, however,
notwithstanding, is the state of its cultivation. What would it have
been, had the law given no direct encouragement to agriculture besides
what arises indirectly from the progress of commerce, and had left the
yeomanry in the same condition as in most other countries of Europe? It
is now more than two hundred years since the beginning of the reign of
Elizabeth, a period as long as the course of human prosperity usually
endures.

France seems to have had a considerable share of foreign commerce, near
a century before England was distinguished as a commercial country.
The marine of France was considerable, according to the notions of the
times, before the expedition of Charles VIII. to Naples. The cultivation
and improvement of France, however, is, upon the whole, inferior to
that of England. The law of the country has never given the same direct
encouragement to agriculture.

The foreign commerce of Spain and Portual to the other parts of Europe,
though chiefly carried on in foreign ships, is very considerable. That
to their colonies is carried on in their own, and is much greater, on
account of the great riches and extent of those colonies. But it has
never introduced any considerable manufactures for distant sale into
either of those countries, and the greater part of both still remains
uncultivated. The foreign commerce of Portugal is of older standing than
that of any great country in Europe, except Italy.

Italy is the only great country of Europe which seems to have been
cultivated and improved in every part, by means of foreign commerce and
manufactures for distant sale. Before the invasion of Charles VIII.,
Italy, according to Guicciardini, was cultivated not less in the most
mountainous and barren parts of the country, than in the plainest and
most fertile. The advantageous situation of the country, and the
great number of independent status which at that time subsisted in it,
probably contributed not a little to this general cultivation. It is not
impossible, too, notwithstanding this general expression of one of the
most judicious and reserved of modern historians, that Italy was not at
that time better cultivated than England is at present.

The capital, however, that is acquired to any country by commerce and
manufactures, is always a very precarious and uncertain possession, till
some part of it has been secured and realized in the cultivation and
improvement of its lands. A merchant, it has been said very properly, is
not necessarily the citizen of any particular country. It is in a great
measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on his trade; and
a very trifling disgust will make him remove his capital, and, together
with it, all the industry which it supports, from one country to
another. No part of it can be said to belong to any particular country,
till it has been spread, as it were, over the face of that country,
either in buildings, or in the lasting improvement of lands. No vestige
now remains of the great wealth said to have been possessed by the
greater part of the Hanse Towns, except in the obscure histories of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is even uncertain where some of
them were situated, or to what towns in Europe the Latin names given to
some of them belong. But though the misfortunes of Italy, in the end
of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, greatly
diminished the commerce and manufactures of the cities of Lombardy and
Tuscany, those countries still continue to be among the most populous
and best cultivated in Europe. The civil wars of Flanders, and the
Spanish government which succeeded them, chased away the great commerce
of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges. But Flanders still continues to be one of
the richest, best cultivated, and most populous provinces of Europe. The
ordinary revolutions of war and government easily dry up the sources of
that wealth which arises from commerce only. That which arises from the
more solid improvements of agriculture is much more durable, and cannot
be destroyed but by those more violent convulsions occasioned by the
depredations of hostile and barbarous nations continued for a century or
two together; such as those that happened for some time before and after
the fall of the Roman empire in the western provinces of Europe.



BOOK IV. OF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.



Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman
or legislator, proposes two distinct objects; first, to provide a
plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to
enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves;
and, secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue
sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the
people and the sovereign.

The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations, has
given occasion to two different systems of political economy, with
regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of
commerce, the other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain
both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system
of commerce. It is the modern system, and is best understood in our own
country and in our own times.



CHAPTER I. OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMERCIAL OR MERCANTILE SYSTEM.

That wealth consists in money, or in gold and silver, is a popular
notion which naturally arises from the double function of money, as the
instrument of commerce, and as the measure of value. In consequence of
its being the instrument of commerce, when we have money we can more
readily obtain whatever else we have occasion for, than by means of any
other commodity. The great affair, we always find, is to get money.
When that is obtained, there is no difficulty in making any subsequent
purchase. In consequence of its being the measure of value, we estimate
that of all other commodities by the quantity of money which they will
exchange for. We say of a rich man, that he is worth a great deal, and
of a poor man, that he is worth very little money. A frugal man, or a
man eager to be rich, is said to love money; and a careless, a generous,
or a profuse man, is said to be indifferent about it. To grow rich is
to get money; and wealth and money, in short, are, in common language,
considered as in every respect synonymous.

A rich country, in the same manner as a rich man, is supposed to be
a country abounding in money; and to heap up gold and silver in any
country is supposed to be the readiest way to enrich it. For some time
after the discovery of America, the first inquiry of the Spaniards, when
they arrived upon any unknown coast, used to be, if there was any gold
or silver to be found in the neighbourhood? By the information which
they received, they judged whether it was worth while to make a
settlement there, or if the country was worth the conquering. Plano
Carpino, a monk sent ambassador from the king of France to one of the
sons of the famous Gengis Khan, says, that the Tartars used frequently
to ask him, if there was plenty of sheep and oxen in the kingdom of
France? Their inquiry had the same object with that of the Spaniards.
They wanted to know if the country was rich enough to be worth the
conquering. Among the Tartars, as among all other nations of shepherds,
who are generally ignorant of the use of money, cattle are the
instruments of commerce and the measures of value. Wealth, therefore,
according to them, consisted in cattle, as, according to the Spaniards,
it consisted in gold and silver. Of the two, the Tartar notion, perhaps,
was the nearest to the truth.

Mr Locke remarks a distinction between money and other moveable goods.
All other moveable goods, he says, are of so consumable a nature, that
the wealth which consists in them cannot be much depended on; and a
nation which abounds in them one year may, without any exportation, but
merely by their own waste and extravagance, be in great want of them the
next. Money, on the contrary, is a steady friend, which, though it may
travel about from hand to hand, yet if it can be kept from going out
of the country, is not very liable to be wasted and consumed. Gold and
silver, therefore, are, according to him, the must solid and substantial
part of the moveable wealth of a nation; and to multiply those metals
ought, he thinks, upon that account, to be the great object of its
political economy.

Others admit, that if a nation could be separated from all the world,
it would be of no consequence how much or how little money circulated in
it. The consumable goods, which were circulated by means of this money,
would only be exchanged for a greater or a smaller number of pieces;
but the real wealth or poverty of the country, they allow, would depend
altogether upon the abundance or scarcity of those consumable goods. But
it is otherwise, they think, with countries which have connections with
foreign nations, and which are obliged to carry on foreign wars, and to
maintain fleets and armies in distant countries. This, they say, cannot
be done, but by sending abroad money to pay them with; and a nation
cannot send much money abroad, unless it has a good deal at home. Every
such nation, therefore, must endeavour, in time of peace, to accumulate
gold and silver, that when occasion requires, it may have wherewithal to
carry on foreign wars.

In consequence of those popular notions, all the different nations of
Europe have studied, though to little purpose, every possible means of
accumulating gold and silver in their respective countries. Spain and
Portugal, the proprietors of the principal mines which supply Europe
with those metals, have either prohibited their exportation under the
severest penalties, or subjected it to a considerable duty. The like
prohibition seems anciently to have made a part of the policy of most
other European nations. It is even to be found, where we should least
of all expect to find it, in some old Scotch acts of Parliament, which
forbid, under heavy penalties, the carrying gold or silver forth of
the kingdom. The like policy anciently took place both in France and
England.

When those countries became commercial, the merchants found this
prohibition, upon many occasions, extremely inconvenient. They could
frequently buy more advantageously with gold and silver, than with any
other commodity, the foreign goods which they wanted, either to
import into their own, or to carry to some other foreign country. They
remonstrated, therefore, against this prohibition as hurtful to trade.

They represented, first, that the exportation of gold and silver, in
order to purchase foreign goods, did not always diminish the quantity of
those metals in the kingdom; that, on the contrary, it might frequently
increase the quantity; because, if the consumption of foreign goods was
not thereby increased in the country, those goods might be re-exported
to foreign countries, and being there sold for a large profit, might
bring back much more treasure than was originally sent out to purchase
them. Mr Mun compares this operation of foreign trade to the seed-time
and harvest of agriculture. "If we only behold," says he, "the actions
of the husbandman in the seed time, when he casteth away much good corn
into the ground, we shall account him rather a madman than a husbandman.
But when we consider his labours in the harvest, which is the end of
his endeavours, we shall find the worth and plentiful increase of his
actions."

They represented, secondly, that this prohibition could not hinder the
exportation of gold and silver, which, on account of the smallness
of their bulk in proportion to their value, could easily be smuggled
abroad. That this exportation could only be prevented by a proper
attention to what they called the balance of trade. That when the
country exported to a greater value than it imported, a balance became
due to it from foreign nations, which was necessarily paid to it in gold
and silver, and thereby increased the quantity of those metals in the
kingdom. But that when it imported to a greater value than it exported,
a contrary balance became due to foreign nations, which was necessarily
paid to them in the same manner, and thereby diminished that quantity:
that in this case, to prohibit the exportation of those metals, could
not prevent it, but only, by making it more dangerous, render it more
expensive: that the exchange was thereby turned more against the country
which owed the balance, than it otherwise might have been; the merchant
who purchased a bill upon the foreign country being obliged to pay the
banker who sold it, not only for the natural risk, trouble, and expense
of sending the money thither, but for the extraordinary risk arising
from the prohibition; but that the more the exchange was against any
country, the more the balance of trade became necessarily against it;
the money of that country becoming necessarily of so much less value, in
comparison with that of the country to which the balance was due. That
if the exchange between England and Holland, for example, was five per
cent. against England, it would require 105 ounces of silver in England
to purchase a bill for 100 ounces of silver in Holland: that 105 ounces
of silver in England, therefore, would be worth only 100 ounces of
silver in Holland, and would purchase only a proportionable quantity of
Dutch goods; but that 100 ounces of silver in Holland, on the
contrary, would be worth 105 ounces in England, and would purchase a
proportionable quantity of English goods; that the English goods which
were sold to Holland would be sold so much cheaper, and the Dutch goods
which were sold to England so much dearer, by the difference of the
exchange: that the one would draw so much less Dutch money to England,
and the other so much more English money to Holland, as this difference
amounted to: and that the balance of trade, therefore, would necessarily
be so much more against England, and would require a greater balance of
gold and silver to be exported to Holland.

Those arguments were partly solid and partly sophistical. They were
solid, so far as they asserted that the exportation of gold and silver
in trade might frequently be advantageous to the country. They were
solid, too, in asserting that no prohibition could prevent their
exportation, when private people found any advantage in exporting them.
But they were sophistical, in supposing, that either to preserve or
to augment the quantity of those metals required more the attention of
government, than to preserve or to augment the quantity of any other
useful commodities, which the freedom of trade, without any such
attention, never fails to supply in the proper quantity. They were
sophistical, too, perhaps, in asserting that the high price of exchange
necessarily increased what they called the unfavourable balance of
trade, or occasioned the exportation of a greater quantity of gold and
silver. That high price, indeed, was extremely disadvantageous to the
merchants who had any money to pay in foreign countries. They paid so
much dearer for the bills which their bankers granted them upon those
countries. But though the risk arising from the prohibition might
occasion some extraordinary expense to the bankers, it would not
necessarily carry any more money out of the country. This expense would
generally be all laid out in the country, in smuggling the money out
of it, and could seldom occasion the exportation of a single sixpence
beyond the precise sum drawn for. The high price of exchange, too,
would naturally dispose the merchants to endeavour to make their exports
nearly balance their imports, in order that they might have this high
exchange to pay upon as small a sum as possible. The high price of
exchange, besides, must necessarily have operated as a tax, in raising
the price of foreign goods, and thereby diminishing their consumption.
It would tend, therefore, not to increase, but to diminish, what
they called the unfavourable balance of trade, and consequently the
exportation of gold and silver.

Such as they were, however, those arguments convinced the people to whom
they were addressed. They were addressed by merchants to parliaments
and to the councils of princes, to nobles, and to country gentlemen; by
those who were supposed to understand trade, to those who were conscious
to them selves that they knew nothing about the matter. That foreign
trade enriched the country, experience demonstrated to the nobles and
country gentlemen, as well as to the merchants; but how, or in what
manner, none of them well knew. The merchants knew perfectly in what
manner it enriched themselves, it was their business to know it. But
to know in what manner it enriched the country, was no part of their
business. The subject never came into their consideration, but when
they had occasion to apply to their country for some change in the laws
relating to foreign trade. It then became necessary to say something
about the beneficial effects of foreign trade, and the manner in which
those effects were obstructed by the laws as they then stood. To the
judges who were to decide the business, it appeared a most satisfactory
account of the matter, when they were told that foreign trade brought
money into the country, but that the laws in question hindered it from
bringing so much as it otherwise would do. Those arguments, therefore,
produced the wished-for effect. The prohibition of exporting gold
and silver was, in France and England, confined to the coin of those
respective countries. The exportation of foreign coin and of bullion
was made free. In Holland, and in some other places, this liberty was
extended even to the coin of the country. The attention of government
was turned away from guarding against the exportation of gold and
silver, to watch over the balance of trade, as the only cause which
could occasion any augmentation or diminution of those metals. From one
fruitless care, it was turned away to another care much more intricate,
much more embarrassing, and just equally fruitless. The title of Mun's
book, England's Treasure in Foreign Trade, became a fundamental maxim in
the political economy, not of England only, but of all other commercial
countries. The inland or home trade, the most important of all, the
trade in which an equal capital affords the greatest revenue, and
creates the greatest employment to the people of the country, was
considered as subsidiary only to foreign trade. It neither brought money
into the country, it was said, nor carried any out of it. The country,
therefore, could never become either richer or poorer by means of it,
except so far as its prosperity or decay might indirectly influence the
state of foreign trade.

A country that has no mines of its own, must undoubtedly draw its gold
and silver from foreign countries, in the same manner as one that has
no vineyards of its own must draw its wines. It does not seem necessary,
however, that the attention of government should be more turned towards
the one than towards the other object. A country that has wherewithal
to buy wine, will always get the wine which it has occasion for; and a
country that has wherewithal to buy gold and silver, will never be in
want of those metals. They are to be bought for a certain price,
like all other commodities; and as they are the price of all other
commodities, so all other commodities are the price of those metals.
We trust, with perfect security, that the freedom of trade, without any
attention of government, will always supply us with the wine which we
have occasion for; and we may trust, with equal security, that it will
always supply us with all the gold and silver which we can afford to
purchase or to employ, either in circulating our commodities or in other
uses.

The quantity of every commodity which human industry can either purchase
or produce, naturally regulates itself in every country according to the
effectual demand, or according to the demand of those who are willing to
pay the whole rent, labour, and profits, which must be paid in order to
prepare and bring it to market. But no commodities regulate themselves
more easily or more exactly, according to this effectual demand, than
gold and silver; because, on account of the small bulk and great value
of those metals, no commodities can be more easily transported from one
place to another; from the places where they are cheap, to those where
they are dear; from the places where they exceed, to those where they
fall short of this effectual demand. If there were in England, for
example, an effectual demand for an additional quantity of gold, a
packet-boat could bring from Lisbon, or from wherever else it was to
be had, fifty tons of gold, which could be coined into more than five
millions of guineas. But if there were an effectual demand for grain
to the same value, to import it would require, at five guineas a-ton,
a million of tons of shipping, or a thousand ships of a thousand tons
each. The navy of England would not be sufficient.

When the quantity of gold and silver imported into any country exceeds
the effectual demand, no vigilance of government can prevent their
exportation. All the sanguinary laws of Spain and Portugal are not able
to keep their gold and silver at home. The continual importations from
Peru and Brazil exceed the effectual demand of those countries, and
sink the price of those metals there below that in the neighbouring
countries. If, on the contrary, in any particular country, their
quantity fell short of the effectual demand, so as to raise their price
above that of the neighbouring countries, the government would have no
occasion to take any pains to import them. If it were even to take pains
to prevent their importation, it would not be able to effectuate it.
Those metals, when the Spartans had got wherewithal to purchase them,
broke through all the barriers which the laws of Lycurgus opposed to
their entrance into Lacedaemon. All the sanguinary laws of the customs
are not able to prevent the importation of the teas of the Dutch and
Gottenburg East India companies; because somewhat cheaper than those of
the British company. A pound of tea, however, is about a hundred times
the bulk of one of the highest prices, sixteen shillings, that is
commonly paid for it in silver, and more than two thousand times the
bulk of the same price in gold, and, consequently, just so many times
more difficult to smuggle.

It is partly owing to the easy transportation of gold and silver, from
the places where they abound to those where they are wanted, that the
price of those metals does not fluctuate continually, like that of the
greater part of other commodities, which are hindered by their bulk from
shifting their situation, when the market happens to be either over
or under-stocked with them. The price of those metals, indeed, is not
altogether exempted from variation; but the changes to which it is
liable are generally slow, gradual, and uniform. In Europe, for example,
it is supposed, without much foundation, perhaps, that during the course
of the present and preceding century, they have been constantly,
but gradually, sinking in their value, on account of the continual
importations from the Spanish West Indies. But to make any sudden
change in the price of gold and silver, so as to raise or lower at
once, sensibly and remarkably, the money price of all other commodities,
requires such a revolution in commerce as that occasioned by the
discovery of America.

If, not withstanding all this, gold and silver should at any time fall
short in a country which has wherewithal to purchase them, there are
more expedients for supplying their place, than that of almost any other
commodity. If the materials of manufacture are wanted, industry must
stop. If provisions are wanted, the people must starve. But if money
is wanted, barter will supply its place, though with a good deal of
inconveniency. Buying and selling upon credit, and the different dealers
compensating their credits with one another, once a-month, or once
a-year, will supply it with less inconveniency. A well-regulated
paper-money will supply it not only without any inconveniency, but, in
some cases, with some advantages. Upon every account, therefore, the
attention of government never was so unnecessarily employed, as when
directed to watch over the preservation or increase of the quantity of
money in any country.

No complaint, however, is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Money, like wine, must always be scarce with those who have neither
wherewithal to buy it, nor credit to borrow it. Those who have either,
will seldom be in want either of the money, or of the wine which they
have occasion for. This complaint, however, of the scarcity of money, is
not always confined to improvident spendthrifts. It is sometimes general
through a whole mercantile town and the country in its neighbourhood.
Over-trading is the common cause of it. Sober men, whose projects have
been disproportioned to their capitals, are as likely to have neither
wherewithal to buy money, nor credit to borrow it, as prodigals, whose
expense has been disproportioned to their revenue. Before their projects
can be brought to bear, their stock is gone, and their credit with it.
They run about everywhere to borrow money, and everybody tells them that
they have none to lend. Even such general complaints of the scarcity
of money do not always prove that the usual number of gold and silver
pieces are not circulating in the country, but that many people want
those pieces who have nothing to give for them. When the profits of
trade happen to be greater than ordinary over-trading becomes a general
error, both among great and small dealers. They do not always send more
money abroad than usual, but they buy upon credit, both at home and
abroad, an unusual quantity of goods, which they send to some distant
market, in hopes that the returns will come in before the demand for
payment. The demand comes before the returns, and they have nothing at
hand with which they can either purchase money or give solid security
for borrowing. It is not any scarcity of gold and silver, but the
difficulty which such people find in borrowing, and which their creditor
find in getting payment, that occasions the general complaint of the
scarcity of money.

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth
does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money
purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money, no doubt, makes
always a part of the national capital; but it has already been
shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most
unprofitable part of it.

It is not because wealth consists more essentially in money than in
goods, that the merchant finds it generally more easy to buy goods with
money, than to buy money with goods; but because money is the known and
established instrument of commerce, for which every thing is readily
given in exchange, but which is not always with equal readiness to be
got in exchange for every thing. The greater part of goods, besides, are
more perishable than money, and he may frequently sustain a much greater
loss by keeping them. When his goods are upon hand, too, he is more
liable to such demands for money as he may not be able to answer, than
when he has got their price in his coffers. Over and above all this, his
profit arises more directly from selling than from buying; and he is,
upon all these accounts, generally much more anxious to exchange his
goods for money than his money for goods. But though a particular
merchant, with abundance of goods in his warehouse, may sometimes be
ruined by not being able to sell them in time, a nation or country
is not liable to the same accident, The whole capital of a merchant
frequently consists in perishable goods destined for purchasing money.
But it is but a very small part of the annual produce of the land and
labour of a country, which can ever be destined for purchasing gold and
silver from their neighbours. The far greater part is circulated and
consumed among themselves; and even of the surplus which is sent abroad,
the greater part is generally destined for the purchase of other foreign
goods. Though gold and silver, therefore, could not be had in exchange
for the goods destined to purchase them, the nation would not be ruined.
It might, indeed, suffer some loss and inconveniency, and be forced upon
some of those expedients which are necessary for supplying the place of
money. The annual produce of its land and labour, however, would be the
same, or very nearly the same as usual; because the same, or very nearly
the same consumable capital would be employed in maintaining it. And
though goods do not always draw money so readily as money draws goods,
in the long-run they draw it more necessarily than even it draws them.
Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money
can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods. Money, therefore,
necessarily runs after goods, but goods do not always or necessarily run
after money. The man who buys, does not always mean to sell again, but
frequently to use or to consume; whereas he who sells always means to
buy again. The one may frequently have done the whole, but the other can
never have done more than the one half of his business. It is not for
its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can
purchase with it.

Consumable commodities, it is said, are soon destroyed; whereas gold and
silver are of a more durable nature, and were it not for this continual
exportation, might be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible
augmentation of the real wealth of the country. Nothing, therefore, it
is pretended, can be more disadvantageous to any country, than the
trade which consists in the exchange of such lasting for such perishable
commodities. We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous,
which consists in the exchange of the hardware of England for the wines
of France, and yet hardware is a very durable commodity, and were it
not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages
together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the
country. But it readily occurs, that the number of such utensils is in
every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them;
that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary
for cooking the victuals usually consumed there; and that, if the
quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would
readily increase along with it; a part of the increased quantity
of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an
additional number of workmen whose business it was to make them. It
should as readily occur, that the quantity of gold and silver is, in
every country, limited by the use which there is for those metals; that
their use consists in circulating commodities, as coin, and in affording
a species of household furniture, as plate; that the quantity of coin in
every country is regulated by the value of the commodities which are to
be circulated by it; increase that value, and immediately a part of
it will be sent abroad to purchase, wherever it is to be had, the
additional quantity of coin requisite for circulating them: that the
quantity of plate is regulated by the number and wealth of those private
families who choose to indulge themselves in that sort of magnificence;
increase the number and wealth of such families, and a part of this
increased wealth will most probably be employed in purchasing, wherever
it is to be found, an additional quantity of plate; that to attempt
to increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by
detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as
absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private
families, by obliging them to keep an unnecessary number of kitchen
utensils. As the expense of purchasing those unnecessary utensils would
diminish, instead of increasing, either the quantity or goodness of the
family provisions; so the expense of purchasing an unnecessary quantity
of gold and silver must, in every country, as necessarily diminish the
wealth which feeds, clothes, and lodges, which maintains and employs the
people. Gold and silver, whether in the shape of coin or of plate,
are utensils, it must be remembered, as much as the furniture of the
kitchen. Increase the use of them, increase the consumable commodities
which are to be circulated, managed, and prepared by means of them,
and you will infallibly increase the quantity; but if you attempt by
extraordinary means to increase the quantity, you will as infallibly
diminish the use, and even the quantity too, which in those metals
can never be greater than what the use requires. Were they ever to be
accumulated beyond this quantity, their transportation is so easy, and
the loss which attends their lying idle and unemployed so great, that no
law could prevent their being immediately sent out of the country.

It is not always necessary to accumulate gold and silver, in order to
enable a country to carry on foreign wars, and to maintain fleets and
armies in distant countries. Fleets and armies are maintained, not with
gold and silver, but with consumable goods. The nation which, from the
annual produce of its domestic industry, from the annual revenue arising
out of its lands, and labour, and consumable stock, has wherewithal
to purchase those consumable goods in distant countries, can maintain
foreign wars there.

A nation may purchase the pay and provisions of an army in a distant
country three different ways; by sending abroad either, first, some
part of its accumulated gold and silver; or, secondly, some part of the
annual produce of its manufactures; or, last of all, some part of its
annual rude produce.

The gold and silver which can properly be considered as accumulated, or
stored up in any country, may be distinguished into three parts; first,
the circulating money; secondly, the plate of private families; and,
last of all, the money which may have been collected by many years
parsimony, and laid up in the treasury of the prince.

It can seldom happen that much can be spared from the circulating money
of the country; because in that there can seldom be much redundancy.
The value of goods annually bought and sold in any country requires
a certain quantity of money to circulate and distribute them to their
proper consumers, and can give employment to no more. The channel of
circulation necessarily draws to itself a sum sufficient to fill it, and
never admits any more. Something, however, is generally withdrawn from
this channel in the case of foreign war. By the great number of people
who are maintained abroad, fewer are maintained at home. Fewer goods are
circulated there, and less money becomes necessary to circulate them. An
extraordinary quantity of paper money of some sort or other, too, such
as exchequer notes, navy bills, and bank bills, in England, is generally
issued upon such occasions, and, by supplying the place of circulating
gold and silver, gives an opportunity of sending a greater quantity
of it abroad. All this, however, could afford but a poor resource for
maintaining a foreign war, of great expense, and several years duration.

The melting down of the plate of private families has, upon every
occasion, been found a still more insignificant one. The French, in the
beginning of the last war, did not derive so much advantage from this
expedient as to compensate the loss of the fashion.

The accumulated treasures of the prince have in former times afforded
a much greater and more lasting resource. In the present times, if you
except the king of Prussia, to accumulate treasure seems to be no part
of the policy of European princes.

The funds which maintained the foreign wars of the present century, the
most expensive perhaps which history records, seem to have had little
dependency upon the exportation either of the circulating money, or of
the plate of private families, or of the treasure of the prince. The
last French war cost Great Britain upwards of £90,000,000, including not
only the £75,000,000 of new debt that was contracted, but the additional
2s. in the pound land-tax, and what was annually borrowed of the sinking
fund. More than two-thirds of this expense were laid out in distant
countries; in Germany, Portugal, America, in the ports of the
Mediterranean, in the East and West Indies. The kings of England had no
accumulated treasure. We never heard of any extraordinary quantity of
plate being melted down. The circulating gold and silver of the country
had not been supposed to exceed £18,000,000. Since the late recoinage of
the gold, however, it is believed to have been a good deal under-rated.
Let us suppose, therefore, according to the most exaggerated computation
which I remember to have either seen or heard of, that, gold and silver
together, it amounted to £30,000,000. Had the war been carried on
by means of our money, the whole of it must, even according to this
computation, have been sent out and returned again, at least twice in a
period of between six and seven years. Should this be supposed, it would
afford the most decisive argument, to demonstrate how unnecessary it is
for government to watch over the preservation of money, since, upon this
supposition, the whole money of the country must have gone from it, and
returned to it again, two different times in so short a period, without
any body's knowing any thing of the matter. The channel of circulation,
however, never appeared more empty than usual during any part of this
period. Few people wanted money who had wherewithal to pay for it. The
profits of foreign trade, indeed, were greater than usual during the
whole war, but especially towards the end of it. This occasioned, what
it always occasions, a general over-trading in all the ports of Great
Britain; and this again occasioned the usual complaint of the scarcity
of money, which always follows over-trading. Many people wanted it, who
had neither wherewithal to buy it, nor credit to borrow it; and because
the debtors found it difficult to borrow, the creditors found it
difficult to get payment. Gold and silver, however, were generally to be
had for their value, by those who had that value to give for them.

The enormous expense of the late war, therefore, must have been chiefly
defrayed, not by the exportation of gold and silver, but by that of
British commodities of some kind or other. When the government, or those
who acted under them, contracted with a merchant for a remittance to
some foreign country, he would naturally endeavour to pay his foreign
correspondent, upon whom he granted a bill, by sending abroad rather
commodities than gold and silver. If the commodities of Great Britain
were not in demand in that country, he would endeavour to send them to
some other country in which he could purchase a bill upon that country.
The transportation of commodities, when properly suited to the market,
is always attended with a considerable profit; whereas that of gold
and silver is scarce ever attended with any. When those metals are sent
abroad in order to purchase foreign commodities, the merchant's profit
arises, not from the purchase, but from the sale of the returns. But
when they are sent abroad merely to pay a debt, he gets no returns, and
consequently no profit. He naturally, therefore, exerts his invention to
find out a way of paying his foreign debts, rather by the exportation
of commodities, than by that of gold and silver. The great quantity
of British goods, exported during the course of the late war, without
bringing back any returns, is accordingly remarked by the author of the
Present State of the Nation.

Besides the three sorts of gold and silver above mentioned, there is
in all great commercial countries a good deal of bullion alternately
imported and exported, for the purposes of foreign trade. This bullion,
as it circulates among different commercial countries, in the same
manner as the national coin circulates in every country, may be
considered as the money of the great mercantile republic. The national
coin receives its movement and direction from the commodities circulated
within the precincts of each particular country; the money in the
mercantile republic, from those circulated between different countries.
Both are employed in facilitating exchanges, the one between different
individuals of the same, the other between those of different nations.
Part of this money of the great mercantile republic may have been, and
probably was, employed in carrying on the late war. In time of a general
war, it is natural to suppose that a movement and direction should be
impressed upon it, different from what it usually follows in profound
peace, that it should circulate more about the seat of the war, and be
more employed in purchasing there, and in the neighbouring countries,
the pay and provisions of the different armies. But whatever part of
this money of the mercantile republic Great Britain may have annually
employed in this manner, it must have been annually purchased, either
with British commodities, or with something else that had been purchased
with them; which still brings us back to commodities, to the annual
produce of the land and labour of the country, as the ultimate resources
which enabled us to carry on the war. It is natural, indeed, to suppose,
that so great an annual expense must have been defrayed from a great
annual produce. The expense of 1761, for example, amounted to more than
£19,000,000. No accumulation could have supported so great an annual
profusion. There is no annual produce, even of gold and silver, which
could have supported it. The whole gold and silver annually imported
into both Spain and Portugal, according to the best accounts, does not
commonly much exceed £6,000,000 sterling, which, in some years, would
scarce have paid four months expense of the late war.

The commodities most proper for being transported to distant countries,
in order to purchase there either the pay and provisions of an army,
or some part of the money of the mercantile republic to be employed in
purchasing them, seem to be the finer and more improved manufactures;
such as contain a great value in a small bulk, and can therefore be
exported to a great distance at little expense. A country whose industry
produces a great annual surplus of such manufactures, which are usually
exported to foreign countries, may carry on for many years a very
expensive foreign war, without either exporting any considerable
quantity of gold and silver, or even having any such quantity to export.
A considerable part of the annual surplus of its manufactures must,
indeed, in this case, be exported without bringing back any returns to
the country, though it does to the merchant; the government purchasing
of the merchant his bills upon foreign countries, in order to purchase
there the pay and provisions of an army. Some part of this surplus,
however, may still continue to bring back a return. The manufacturers
during; the war will have a double demand upon them, and be called upon
first to work up goods to be sent abroad, for paying the bills drawn
upon foreign countries for the pay and provisions of the army: and,
secondly, to work up such as are necessary for purchasing the common
returns that had usually been consumed in the country. In the midst
of the most destructive foreign war, therefore, the greater part of
manufactures may frequently flourish greatly; and, on the contrary, they
may decline on the return of peace. They may flourish amidst the ruin of
their country, and begin to decay upon the return of its prosperity. The
different state of many different branches of the British manufactures
during the late war, and for some time after the peace, may serve as an
illustration of what has been just now said.

No foreign war, of great expense or duration, could conveniently be
carried on by the exportation of the rude produce of the soil. The
expense of sending such a quantity of it into a foreign country as
might purchase the pay and provisions of an army would be too great. Few
countries, too, produce much more rude produce than what is sufficient
for the subsistence of their own inhabitants. To send abroad any
great quantity of it, therefore, would be to send abroad a part of
the necessary subsistence of the people. It is otherwise with the
exportation of manufactures. The maintenance of the people employed
in them is kept at home, and only the surplus part of their work is
exported. Mr Hume frequently takes notice of the inability of the
ancient kings of England to carry on, without interruption, any foreign
war of long duration. The English in those days had nothing wherewithal
to purchase the pay and provisions of their armies in foreign countries,
but either the rude produce of the soil, of which no considerable part
could be spared from the home consumption, or a few manufactures of
the coarsest kind, of which, as well as of the rude produce, the
transportation was too expensive. This inability did not arise from the
want of money, but of the finer and more improved manufactures. Buying
and selling was transacted by means of money in England then as well
as now. The quantity of circulating money must have borne the same
proportion, to the number and value of purchases and sales usually
transacted at that time, which it does to those transacted at present;
or, rather, it must have borne a greater proportion, because there was
then no paper, which now occupies a great part of the employment of gold
and silver. Among nations to whom commerce and manufactures are little
known, the sovereign, upon extraordinary occasions, can seldom draw any
considerable aid from his subjects, for reasons which shall be explained
hereafter. It is in such countries, therefore, that he generally
endeavours to accumulate a treasure, as the only resource against such
emergencies. Independent of this necessity, he is, in such a situation,
naturally disposed to the parsimony requisite for accumulation. In that
simple state, the expense even of a sovereign is not directed by the
vanity which delights in the gaudy finery of a court, but is employed in
bounty to his tenants, and hospitality to his retainers. But bounty
and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost
always does. Every Tartar chief, accordingly, has a treasure. The
treasures of Mazepa, chief of the Cossacks in the Ukraine, the famous
ally of Charles XII., are said to have been very great. The French
kings of the Merovingian race had all treasures. When they divided their
kingdom among their different children, they divided their treasures
too. The Saxon princes, and the first kings after the Conquest, seem
likewise to have accumulated treasures. The first exploit of every new
reign was commonly to seize the treasure of the preceding king, as the
most essential measure for securing the succession. The sovereigns of
improved and commercial countries are not under the same necessity
of accumulating treasures, because they can generally draw from their
subjects extraordinary aids upon extraordinary occasions. They are
likewise less disposed to do so. They naturally, perhaps necessarily,
follow the mode of the times; and their expense comes to be regulated
by the same extravagant vanity which directs that of all the other great
proprietors in their dominions. The insignificant pageantry of their
court becomes every day more brilliant; and the expense of it not only
prevents accumulation, but frequently encroaches upon the funds destined
for more necessary expenses. What Dercyllidas said of the court of
Persia, may be applied to that of several European princes, that he saw
there much splendour, but little strength, and many servants, but few
soldiers.

The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the
sole benefit, which a nation derives from its foreign trade. Between
whatever places foreign trade is carried on, they all of them derive
two distinct benefits from it. It carries out that surplus part of the
produce of their land and labour for which there is no demand among
them, and brings back in return for it something else for which there
is a demand. It gives a value to their superfluities, by exchanging them
for something else, which may satisfy a part of their wants and increase
their enjoyments. By means of it, the narrowness of the home market does
not hinder the division of labour in any particular branch of art or
manufacture from being carried to the highest perfection. By opening a
more extensive market for whatever part of the produce of their labour
may exceed the home consumption, it encourages them to improve its
productive power, and to augment its annual produce to the utmost, and
thereby to increase the real revenue and wealth of the society. These
great and important services foreign trade is continually occupied in
performing to all the different countries between which it is carried
on. They all derive great benefit from it, though that in which the
merchant resides generally derives the greatest, as he is generally more
employed in supplying the wants, and carrying out the superfluities of
his own, than of any other particular country. To import the gold and
silver which may be wanted into the countries which have no mines, is,
no doubt a part of the business of foreign commerce. It is, however, a
most insignificant part of it. A country which carried on foreign trade
merely upon this account, could scarce have occasion to freight a ship
in a century.

It is not by the importation of gold and silver that the discovery of
America has enriched Europe. By the abundance of the American mines,
those metals have become cheaper. A service of plate can now be
purchased for about a third part of the corn, or a third part of the
labour, which it would have cost in the fifteenth century. With the same
annual expense of labour and commodities, Europe can annually purchase
about three times the quantity of plate which it could have purchased
at that time. But when a commodity comes to be sold for a third part of
what bad been its usual price, not only those who purchased it before
can purchase three times their former quantity, but it is brought down
to the level of a much greater number of purchasers, perhaps to more
than ten, perhaps to more than twenty times the former number. So that
there may be in Europe at present, not only more than three times, but
more than twenty or thirty times the quantity of plate which would have
been in it, even in its present state of improvement, had the discovery
of the American mines never been made. So far Europe has, no doubt,
gained a real conveniency, though surely a very trifling one. The
cheapness of gold and silver renders those metals rather less fit for
the purposes of money than they were before. In order to make the same
purchases, we must load ourselves with a greater quantity of them, and
carry about a shilling in our pocket, where a groat would have
done before. It is difficult to say which is most trifling, this
inconveniency, or the opposite conveniency. Neither the one nor the
other could have made any very essential change in the state of Europe.
The discovery of America, however, certainly made a most essential one.
By opening a new and inexhaustible market to all the commodities of
Europe, it gave occasion to new divisions of labour and improvements of
art, which in the narrow circle of the ancient commerce could never have
taken place, for want of a market to take off the greater part of their
produce. The productive powers of labour were improved, and its produce
increased in all the different countries of Europe, and together with
it the real revenue and wealth of the inhabitants. The commodities of
Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were
new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began to take place,
which had never been thought of before, and which should naturally
have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old
continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event,
which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to
several of those unfortunate countries.

The discovery of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope,
which happened much about the same time, opened perhaps a still
more extensive range to foreign commerce, than even that of America,
notwithstanding the greater distance. There were but two nations
in America, in any respect, superior to the savages, and these were
destroyed almost as soon as discovered. The rest were mere savages. But
the empires of China, Indostan, Japan, as well as several others in the
East Indies, without having richer mines of gold or silver, were, in
every other respect, much richer, better cultivated, and more advanced
in all arts and manufactures, than either Mexico or Peru, even though we
should credit, what plainly deserves no credit, the exaggerated accounts
of the Spanish writers concerning the ancient state of those empires.
But rich and civilized nations can always exchange to a much greater
value with one another, than with savages and barbarians. Europe,
however, has hitherto derived much less advantage from its commerce with
the East Indies, than from that with America. The Portuguese monopolized
the East India trade to themselves for about a century; and it was only
indirectly, and through them, that the other nations of Europe could
either send out or receive any goods from that country. When the Dutch,
in the beginning of the last century, began to encroach upon them, they
vested their whole East India commerce in an exclusive company. The
English, French, Swedes, and Danes, have all followed their example; so
that no great nation of Europe has ever yet had the benefit of a free
commerce to the East Indies. No other reason need be assigned why it
has never been so advantageous as the trade to America, which, between
almost every nation of Europe and its own colonies, is free to all its
subjects. The exclusive privileges of those East India companies, their
great riches, the great favour and protection which these have procured
them from their respective governments, have excited much envy against
them. This envy has frequently represented their trade as altogether
pernicious, on account of the great quantities of silver which it every
year exports from the countries from which it is carried on. The parties
concerned have replied, that their trade by this continual exportation
of silver, might indeed tend to impoverish Europe in general, but not
the particular country from which it was carried on; because, by the
exportation of a part of the returns to other European countries, it
annually brought home a much greater quantity of that metal than it
carried out. Both the objection and the reply are founded in the popular
notion which I have been just now examining. It is therefore unnecessary
to say any thing further about either. By the annual exportation of
silver to the East Indies, plate is probably somewhat dearer in Europe
than it otherwise might have been; and coined silver probably purchases
a larger quantity both of labour and commodities. The former of these
two effects is a very small loss, the latter a very small advantage;
both too insignificant to deserve any part of the public attention.
The trade to the East Indies, by opening a market to the commodities of
Europe, or, what comes nearly to the same thing, to the gold and silver
which is purchased with those commodities, must necessarily tend to
increase the annual production of European commodities, and consequently
the real wealth and revenue of Europe. That it has hitherto increased
them so little, is probably owing to the restraints which it everywhere
labours under.

I thought it necessary, though at the hazard of being tedious, to
examine at full length this popular notion, that wealth consists in
money or in gold and silver. Money, in common language, as I have
already observed, frequently signifies wealth; and this ambiguity of
expression has rendered this popular notion so familiar to us, that even
they who are convinced of its absurdity, are very apt to forget their
own principles, and, in the course of their reasonings, to take it for
granted as a certain and undeniable truth. Some of the best English
writers upon commerce set out with observing, that the wealth of a
country consists, not in its gold and silver only, but in its lands,
houses, and consumable goods of all different kinds. In the course of
their reasonings, however, the lands, houses, and consumable goods, seem
to slip out of their memory; and the strain of their argument frequently
supposes that all wealth consists in gold and silver, and that to
multiply those metals is the great object of national industry and
commerce.

The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in
gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought into a country
which had no mines, only by the balance of trade, or by exporting to a
greater value than it imported; it necessarily became the great object
of political economy to diminish as much as possible the importation of
foreign goods for home consumption, and to increase as much as possible
the exportation of the produce of domestic industry. Its two great
engines for enriching the country, therefore, were restraints upon
importation, and encouragement to exportation.

The restraints upon importation were of two kinds.

First, restraints upon the importation of such foreign goods for home
consumption as could be produced at home, from whatever country they
were imported.

Secondly, restraints upon the importation of goods of almost all kinds,
from those particular countries with which the balance of trade was
supposed to be disadvantageous.

Those different restraints consisted sometimes in high duties, and
sometimes in absolute prohibitions.

Exportation was encouraged sometimes by drawbacks, sometimes by
bounties, sometimes by advantageous treaties of commerce with foreign
states, and sometimes by the establishment of colonies in distant
countries.

Drawbacks were given upon two different occasions. When the home
manufactures were subject to any duty or excise, either the whole or a
part of it was frequently drawn back upon their exportation; and when
foreign goods liable to a duty were imported, in order to be exported
again, either the whole or a part of this duty was sometimes given back
upon such exportation.

Bounties were given for the encouragement, either of some beginning
manufactures, or of such sorts of industry of other kinds as were
supposed to deserve particular favour.

By advantageous treaties of commerce, particular privileges were
procured in some foreign state for the goods and merchants of the
country, beyond what were granted to those of other countries.

By the establishment of colonies in distant countries, not only
particular privileges, but a monopoly was frequently procured for the
goods and merchants of the country which established them.

The two sorts of restraints upon importation above mentioned, together
with these four encouragements to exportation, constitute the six
principal means by which the commercial system proposes to increase the
quantity of gold and silver in any country, by turning the balance
of trade in its favour. I shall consider each of them in a particular
chapter, and, without taking much farther notice of their supposed
tendency to bring money into the country, I shall examine chiefly what
are likely to be the effects of each of them upon the annual produce of
its industry. According as they tend either to increase or diminish
the value of this annual produce, they must evidently tend either to
increase or diminish the real wealth and revenue of the country.



CHAPTER II. OF RESTRAINTS UPON IMPORTATION FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES OF
SUCH GOODS AS CAN BE PRODUCED AT HOME.

By restraining, either by high duties, or by absolute prohibitions, the
importation of such goods from foreign countries as can be produced at
home, the monopoly of the home market is more or less secured to the
domestic industry employed in producing them. Thus the prohibition of
importing either live cattle or salt provisions from foreign countries,
secures to the graziers of Great Britain the monopoly of the home market
for butcher's meat. The high duties upon the importation of corn,
which, in times of moderate plenty, amount to a prohibition, give a
like advantage to the growers of that commodity. The prohibition of
the importation of foreign woollen is equally favourable to the woollen
manufacturers. The silk manufacture, though altogether employed upon
foreign materials, has lately obtained the same advantage. The linen
manufacture has not yet obtained it, but is making great strides towards
it. Many other sorts of manufactures have, in the same manner obtained
in Great Britain, either altogether, or very nearly, a monopoly against
their countrymen. 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.

That this monopoly of the home market frequently gives great
encouragement to that particular species of industry which enjoys it,
and frequently turns towards that employment a greater share of both the
labour and stock of the society than would otherwise have gone to it,
cannot be doubted. But whether it tends either to increase the general
industry of the society, or to give it the most advantageous direction,
is not, perhaps, altogether so evident.

The general industry of the society can never exceed what the capital
of the society can employ. As the number of workmen that can be kept in
employment by any particular person must bear a certain proportion to
his capital, so the number of those that can be continually employed by
all the members of a great society must bear a certain proportion to the
whole capital of the society, and never can exceed that proportion.
No regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any
society beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part
of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone; and
it is by no means certain that this artificial direction is likely to
be more advantageous to the society, than that into which it would have
gone of its own accord.

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most
advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his
own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has
in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather
necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most
advantageous to the society.

First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home
as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic
industry, provided always that he can thereby obtain the ordinary, or
not a great deal less than the ordinary profits of stock.

Thus, upon equal, or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant
naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade of consumption,
and the foreign trade of consumption to the carrying trade. In the home
trade, his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently
is in the foreign trade of consumption. He can know better the character
and situation of the persons whom he trusts; and if he should happen to
be deceived, he knows better the laws of the country from which he must
seek redress. In the carrying trade, the capital of the merchant is,
as it were, divided between two foreign countries, and no part of it is
ever necessarily brought home, or placed under his own immediate view
and command. The capital which an Amsterdam merchant employs in carrying
corn from Koningsberg to Lisbon, and fruit and wine from Lisbon to
Koningsberg, must generally be the one half of it at Koningsberg, and
the other half at Lisbon. No part of it need ever come to Amsterdam. The
natural residence of such a merchant should either be at Koningsberg or
Lisbon; and it can only be some very particular circumstances which can
make him prefer the residence of Amsterdam. The uneasiness, however,
which he feels at being separated so far from his capital, generally
determines him to bring part both of the Koningsberg goods which he
destines for the market of Lisbon, and of the Lisbon goods which
he destines for that of Koningsberg, to Amsterdam; and though this
necessarily subjects him to a double charge of loading and unloading as
well as to the payment of some duties and customs, yet, for the sake of
having some part of his capital always under his own view and command,
he willingly submits to this extraordinary charge; and it is in this
manner that every country which has any considerable share of the
carrying trade, becomes always the emporium, or general market, for
the goods of all the different countries whose trade it carries on. The
merchant, in order to save a second loading and unloading, endeavours
always to sell in the home market, as much of the goods of all those
different countries as he can; and thus, so far as he can, to convert
his carrying trade into a foreign trade of consumption. A merchant, in
the same manner, who is engaged in the foreign trade of consumption,
when he collects goods for foreign markets, will always be glad, upon
equal or nearly equal profits, to sell as great a part of them at home
as he can. He saves himself the risk and trouble of exportation, when,
so far as he can, he thus converts his foreign trade of consumption into
a home trade. Home is in this manner the centre, if I may say so, round
which the capitals of the inhabitants of every country are continually
circulating, and towards which they are always tending, though, by
particular causes, they may sometimes be driven off and repelled from
it towards more distant employments. But a capital employed in the home
trade, it has already been shown, necessarily puts into motion a greater
quantity of domestic industry, and gives revenue and employment to a
greater number of the inhabitants of the country, than an equal capital
employed in the foreign trade of consumption; and one employed in
the foreign trade of consumption has the same advantage over an equal
capital employed in the carrying trade. Upon equal, or only nearly equal
profits, therefore, every individual naturally inclines to employ his
capital in the manner in which it is likely to afford the greatest
support to domestic industry, and to give revenue and employment to the
greatest number of people of his own country.

Secondly, every individual who employs his capital in the support of
domestic industry, necessarily endeavours so to direct that industry,
that its produce may be of the greatest possible value.

The produce of industry is what it adds to the subject or materials
upon which it is employed. In proportion as the value of this produce is
great or small, so will likewise be the profits of the employer. But
it is only for the sake of profit that any man employs a capital in the
support of industry; and he will always, therefore, endeavour to employ
it in the support of that industry of which the produce is likely to be
of the greatest value, or to exchange for the greatest quantity either
of money or of other goods.

But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to
the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry,
or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to
employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to
direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value;
every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of
the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to
promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he
intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a
manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his
own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible
hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it
always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing
his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never
known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very
few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ,
and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every
individual, it is evident, can in his local situation judge much better
than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should
attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ
their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary
attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not
only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and
which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had
folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic
industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure
to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their
capitals, and must in almost all cases be either a useless or a hurtful
regulation. If the produce of domestic can be brought there as cheap
as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it
cannot, it must generally be hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent
master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost
him more to make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make
his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does
not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer
attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those
different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to employ
their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over
their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or, what
is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they
have occasion for.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be
folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us
with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it
of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a
way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country
being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will
not thereby be diminished, no more than that of the abovementioned
artificers; but only left to find out the way in which it can be
employed with the greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed to
the greatest advantage, when it is thus directed towards an object which
it can buy cheaper than it can make. The value of its annual produce
is certainly more or less diminished, when it is thus turned away from
producing commodities evidently of more value than the commodity which
it is directed to produce. According to the supposition, that commodity
could be purchased from foreign countries cheaper than it can be made
at home; it could therefore have been purchased with a part only of the
commodities, or, what is the same thing, with a part only of the price
of the commodities, which the industry employed by an equal capital
would have produced at home, had it been left to follow its natural
course. The industry of the country, therefore, is thus turned away from
a more to a less advantageous employment; and the exchangeable value
of its annual produce, instead of being increased, according to the
intention of the lawgiver, must necessarily be diminished by every such
regulation.

By means of such regulations, indeed, a particular manufacture may
sometimes be acquired sooner than it could have been otherwise, and
after a certain time may be made at home as cheap, or cheaper, than in
the foreign country. But though the industry of the society may be thus
carried with advantage into a particular channel sooner than it could
have been otherwise, it will by no means follow that the sum-total,
either of its industry, or of its revenue, can ever be augmented by
any such regulation. The industry of the society can augment only in
proportion as its capital augments, and its capital can augment only in
proportion to what can be gradually saved out of its revenue. But the
immediate effect of every such regulation is to diminish its revenue;
and what diminishes its revenue is certainly not very likely to augment
its capital faster than it would have augmented of its own accord,
had both capital and industry been left to find out their natural
employments.

Though, for want of such regulations, the society should never acquire
the proposed manufacture, it would not upon that account necessarily
be the poorer in anyone period of its duration. In every period of its
duration its whole capital and industry might still have been employed,
though upon different objects, in the manner that was most advantageous
at the time. In every period its revenue might have been the greatest
which its capital could afford, and both capital and revenue might have
been augmented with the greatest possible rapidity.

The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing
particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged
by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of
glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in
Scotland, and very good wine, too, can be made of them, at about thirty
times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought
from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the
importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of
claret and Burgundy in Scotland? But if there would be a manifest
absurdity in turning towards any employment thirty times more of the
capital and industry of the country than would be necessary to purchase
from foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted,
there must be an absurdity, though not altogether so glaring, yet
exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment a
thirtieth, or even a three hundredth part more of either. Whether the
advantages which one country has over another be natural or acquired, is
in this respect of no consequence. As long as the one country has
those advantages, and the other wants them, it will always be more
advantageous for the latter rather to buy of the former than to make.
It is an acquired advantage only, which one artificer has over his
neighbour, who exercises another trade; and yet they both find it more
advantageous to buy of one another, than to make what does not belong to
their particular trades.

Merchants and manufacturers are the people who derive the greatest
advantage from this monopoly of the home market. The prohibition of the
importation of foreign cattle and of salt provisions, together with the
high duties upon foreign corn, which in times of moderate plenty amount
to a prohibition, are not near so advantageous to the graziers and
farmers of Great Britain, as other regulations of the same kind are to
its merchants and manufacturers. Manufactures, those of the finer kind
especially, are more easily transported from one country to another
than corn or cattle. It is in the fetching and carrying manufactures,
accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly employed. In manufactures,
a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own
workmen, even in the home market. It will require a very great one
to enable them to do so in the rude produce of the soil. If the free
importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the home
manufactures would probably suffer, and some of them perhaps go to ruin
altogether, and a considerable part of the stock and industry at present
employed in them, would be forced to find out some other employment.
But the freest importation of the rude produce of the soil could have no
such effect upon the agriculture of the country.

If the importation of foreign cattle, for example, were made ever so
free, so few could be imported, that the grazing trade of Great Britain
could be little affected by it. Live cattle are, perhaps, the only
commodity of which the transportation is more expensive by sea than
by land. By land they carry themselves to market. By sea, not only the
cattle, but their food and their water too, must be carried at no small
expense and inconveniency. The short sea between Ireland and Great
Britain, indeed, renders the importation of Irish cattle more easy. But
though the free importation of them, which was lately permitted only for
a limited time, were rendered perpetual, it could have no considerable
effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great Britain. Those
parts of Great Britain which border upon the Irish sea are all grazing
countries. Irish cattle could never be imported for their use, but must
be drove through those very extensive countries, at no small expense
and inconveniency, before they could arrive at their proper market. Fat
cattle could not be drove so far. Lean cattle, therefore, could only be
imported; and such importation could interfere not with the interest of
the feeding or fattening countries, to which, by reducing the price
of lean cattle it would rather be advantageous, but with that of the
breeding countries only. The small number of Irish cattle imported since
their importation was permitted, together with the good price at which
lean cattle still continue to sell, seem to demonstrate, that even the
breeding countries of Great Britain are never likely to be much affected
by the free importation of Irish cattle. The common people of Ireland,
indeed, are said to have sometimes opposed with violence the exportation
of their cattle. But if the exporters had found any great advantage in
continuing the trade, they could easily, when the law was on their side,
have conquered this mobbish opposition.

Feeding and fattening countries, besides, must always be highly
improved, whereas breeding countries are generally uncultivated. The
high price of lean cattle, by augmenting the value of uncultivated land,
is like a bounty against improvement. To any country which was highly
improved throughout, it would be more advantageous to import its lean
cattle than to breed them. The province of Holland, accordingly, is said
to follow this maxim at present. The mountains of Scotland, Wales, and
Northumberland, indeed, are countries not capable of much improvement,
and seem destined by nature to be the breeding countries of Great
Britain. The freest importation of foreign cattle could have no other
effect than to hinder those breeding countries from taking advantage of
the increasing population and improvement of the rest of the kingdom,
from raising their price to an exorbitant height, and from laying a real
tax upon all the more improved and cultivated parts of the country.

The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner, could
have as little effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great Britain
as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not only a very bulky
commodity, but when compared with fresh meat they are a commodity both
of worse quality, and, as they cost more labour and expense, of higher
price. They could never, therefore, come into competition with the fresh
meat, though they might with the salt provisions of the country. They
might be used for victualling ships for distant voyages, and such like
uses, but could never make any considerable part of the food of the
people. The small quantity of salt provisions imported from Ireland
since their importation was rendered free, is an experimental proof that
our graziers have nothing to apprehend from it. It does not appear that
the price of butcher's meat has ever been sensibly affected by it.

Even the free importation of foreign corn could very little affect the
interest of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much more bulky
commodity than butcher's meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear
as a pound of butcher's meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign
corn imported even in times of the greatest scarcity, may satisfy our
farmers that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation.
The average quantity imported, one year with another, amounts only,
according to the very well informed author of the Tracts upon the Corn
Trade, to 23,728 quarters of all sorts of grain, and does not exceed the
five hundredth and seventy-one part of the annual consumption. But as
the bounty upon corn occasions a greater exportation in years of plenty,
so it must, of consequence, occasion a greater importation in years
of scarcity, than in the actual state of tillage would otherwise take
place. By means of it, the plenty of one year does not compensate the
scarcity of another; and as the average quantity exported is necessarily
augmented by it, so must likewise, in the actual state of tillage, the
average quantity imported. If there were no bounty, as less corn would
be exported, suit is probable that, one year with another, less would be
imported than at present. The corn-merchants, the fetchers and carriers
of corn between Great Britain and foreign countries, would have
much less employment, and might suffer considerably; but the
country gentlemen and farmers could suffer very little. It is in the
corn-merchants, accordingly, rather than the country gentlemen and
farmers, that I have observed the greatest anxiety for the renewal and
continuation of the bounty.

Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their great honour, of all people,
the least subject to the wretched spirit of monopoly. The undertaker
of a great manufactory is sometimes alarmed if another work of the same
kind is established within twenty miles of him; the Dutch undertaker
of the woollen manufacture at Abbeville, stipulated that no work of
the same kind should be established within thirty leagues of that city.
Farmers and country gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed
rather to promote, than to obstruct, the cultivation and improvement of
their neighbours farms and estates. They have no secrets, such as those
of the greater part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of
communicating to their neighbours, and of extending as far as possible
any new practice which they may have found to be advantageous. "Pius
quaestus", says old Cato, "stabilissimusque, minimeque invidiosus;
minimeque male cogitantes sunt, qui in eo studio occupati sunt." Country
gentlemen and farmers, dispersed in different parts of the country,
cannot so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers, who being
collected into towns, and accustomed to that exclusive corporation
spirit which prevails in them, naturally endeavour to obtain, against
all their countrymen, the same exclusive privilege which they generally
possess against the inhabitants of their respective towns. They
accordingly seem to have been the original inventors of those restraints
upon the importation of foreign goods, which secure to them the monopoly
of the home market. It was probably in imitation of them, and to put
themselves upon a level with those who, they found, were disposed to
oppress them, that the country gentlemen and farmers of Great Britain
so far forgot the generosity which is natural to their station, as to
demand the exclusive privilege of supplying their countrymen with corn
and butcher's meat. They did not, perhaps, take time to consider how
much less their interest could be affected by the freedom of trade, than
that of the people whose example they followed.

To prohibit, by a perpetual law, the importation of foreign corn and
cattle, is in reality to enact, that the population and industry of the
country shall, at no time, exceed what the rude produce of its own soil
can maintain.

There seem, however, to be two cases, in which it will generally be
advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign, for the encouragement of
domestic industry.

The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for
the defence of the country. The defence of Great Britain, for example,
depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The act
of navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors
and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own
country, in some cases, by absolute prohibitions, and in others, by
heavy burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries. The following are
the principal dispositions of this act.

First, All ships, of which the owners, masters, and three-fourths of
the mariners, are not British subjects, are prohibited, upon pain of
forfeiting ship and cargo, from trading to the British settlements
and plantations, or from being employed in the coasting trade of Great
Britain.

Secondly, A great variety of the most bulky articles of importation can
be brought into Great Britain only, either in such ships as are above
described, or in ships of the country where those goods are produced,
and of which the owners, masters, and three-fourths of the mariners,
are of that particular country; and when imported even in ships of this
latter kind, they are subject to double aliens duty. If imported in
ships of any other country, the penalty is forfeiture of ship and goods.
When this act was made, the Dutch were, what they still are, the great
carriers of Europe; and by this regulation they were entirely excluded
from being the carriers to Great Britain, or from importing to us the
goods of any other European country.

Thirdly, A great variety of the most bulky articles of importation are
prohibited from being imported, even in British ships, from any country
but that in which they are produced, under pain of forfeiting ship and
cargo. This regulation, too, was probably intended against the Dutch.
Holland was then, as now, the great emporium for all European goods; and
by this regulation, British ships were hindered from loading in Holland
the goods of any other European country.

Fourthly, Salt fish of all kinds, whale fins, whalebone, oil, and
blubber, not caught by and cured on board British vessels, when imported
into Great Britain, are subject to double aliens duty. The Dutch, as
they are still the principal, were then the only fishers in Europe that
attempted to supply foreign nations with fish. By this regulation, a
very heavy burden was laid upon their supplying Great Britain.

When the act of navigation was made, though England and Holland were not
actually at war, the most violent animosity subsisted between the two
nations. It had begun during the government of the long parliament,
which first framed this act, and it broke out soon after in the
Dutch wars, during that of the Protector and of Charles II. It is not
impossible, therefore, that some of the regulations of this famous act
may have proceeded from national animosity. They are as wise, however,
as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. National
animosity, at that particular time, aimed at the very same object which
the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended, the diminution of the
naval power of Holland, the only naval power which could endanger the
security of England.

The act of navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to
the growth of that opulence which can arise from it. The interest of a
nation, in its commercial relations to foreign nations, is, like that
of a merchant with regard to the different people with whom he deals,
to buy as cheap, and to sell as dear as possible. But it will be most
likely to buy cheap, when, by the most perfect freedom of trade, it
encourages all nations to bring to it the goods which it has occasion to
purchase; and, for the same reason, it will be most likely to sell dear,
when its markets are thus filled with the greatest number of buyers. The
act of navigation, it is true, lays no burden upon foreign ships that
come to export the produce of British industry. Even the ancient
aliens duty, which used to be paid upon all goods, exported as well
as imported, has, by several subsequent acts, been taken off from the
greater part of the articles of exportation. But if foreigners, either
by prohibitions or high duties, are hindered from coming to sell, they
cannot always afford to come to buy; because, coming without a cargo,
they must lose the freight from their own country to Great Britain. By
diminishing the number of sellers, therefore, we necessarily diminish
that of buyers, and are thus likely not only to buy foreign goods
dearer, but to sell our own cheaper, than if there was a more perfect
freedom of trade. As defence, however, is of much more importance than
opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the
commercial regulations of England.

The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some
burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, is when
some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this
case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the
like produce of the former. This would not give the monopoly of the
borne market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular
employment a greater share of the stock and labour of the country, than
what would naturally go to it. It would only hinder any part of what
would naturally go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less
natural direction, and would leave the competition between foreign and
domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as possible upon the same
footing as before it. In Great Britain, when any such tax is laid upon
the produce of domestic industry, it is usual, at the same time,
in order to stop the clamorous complaints of our merchants and
manufacturers, that they will be undersold at home, to lay a much
heavier duty upon the importation of all foreign goods of the same kind.

This second limitation of the freedom of trade, according to some
people, should, upon most occasions, be extended much farther than to
the precise foreign commodities which could come into competition with
those which had been taxed at home. When the necessaries of life have
been taxed in any country, it becomes proper, they pretend, to tax not
only the like necessaries of life imported from other countries, but all
sorts of foreign goods which can come into competition with any thing
that is the produce of domestic industry. Subsistence, they say, becomes
necessarily dearer in consequence of such taxes; and the price of labour
must always rise with the price of the labourer's subsistence. Every
commodity, therefore, which is the produce of domestic industry, though
not immediately taxed itself, becomes dearer in consequence of such
taxes, because the labour which produces it becomes so. Such taxes,
therefore, are really equivalent, they say, to a tax upon every
particular commodity produced at home. In order to put domestic upon
the same footing with foreign industry, therefore, it becomes necessary,
they think, to lay some duty upon every foreign commodity, equal to this
enhancement of the price of the home commodities with which it can come
into competition.

Whether taxes upon the necessaries of life, such as those in Great
Britain upon soap, salt, leather, candles, etc. necessarily raise the
price of labour, and consequently that of all other commodities, I shall
consider hereafter, when I come to treat of taxes. Supposing, however,
in the mean time, that they have this effect, and they have it
undoubtedly, this general enhancement of the price of all commodities,
in consequence of that labour, is a case which differs in the two
following respects from that of a particular commodity, of which the
price was enhanced by a particular tax immediately imposed upon it.

First, It might always be known with great exactness, how far the price
of such a commodity could be enhanced by such a tax; but how far the
general enhancement of the price of labour might affect that of every
different commodity about which labour was employed, could never be
known with any tolerable exactness. It would be impossible, therefore,
to proportion, with any tolerable exactness, the tax of every foreign,
to the enhancement of the price of every home commodity.

Secondly, Taxes upon the necessaries of life have nearly the same effect
upon the circumstances of the people as a poor soil and a bad climate.
Provisions are thereby rendered dearer, in the same manner as if it
required extraordinary labour and expense to raise them. As, in the
natural scarcity arising from soil and climate, it would be absurd to
direct the people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals and
industry, so is it likewise in the artificial scarcity arising from such
taxes. To be left to accommodate, as well as they could, their industry
to their situation, and to find out those employments in which,
notwithstanding their unfavourable circumstances, they might have some
advantage either in the home or in the foreign market, is what, in both
cases, would evidently be most for their advantage. To lay a new-tax
upon them, because they are already overburdened with taxes, and because
they already pay too dear for the necessaries of life, to make them
likewise pay too dear for the greater part of other commodities, is
certainly a most absurd way of making amends.

Such taxes, when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse
equal to the barrenness of the earth, and the inclemency of the heavens,
and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they
have been most generally imposed. No other countries could support so
great a disorder. As the strongest bodies only can live and enjoy health
under an unwholesome regimen, so the nations only, that in every sort of
industry have the greatest natural and acquired advantages, can subsist
and prosper under such taxes. Holland is the country in Europe in which
they abound most, and which, from peculiar circumstances, continues to
prosper, not by means of them, as has been most absurdly supposed, but
in spite of them.

As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay
some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry,
so there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of
deliberation, in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free
importation of certain foreign goods; and, in the other, how far, or in
what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation, after it
has been for some time interrupted.

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far
it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods,
is when some foreign nation restrains, by high duties or prohibitions,
the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge,
in this case, naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose
the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all
of their manufactures into ours. Nations, accordingly, seldom fail to
retaliate in this manner. The French have been particularly forward to
favour their own manufactures, by restraining the importation of
such foreign goods as could come into competition with them. In this
consisted a great part of the policy of Mr Colbert, who, notwithstanding
his great abilities, seems in this case to have been imposed upon by
the sophistry of merchants and manufacturers, who are always demanding
a monopoly against their countrymen. It is at present the opinion of the
most intelligent men in France, that his operations of this kind have
not been beneficial to his country. That minister, by the tariff
of 1667, imposed very high duties upon a great number of foreign
manufactures. Upon his refusing to moderate them in favour of the Dutch,
they, in 1671, prohibited the importation of the wines, brandies, and
manufactures of France. The war of 1672 seems to have been in part
occasioned by this commercial dispute. The peace of Nimeguen put an
end to it in 1678, by moderating some of those duties in favour of the
Dutch, who in consequence took off their prohibition. It was about the
same time that the French and English began mutually to oppress each
other's industry, by the like duties and prohibitions, of which the
French, however, seem to have set the first example, The spirit of
hostility which has subsisted between the two nations ever since, has
hitherto hindered them from being moderated on either side. In 1697,
the Ehglish prohibited the importation of bone lace, the manufacture
of Flanders. The government of that country, at that time under the
dominion of Spain, prohibited, in return, the importation of English
woollens. In 1700, the prohibition of importing bone lace into England
was taken oft; upon condition that the importation of English woollens
into Flanders should be put on the same footing as before.

There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is
a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or
prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will
generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying
dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether
such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not,
perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose
deliberations ought to be governed by general principles, which are
always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal
vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed
by the momentary fluctuations of affairs. When there is no probability
that any such repeal can be procured, it seems a bad method of
compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people, to do
another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all
the other classes of them. When our neighbours prohibit some manufacture
of ours, we generally prohibit, not only the same, for that alone would
seldom affect them considerably, but some other manufacture of theirs.
This may, no doubt, give encouragement to some particular class of
workmen among ourselves, and, by excluding some of their rivals, may
enable them to raise their price in the home market. Those workmen
however, who suffered by our neighbours prohibition, will not be
benefited by ours. On the contrary, they, and almost all the other
classes of our citizens, will thereby be obliged to pay dearer than
before for certain goods. Every such law, therefore, imposes a real
tax upon the whole country, not in favour of that particular class of
workmen who were injured by our neighbours prohibitions, but of some
other class.

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how
far, or in what manner, it is proper to restore the free importation
of foreign goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is when
particular manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon
all foreign goods which can come into competition with them, have been
so far extended as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in
this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by
slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection.
Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper
foreign goods of the same kind might be poured so fast into the home
market, as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of their
ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this
would occasion might no doubt be very considerable. It would in all
probability, however, be much less than is commonly imagined, for the
two following reasons.

First, All those manufactures of which any part is commonly exported to
other European countries without a bounty, could be very little affected
by the freest importation of foreign goods. Such manufactures must be
sold as cheap abroad as any other foreign goods of the same quality and
kind, and consequently must be sold cheaper at home. They would still,
therefore, keep possession of the home market; and though a capricious
man of fashion might sometimes prefer foreign wares, merely because they
were foreign, to cheaper and better goods of the same kind that were
made at home, this folly could, from the nature of things, extend to
so few, that it could make no sensible impression upon the general
employment of the people. But a great part of all the different branches
of our woollen manufacture, of our tanned leather, and of our hardware,
are annually exported to other European countries without any bounty,
and these are the manufactures which employ the greatest number of
hands. The silk, perhaps, is the manufacture which would suffer the most
by this freedom of trade, and after it the linen, though the latter much
less than the former.

Secondly, Though a great number of people should, by thus restoring the
freedom of trade, be thrown all at once out of their ordinary employment
and common method of subsistence, it would by no means follow that they
would thereby be deprived either of employment or subsistence. By the
reduction of the army and navy at the end of the late war, more than
100,000 soldiers and seamen, a number equal to what is employed in the
greatest manufactures, were all at once thrown out of their ordinary
employment: but though they no doubt suffered some inconveniency, they
were not thereby deprived of all employment and subsistence. The greater
part of the seamen, it is probable, gradually betook themselves to the
merchant service as they could find occasion, and in the mean time both
they and the soldiers were absorbed in the great mass of the people,
and employed in a great variety of occupations. Not only no great
convulsion, but no sensible disorder, arose from so great a change in
the situation of more than 100,000 men, all accustomed to the use of
arms, and many of them to rapine and plunder. The number of vagrants was
scarce anywhere sensibly increased by it; even the wages of labour
were not reduced by it in any occupation, so far as I have been able
to learn, except in that of seamen in the merchant service. But if
we compare together the habits of a soldier and of any sort of
manufacturer, we shall find that those of the latter do not tend so much
to disqualify him from being employed in a new trade, as those of the
former from being employed in any. The manufacturer has always been
accustomed to look for his subsistence from his labour only; the soldier
to expect it from his pay. Application and industry have been familiar
to the one; idleness and dissipation to the other. But it is surely much
easier to change the direction of industry from one sort of labour to
another, than to turn idleness and dissipation to any. To the greater
part of manufactures, besides, it has already been observed, there are
other collateral manufactures of so similar a nature, that a workman can
easily transfer his industry from one of them to another. The greater
part of such workmen, too, are occasionally employed in country labour.
The stock which employed them in a particular manufacture before, will
still remain in the country, to employ an equal number of people in some
other way. The capital of the country remaining the same, the demand for
labour will likewise be the same, or very nearly the same, though it may
be exerted in different places, and for different occupations. Soldiers
and seamen, indeed, when discharged from the king's service, are at
liberty to exercise any trade within any town or place of Great Britain
or Ireland. Let the same natural liberty of exercising what species of
industry they please, be restored to all his Majesty's subjects, in the
same manner as to soldiers and seamen; that is, break down the exclusive
privileges of corporations, and repeal the statute of apprenticeship,
both which are really encroachments upon natural Liberty, and add to
those the repeal of the law of settlements, so that a poor workman, when
thrown out of employment, either in one trade or in one place, may seek
for it in another trade or in another place, without the fear either
of a prosecution or of a removal; and neither the public nor the
individuals will suffer much more from the occasional disbanding some
particular classes of manufacturers, than from that of the soldiers.
Our manufacturers have no doubt great merit with their country, but they
cannot have more than those who defend it with their blood, nor deserve
to be treated with more delicacy.

To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely
restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or
Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the
public, but, what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of
many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army
to oppose, with the same zeal and unanimity, any reduction in the number
of forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every
law that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home
market; were the former to animate their soldiers. In the same manner
as the latter inflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage
the proposers of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army
would be as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish, in
any respect, the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against
us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular
tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become
formidable to the government, and, upon many occasions, intimidate the
legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for
strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation
of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order
of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If
he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more, if he has authority
enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity,
nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him
from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor
sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious
and disappointed monopolists.

The undertaker of a great manufacture, who, by the home markets being
suddenly laid open to the competition of foreigners, should be obliged
to abandon his trade, would no doubt suffer very considerably. That part
of his capital which had usually been employed in purchasing materials,
and in paying his workmen, might, without much difficulty, perhaps, find
another employment; but that part of it which was fixed in workhouses,
and in the instruments of trade, could scarce be disposed of without
considerable loss. The equitable regard, therefore, to his interest,
requires that changes of this kind should never be introduced suddenly,
but slowly, gradually, and after a very long warning. The legislature,
were it possible that its deliberations could be always directed, not by
the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an extensive
view of the general good, ought, upon this very account, perhaps, to be
particularly careful, neither to establish any new monopolies of this
kind, nor to extend further those which are already established.
Every such regulation introduces some degree of real disorder into the
constitution of the state, which it will be difficult afterwards to cure
without occasioning another disorder.

How far it may be proper to impose taxes upon the importation of foreign
goods, in order not to prevent their importation, but to raise a revenue
for government, I shall consider hereafter when I come to treat of
taxes. Taxes imposed with a view to prevent, or even to diminish
importation, are evidently as destructive of the revenue of the customs
as of the freedom of trade.


CHAPTER III. OF THE EXTRAORDINARY RESTRAINTS UPON THE IMPORTATION OF
GOODS OF ALMOST ALL KINDS, FROM THOSE COUNTRIES WITH WHICH THE BALANCE
IS SUPPOSED TO BE DISADVANTAGEOUS.

Part I--Of the Unreasonableness of those Restraints, even upon the
Principles of the Commercial System.

To lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods of almost
all kinds, from those particular countries with which the balance of
trade is supposed to be disadvantageous, is the second expedient by
which the commercial system proposes to increase the quantity of gold
and silver. Thus, in Great Britain, Silesia lawns may be imported for
home consumption, upon paying certain duties; but French cambrics and
lawns are prohibited to be imported, except into the port of London,
there to be warehoused for exportation. Higher duties are imposed upon
the wines of France than upon those of Portugal, or indeed of any other
country. By what is called the impost 1692, a duty of five and-twenty
per cent. of the rate or value, was laid upon all French goods; while
the goods of other nations were, the greater part of them, subjected to
much lighter duties, seldom exceeding five per cent. The wine, brandy,
salt, and vinegar of France, were indeed excepted; these commodities
being subjected to other heavy duties, either by other laws, or
by particular clauses of the same law. In 1696, a second duty of
twenty-five per cent. the first not having been thought a sufficient
discouragement, was imposed upon all French goods, except brandy;
together with a new duty of five-and-twenty pounds upon the ton of
French wine, and another of fifteen pounds upon the ton of French
vinegar. French goods have never been omitted in any of those general
subsidies or duties of five per cent. which have been imposed upon all,
or the greater part, of the goods enumerated in the book of rates. If we
count the one-third and two-third subsidies as making a complete subsidy
between them, there have been five of these general subsidies; so that,
before the commencement of the present war, seventy-five per cent. may
be considered as the lowest duty to which the greater part of the goods
of the growth, produce, or manufacture of France, were liable. But upon
the greater part of goods, those duties are equivalent to a prohibition.
The French, in their turn, have, I believe, treated our goods and
manufactures just as hardly; though I am not so well acquainted with
the particular hardships which they have imposed upon them. Those mutual
restraints have put an end to almost all fair commerce between the
two nations; and smugglers are now the principal importers, either of
British goods into France, or of French goods into Great Britain. The
principles which I have been examining, in the foregoing chapter, took
their origin from private interest and the spirit of monopoly; those
which I am going te examine in this, from national prejudice and
animosity. They are, accordingly, as might well be expected, still more
unreasonable. They are so, even upon the principles of the commercial
system.

First, Though it were certain that in the case of a free trade between
France and England, for example, the balance would be in favour
of France, it would by no means follow that such a trade would be
disadvantageous to England, or that the general balance of its whole
trade would thereby be turned more against it. If the wines of France
are better and cheaper than those of Portugal, or its linens than those
of Germany, it would be more advantageous for Great Britain to purchase
both the wine and the foreign linen which it had occasion for of
France, than of Portugal and Germany. Though the value of the annual
importations from France would thereby be greatly augmented, the value
of the whole annual importations would be diminished, in proportion
as the French goods of the same quality were cheaper than those of the
other two countries. This would be the case, even upon the supposition
that the whole French goods imported were to be consumed in Great
Britain.

But, Secondly, A great part of them might be re-exported to other
countries, where, being sold with profit, they might bring back a
return, equal in value, perhaps, to the prime cost of the whole French
goods imported. What has frequently been said of the East India trade,
might possibly be true of the French; that though the greater part of
East India goods were bought with gold and silver, the re-exportation of
a part of them to other countries brought back more gold and silver
to that which carried on the trade, than the prime cost of the whole
amounted to. One of the most important branches of the Dutch trade at
present, consists in the carriage of French goods to other European
countries. Some part even of the French wine drank in Great Britain, is
clandestinely imported from Holland and Zealand. If there was either
a free trade between France and England, or if French goods could be
imported upon paying only the same duties as those of other European
nations, to be drawn back upon exportation, England might have some
share of a trade which is found so advantageous to Holland.

Thirdly, and lastly, There is no certain criterion by which we can
determine on which side what is called the balance between any two
countries lies, or which of them exports to the greatest value. National
prejudice and animosity, prompted always by the private interest of
particular traders, are the principles which generally direct our
judgment upon all questions concerning it. There are two criterions,
however, which have frequently been appealed to upon such occasions, the
custom-house books and the course of exchange. The custom-house books, I
think, it is now generally acknowledged, are a very uncertain criterion,
on account of the inaccuracy of the valuation at which the greater part
of goods are rated in them. The course of exchange is, perhaps, almost
equally so.

When the exchange between two places, such as London and Paris, is at
par, it is said to be a sign that the debts due from London to Paris are
compensated by those due from Paris to London. On the contrary, when a
premium is paid at London for a bill upon Paris, it is said to be a sign
that the debts due from London to Paris are not compensated by those due
from Paris to London, but that a balance in money must be sent out
from the latter place; for the risk, trouble, and expense, of exporting
which, the premium is both demanded and given. But the ordinary state of
debt and credit between those two cities must necessarily be regulated,
it is said, by the ordinary course of their dealings with one another.
When neither of them imports from from other to a greater amount than it
exports to that other, the debts and credits of each may compensate one
another. But when one of them imports from the other to a greater value
than it exports to that other, the former necessarily becomes indebted
to the latter in a greater sum than the latter becomes indebted to it:
the debts and credits of each do not compensate one another, and money
must be sent out from that place of which the debts overbalance the
credits. The ordinary course of exchange, therefore, being an indication
of the ordinary state of debt and credit between two places, must
likewise be an indication of the ordinary course of their exports and
imports, as these necessarily regulate that state.

But though the ordinary course of exchange shall be allowed to be a
sufficient indication of the ordinary state of debt and credit between
any two places, it would not from thence follow, that the balance of
trade was in favour of that place which had the ordinary state of debt
and credit in its favour. The ordinary state of debt and credit between
any two places is not always entirely regulated by the ordinary course
of their dealings with one another, but is often influenced by that
of the dealings of either with many other places. If it is usual, for
example, for the merchants of England to pay for the goods which they
buy of Hamburg, Dantzic, Riga, etc. by bills upon Holland, the ordinary
state of debt and credit between England and Holland will not be
regulated entirely by the ordinary course of the dealings of those
two countries with one another, but will be influenced by that of the
dealings in England with those other places. England may be obliged to
send out every year money to Holland, though its annual exports to
that country may exceed very much the annual value of its imports from
thence, and though what is called the balance of trade may be very much
in favour of England.

In the way, besides, in which the par of exchange has hitherto been
computed, the ordinary course of exchange can afford no sufficient
indication that the ordinary state of debt and credit is in favour of
that country which seems to have, or which is supposed to have, the
ordinary course of exchange in its favour; or, in other words, the
real exchange may be, and in fact often is, so very different from the
computed one, that, from the course of the latter, no certain conclusion
can, upon many occasions, be drawn concerning that of the former.

When for a sum or money paid in England, containing, according to the
standard of the English mint, a certain number of ounces of pure silver,
you receive a bill for a sum of money to be paid in France, containing,
according to the standard of the French mint, an equal number of ounces
of pure silver, exchange is said to be at par between England and
France. When you pay more, you are supposed to give a premium, and
exchange is said to be against England, and in favour of France. When
you pay less, you are supposed to get a premium, and exchange is said to
be against France, and in favour of England.

But, first, We cannot always judge of the value of the current money of
different countries by the standard of their respective mints. In some
it is more, in others it is less worn, clipt, and otherwise degenerated
from that standard. But the value of the current coin of every country,
compared with that of any other country, is in proportion, not to the
quantity of pure silver which it ought to contain, but to that which it
actually does contain. Before the reformation of the silver coin in King
William's time, exchange between England and Holland, computed in the
usual manner, according to the standard of their respective mints, was
five-and twenty per cent. against England. But the value of the current
coin of England, as we learn from Mr Lowndes, was at that time rather
more than five-and-twenty per cent. below its standard value. The
real exchange, therefore, may even at that time have been in favour of
England, notwithstanding the computed exchange was so much against it;
a smaller number or ounces of pure silver, actually paid in England, may
have purchased a bill for a greater number of ounces of pure silver to
be paid in Holland, and the man who was supposed to give, may in reality
have got the premium. The French coin was, before the late reformation
of the English gold coin, much less wore than the English, and was
perhaps two or three per cent. nearer its standard. If the computed
exchange with France, therefore, was not more than two or three per
cent. against England, the real exchange might have been in its favour.
Since the reformation of the gold coin, the exchange has been constantly
in favour of England, and against France.

Secondly, In some countries the expense of coinage is defrayed by the
government; in others, it is defrayed by the private people, who carry
their bullion to the mint, and the government even derives some revenue
from the coinage. In England it is defrayed by the government; and if
you carry a pound weight of standard silver to the mint, you get back
sixty-two shillings, containing a pound weight of the like standard
silver. In France a duty of eight per cent. is deducted for the coinage,
which not only defrays the expense of it, but affords a small revenue
to the government. In England, as the coinage costs nothing, the current
coin can never be much more valuable than the quantity of bullion which
it actually contains. In France, the workmanship, as you pay for it,
adds to the value, in the same manner as to that of wrought plate. A sum
of French money, therefore, containing an equal weight of pure silver,
is more valuable than a sum of English money containing an equal weight
of pure silver, and must require more bullion, or other commodities, to
purchase it. Though the current coin of the two countries, therefore,
were equally near the standards of their respective mints, a sum of
English money could not well purchase a sum of French money containing
an equal number of ounces of pure silver, nor, consequently, a bill upon
France for such a sum. If, for such a bill, no more additional money was
paid than what was sufficient to compensate the expense of the French
coinage, the real exchange might be at par between the two countries;
their debts and credits might mutually compensate one another, while
the computed exchange was considerably in favour of France. If less than
this was paid, the real exchange might be in favour of England, while
the computed was in favour of France.

Thirdly, and lastly, In some places, as at Amsterdam, Hamburg, Venice,
etc. foreign bills of exchange are paid in what they call bank money;
while in others, as at London, Lisbon, Antwerp, Leghorn, etc. they are
paid in the common currency of the country. What is called bank money,
is always of more value than the same nominal sum of common currency.
A thousand guilders in the bank of Amsterdam, for example, are of more
value than a thousand guilders of Amsterdam currency. The difference
between them is called the agio of the bank, which at Amsterdam is
generally about five per cent. Supposing the current money of the two
countries equally near to the standard of their respective mints, and
that the one pays foreign bills in this common currency, while the other
pays them in bank money, it is evident that the computed exchange may
be in favour of that which pays in bank money, though the real exchange
should be in favour of that which pays in current money; for the same
reason that the computed exchange may be in favour of that which pays
in better money, or in money nearer to its own standard, though the real
exchange should be in favour of that which pays in worse. The computed
exchange, before the late reformation of the gold coin, was generally
against London with Amsterdam, Hamburg, Venice, and, I believe, with all
other places which pay in what is called bank money. It will by no
means follow, however, that the real exchange was against it. Since the
reformation of the gold coin, it has been in favour of London, even
with those places. The computed exchange has generally been in favour
of London with Lisbon, Antwerp, Leghorn, and, if you except France, I
believe with most other parts of Europe that pay in common currency; and
it is not improbable that the real exchange was so too.

Digression concerning Banks of Deposit, particularly concerning that of
Amsterdam.

The currency of a great state, such as France or England, generally
consists almost entirely of its own coin. Should this currency,
therefore, be at any time worn, clipt, or otherwise degraded below its
standard value, the state, by a reformation of its coin, can effectually
re-establish its currency. But the currency of a small state, such as
Genoa or Hamburg, can seldom consist altogether in its own coin,
but must be made up, in a great measure, of the coins of all the
neighbouring states with which its inhabitants have a continual
intercourse. Such a state, therefore, by reforming its coin, will not
always be able to reform its currency. If foreign bills of exchange are
paid in this currency, the uncertain value of any sum, of what is in
its own nature so uncertain, must render the exchange always very
much against such a state, its currency being in all foreign states
necessarily valued even below what it is worth.

In order to remedy the inconvenience to which this disadvantageous
exchange must have subjected their merchants, such small states, when
they began to attend to the interest of trade, have frequently enacted
that foreign bills of exchange of a certain value should be paid, not in
common currency, but by an order upon, or by a transfer in the books of
a certain bank, established upon the credit, and under the protection
of the state, this bank being always obliged to pay, in good and true
money, exactly according to the standard of the state. The banks of
Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Nuremberg, seem to have been
all originally established with this view, though some of them may have
afterwards been made subservient to other purposes. The money of such
banks, being better than the common currency of the country, necessarily
bore an agio, which was greater or smaller, according as the currency
was supposed to be more or less degraded below the standard of the
state. The agio of the bank of Hamburg, for example, which is said to be
commonly about fourteen per cent. is the supposed difference between the
good standard money of the state, and the clipt, worn, and diminished
currency, poured into it from all the neighbouring states.

Before 1609, the great quantity of clipt and worn foreign coin which the
extensive trade of Amsterdam brought from all parts of Europe, reduced
the value of its currency about nine per cent. below that of good money
fresh from the mint. Such money no sooner appeared, than it was melted
down or carried away, as it always is in such circumstances. The
merchants, with plenty of currency, could not always find a sufficient
quantity of good money to pay their bills of exchange; and the value of
those bills, in spite of several regulations which were made to prevent
it, became in a great measure uncertain.

In order to remedy these inconveniencies, a bank was established in
1609, under the guarantee of the city. This bank received both foreign
coin, and the light and worn coin of the country, at its real intrinsic
value in the good standard money of the country, deducting only so much
as was necessary for defraying the expense of coinage and the other
necessary expense of management. For the value which remained after this
small deduction was made, it gave a credit in its books. This credit was
called bank money, which, as it represented money exactly according
to the standard of the mint, was always of the same real value, and
intrinsically worth more than current money. It was at the same time
enacted, that all bills drawn upon or negotiated at Amsterdam, of the
value of 600 guilders and upwards, should be paid in bank money, which
at once took away all uncertainty in the value of those bills. Every
merchant, in consequence of this regulation, was obliged to keep an
account with the bank, in order to pay his foreign bills of exchange,
which necessarily occasioned a certain demand for bank money.

Bank money, over and above both its intrinsic superiority to currency,
and the additional value which this demand necessarily gives it, has
likewise some other advantages, It is secure from fire, robbery, and
other accidents; the city of Amsterdam is bound for it; it can be paid
away by a simple transfer, without the trouble of counting, or the risk
of transporting it from one place to another. In consequence of those
different advantages, it seems from the beginning to have borne an agio;
and it is generally believed that all the money originally deposited in
the bank, was allowed to remain there, nobody caring to demand payment
of a debt which he could sell for a premium in the market. By demanding
payment of the bank, the owner of a bank credit would lose this premium.
As a shilling fresh from the mint will buy no more goods in the market
than one of our common worn shillings, so the good and true money which
might be brought from the coffers of the bank into those of a private
person, being mixed and confounded with the common currency of the
country, would be of no more value than that currency, from which it
could no longer be readily distinguished. While it remained in the
coffers of the bank, its superiority was known and ascertained. When it
had come into those of a private person, its superiority could not well
be ascertained without more trouble than perhaps the difference was
worth. By being brought from the coffers of the bank, besides, it lost
all the other advantages of bank money; its security, its easy and safe
transferability, its use in paying foreign bills of exchange. Over and
above all this, it could not be brought from those coffers, as will
appear by and by, without previously paying for the keeping.

Those deposits of coin, or those deposits which the bank was bound to
restore in coin, constituted the original capital of the bank, or the
whole value of what was represented by what is called bank money. At
present they are supposed to constitute but a very small part of it. In
order to facilitate the trade in bullion, the bank has been for these
many years in the practice of giving credit in its books, upon deposits
of gold and silver bullion. This credit is generally about five per
cent. below the mint price of such bullion. The bank grants at the same
time what is called a recipice or receipt, entitling the person who
makes the deposit, or the bearer, to take out the bullion again at any
time within six months, upon transferring to the bank a quantity of bank
money equal to that for which credit had been given in its books when
the deposit was made, and upon paying one-fourth per cent. for the
keeping, if the deposit was in silver; and one-half per cent. if it
was in gold; but at the same time declaring, that in default of such
payment, and upon the expiration of this term, the deposit should belong
to the bank, at the price at which it had been received, or for which
credit had been given in the transfer books. What is thus paid for the
keeping of the deposit may be considered as a sort of warehouse rent;
and why this warehouse rent should be so much dearer for gold than for
silver, several different reasons have been assigned. The fineness of
gold, it has been said, is more difficult to be ascertained than that of
silver. Frauds are more easily practised, and occasion a greater loss in
the most precious metal. Silver, besides, being the standard metal, the
state, it has been said, wishes to encourage more the making of deposits
of silver than those of gold.

Deposits of bullion are most commonly made when the price is somewhat
lower than ordinary, and they are taken out again when it happens to
rise. In Holland the market price of bullion is generally above the mint
price, for the same reason that it was so in England before the late
reformation of the gold coin. The difference is said to be commonly from
about six to sixteen stivers upon the mark, or eight ounces of silver,
of eleven parts of fine and one part alloy. The bank price, or the
credit which the bank gives for the deposits of such silver (when made
in foreign coin, of which the fineness is well known and ascertained,
such as Mexico dollars), is twenty-two guilders the mark: the mint
price is about twenty-three guilders, and the market price is from
twenty-three guilders six, to twenty-three guilders sixteen stivers, or
from two to three per cent. above the mint price.

The following are the prices at which the bank of Amsterdam at present
{September 1775} receives bullion and coin of different kinds:

                              SILVER
     Mexico dollars .................  22  Guilders / mark
     French crowns ..................  22
     English silver coin.............  22
     Mexico dollars, new coin........  21  10
     Ducatoons.......................   3   0
     Rix-dollars.....................   2   8

Bar silver, containing 11-12ths fine silver, 21 Guilders / mark, and in
this proportion down to 1-4th fine, on which 5 guilders are given. Fine
bars,................. 28 Guilders / mark.

                              GOLD
     Portugal coin.................  310  Guilders / mark
     Guineas.......................  310
     Louis d'ors, new..............  310
     Ditto        old..............  300
     New ducats....................    4  19  8  per ducat

Bar or ingot gold is received in proportion to its fineness, compared
with the above foreign gold coin. Upon fine bars the bank gives 340 per
mark. In general, however, something more is given upon coin of a known
fineness, than upon gold and silver bars, of which the fineness cannot
be ascertained but by a process of melting and assaying.

The proportions between the bank price, the mint price, and the market
price of gold bullion, are nearly the same. A person can generally sell
his receipt for the difference between the mint price of bullion and the
market price. A receipt for bullion is almost always worth something,
and it very seldom happens, therefore, that anybody suffers his receipts
to expire, or allows his bullion to fall to the bank at the price at
which it had been received, either by not taking it out before the end
of the six months, or by neglecting to pay one fourth or one half per
cent. in order to obtain a new receipt for another six months. This,
however, though it happens seldom, is said to happen sometimes, and more
frequently with regard to gold than with regard to silver, on account
of the higher warehouse rent which is paid for the keeping of the more
precious metal.

The person who, by making a deposit of bullion, obtains both a bank
credit and a receipt, pays his bills of exchange as they become due,
with his bank credit; and either sells or keeps his receipt, according
as he judges that the price of bullion is likely to rise or to fall. The
receipt and the bank credit seldom keep long together, and there is no
occasion that they should. The person who has a receipt, and who wants
to take out bullion, finds always plenty of bank credits, or bank money,
to buy at the ordinary price, and the person who has bank money, and
wants to take out bullion, finds receipts always in equal abundance.

The owners of bank credits, and the holders of receipts, constitute two
different sorts of creditors against the bank. The holder of a
receipt cannot draw out the bullion for which it is granted, without
re-assigning to the bank a sum of bank money equal to the price at which
the bullion had been received. If he has no bank money of his own, he
must purchase it of those who have it. The owner of bank money cannot
draw out bullion, without producing to the bank receipts for the
quantity which he wants. If he has none of his own, he must buy them
of those who have them. The holder of a receipt, when he purchases bank
money, purchases the power of taking out a quantity of bullion, of which
the mint price is five per cent. above the bank price. The agio of five
per cent. therefore, which he commonly pays for it, is paid, not for
an imaginary, but for a real value. The owner of bank money, when he
purchases a receipt, purchases the power of taking out a quantity of
bullion, of which the market price is commonly from two to three per
cent. above the mint price. The price which he pays for it, therefore,
is paid likewise for a real value. The price of the receipt, and the
price of the bank money, compound or make up between them the full value
or price of the bullion.

Upon deposits of the coin current in the country, the bank grant
receipts likewise, as well as bank credits; but those receipts are
frequently of no value and will bring no price in the market. Upon
ducatoons, for example, which in the currency pass for three guilders
three stivers each, the bank gives a credit of three guilders only, or
five per cent. below their current value. It grants a receipt likewise,
entitling the bearer to take out the number of ducatoons deposited at
any time within six months, upon paying one fourth per cent. for the
keeping. This receipt will frequently bring no price in the market.
Three guilders, bank money, generally sell in the market for three
guilders three stivers, the full value of the ducatoons, if they were
taken out of the bank; and before they can be taken out, one-fourth
per cent. must be paid for the keeping, which would be mere loss to the
holder of the receipt. If the agio of the bank, however, should at any
time fall to three per cent. such receipts might bring some price in the
market, and might sell for one and three-fourths per cent. But the agio
of the bank being now generally about five per cent. such receipts are
frequently allowed to expire, or, as they express it, to fall to the
bank. The receipts which are given for deposits of gold ducats fall to
it yet more frequently, because a higher warehouse rent, or one half per
cent. must be paid for the keeping of them, before they can be taken out
again. The five per cent. which the bank gains, when deposits either
of coin or bullion are allowed to fall to it, maybe considered as the
warehouse rent for the perpetual keeping of such deposits.

The sum of bank money, for which the receipts are expired, must be very
considerable. It must comprehend the whole original capital of the bank,
which, it is generally supposed, has been allowed to remain there from
the time it was first deposited, nobody caring either to renew his
receipt, or to take out his deposit, as, for the reasons already
assigned, neither the one nor the other could be done without loss. But
whatever may be the amount of this sum, the proportion which it bears to
the whole mass of bank money is supposed to be very small. The bank of
Amsterdam has, for these many years past, been the great warehouse of
Europe for bullion, for which the receipts are very seldom allowed to
expire, or, as they express it, to fall to the bank. The far greater
part of the bank money, or of the credits upon the books of the bank,
is supposed to have been created, for these many years past, by such
deposits, which the dealers in bullion are continually both making and
withdrawing.

No demand can be made upon the bank, but by means of a recipice or
receipt. The smaller mass of bank money, for which the receipts are
expired, is mixed and confounded with the much greater mass for which
they are still in force; so that, though there may be a considerable sum
of bank money, for which there are no receipts, there is no specific sum
or portion of it which may not at any time be demanded by one. The bank
cannot be debtor to two persons for the same thing; and the owner of
bank money who has no receipt, cannot demand payment of the bank till
he buys one. In ordinary and quiet times, he can find no difficulty in
getting one to buy at the market price, which generally corresponds with
the price at which he can sell the coin or bullion it entitles him to
take out of the bank.

It might be otherwise during a public calamity; an invasion, for
example, such as that of the French in 1672. The owners of bank money
being then all eager to draw it out of the bank, in order to have it in
their own keeping, the demand for receipts might raise their price to
an exorbitant height. The holders of them might form extravagant
expectations, and, instead of two or three per cent. demand half the
bank money for which credit had been given upon the deposits that the
receipts had respectively been granted for. The enemy, informed of the
constitution of the bank, might even buy them up, in order to prevent
the carrying away of the treasure. In such emergencies, the bank, it is
supposed, would break through its ordinary rule of making payment only
to the holders of receipts. The holders of receipts, who had no bank
money, must have received within two or three per cent. of the value of
the deposit for which their respective receipts had been granted. The
bank, therefore, it is said, would in this case make no scruple of
paying, either with money or bullion, the full value of what the owners
of bank money, who could get no receipts, were credited for in its
books; paying, at the same time, two or three per cent. to such holders
of receipts as had no bank money, that being the whole value which, in
this state of things, could justly be supposed due to them.

Even in ordinary and quiet times, it is the interest of the holders of
receipts to depress the agio, in order either to buy bank money (and
consequently the bullion which their receipts would then enable them
to take out of the bank ) so much cheaper, or to sell their receipts
to those who have bank money, and who want to take out bullion, so much
dearer; the price of a receipt being generally equal to the difference
between the market price of bank money and that of the coin or bullion
for which the receipt had been granted. It is the interest of the owners
of bank money, on the contrary, to raise the agio, in order either
to sell their bank money so much dearer, or to buy a receipt so much
cheaper. To prevent the stock-jobbing tricks which those opposite
interests might sometimes occasion, the bank has of late years come to
the resolution, to sell at all times bank money for currency at five
per cent. agio, and to buy it in again at four per cent. agio. In
consequence of this resolution, the agio can never either rise above
five, or sink below four per cent.; and the proportion between the
market price of bank and that of current money is kept at all times
very near the proportion between their intrinsic values. Before this
resolution was taken, the market price of bank money used sometimes to
rise so high as nine per cent. agio, and sometimes to sink so low as
par, according as opposite interests happened to influence the market.

The bank of Amsterdam professes to lend out no part of what is deposited
with it, but for every guilder for which it gives credit in its books,
to keep in its repositories the value of a guilder either in money or
bullion. That it keeps in its repositories all the money or bullion for
which there are receipts in force for which it is at all times liable to
be called upon, and which in reality is continually going from it, and
returning to it again, cannot well be doubted. But whether it does so
likewise with regard to that part of its capital for which the receipts
are long ago expired, for which, in ordinary and quiet times, it cannot
be called upon, and which, in reality, is very likely to remain with it
for ever, or as long as the states of the United Provinces subsist, may
perhaps appear more uncertain. At Amsterdam, however, no point of faith
is better established than that, for every guilder circulated as bank
money, there is a correspondent guilder in gold or silver to be found in
the treasures of the bank. The city is guarantee that it should be so.
The bank is under the direction of the four reigning burgomasters
who are changed every year. Each new set of burgomasters visits the
treasure, compares it with the books, receives it upon oath, and
delivers it over, with the same awful solemnity to the set which
succeeds; and in that sober and religious country, oaths are not yet
disregarded. A rotation of this kind seems alone a sufficient security
against any practices which cannot be avowed. Amidst all the revolutions
which faction has ever occasioned in the government of Amsterdam, the
prevailing party has at no time accused their predecessors of infidelity
in the administration of the bank. No accusation could have affected
more deeply the reputation and fortune of the disgraced party; and if
such an accusation could have been supported, we may be assured that it
would have been brought. In 1672, when the French king was at Utrecht,
the bank of Amsterdam paid so readily, as left no doubt of the fidelity
with which it had observed its engagements. Some of the pieces which
were then brought from its repositories, appeared to have been scorched
with the fire which happened in the town-house soon after the bank was
established. Those pieces, therefore, must have lain there from that
time.

What may be the amount of the treasure in the bank, is a question
which has long employed the speculations of the curious. Nothing but
conjecture can be offered concerning it. It is generally reckoned,
that there are about 2000 people who keep accounts with the bank; and
allowing them to have, one with another, the value of £1500 sterling
lying upon their respective accounts (a very large allowance), the whole
quantity of bank money, and consequently of treasure in the bank, will
amount to about £3,000,000 sterling, or, at eleven guilders the pound
sterling, 33,000,000 of guilders; a great sum, and sufficient to carry
on a very extensive circulation, but vastly below the extravagant ideas
which some people have formed of this treasure.

The city of Amsterdam derives a considerable revenue from the bank.
Besides what may be called the warehouse rent above mentioned, each
person, upon first opening an account with the bank, pays a fee of ten
guilders; and for every new account, three guilder's three stivers; for
every transfer, two stivers; and if the transfer is for less than 300
guilders, six stivers, in order to discourage the multiplicity of small
transactions. The person who neglects to balance his account twice
in the year, forfeits twenty-five guilders. The person who orders a
transfer for more than is upon his account, is obliged to pay three
per cent. for the sum overdrawn, and his order is set aside into the
bargain. The bank is supposed, too, to make a considerable profit by the
sale of the foreign coin or bullion which sometimes falls to it by the
expiring of receipts, and which is always kept till it can be sold with
advantage. It makes a profit, likewise, by selling bank money at five
per cent. agio, and buying it in at four. These different emoluments
amount to a good deal more than what is necessary for paying the
salaries of officers, and defraying the expense of management. What
is paid for the keeping of bullion upon receipts, is alone supposed to
amount to a neat annual revenue of between 150,000 and 200,000 guilders.
Public utility, however, and not revenue, was the original object of
this institution. Its object was to relieve the merchants from the
inconvenience of a disadvantageous exchange. The revenue which has
arisen from it was unforeseen, and may be considered as accidental. But
it is now time to return from this long digression, into which I have
been insensibly led, in endeavouring to explain the reasons why the
exchange between the countries which pay in what is called bank money,
and those which pay in common currency, should generally appear to be
in favour of the former, and against the latter. The former pay in a
species of money, of which the intrinsic value is always the same, and
exactly agreeable to the standard of their respective mints; the latter
is a species of money, of which the intrinsic value is continually
varying, and is almost always more or less below that standard.


PART II.--Of the Unreasonableness of those extraordinary Restraints,
upon other Principles.

In the foregoing part of this chapter, I have endeavoured to show, even
upon the principles of the commercial system, how unnecessary it is to
lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods from
those countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be
disadvantageous.

Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the
balance of trade, upon which, not only these restraints, but almost all
the other regulations of commerce, are founded. When two places trade
with one another, this doctrine supposes that, if the balance be even,
neither of them either loses or gains; but if it leans in any degree to
one side, that one of them loses, and the other gains, in proportion to
its declension from the exact equilibrium. Both suppositions are false.
A trade, which is forced by means of bounties and monopolies, may be,
and commonly is, disadvantageous to the country in whose favour it is
meant to be established, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter.
But that trade which, without force or constraint, is naturally and
regularly carried on between any two places, is always advantageous,
though not always equally so, to both.

By advantage or gain, I understand, not the increase of the quantity
of gold and silver, but that of the exchangeable value of the annual
produce of the land and labour of the country, or the increase of the
annual revenue of its inhabitants.

If the balance be even, and if the trade between the two places consist
altogether in the exchange of their native commodities, they will, upon
most occasions, not only both gain, but they will gain equally, or very
nearly equally; each will, in this case, afford a market for a part of
the surplus produce of the other; each will replace a capital which had
been employed in raising and preparing for the market this part of the
surplus produce of the other, and which had been distributed among, and
given revenue and maintenance to, a certain number of its inhabitants.
Some part of the inhabitants of each, therefore, will directly derive
their revenue and maintenance from the other. As the commodities
exchanged, too, are supposed to be of equal value, so the two capitals
employed in the trade will, upon most occasions, be equal, or very
nearly equal; and both being employed in raising the native commodities
of the two countries, the revenue and maintenance which their
distribution will afford to the inhabitants of each will be equal, or
very nearly equal. This revenue and maintenance, thus mutually afforded,
will be greater or smaller, in proportion to the extent of their
dealings. If these should annually amount to £100,000, for example, or
to £1,000,000, on each side, each of them will afford an annual revenue,
in the one case, of £100,000, and, in the other, of £1,000,000, to the
inhabitants of the other.

If their trade should be of such a nature, that one of them exported
to the other nothing but native commodities, while the returns of that
other consisted altogether in foreign goods; the balance, in this
case, would still be supposed even, commodities being paid for with
commodities. They would, in this case too, both gain, but they would not
gain equally; and the inhabitants of the country which exported nothing
but native commodities, would derive the greatest revenue from the
trade. If England, for example, should import from France nothing but
the native commodities of that country, and not having such commodities
of its own as were in demand there, should annually repay them by
sending thither a large quantity of foreign goods, tobacco, we shall
suppose, and East India goods; this trade, though it would give some
revenue to the inhabitants of both countries, would give more to those
of France than to those of England. The whole French capital annually
employed in it would annually be distributed among the people of
France; but that part of the English capital only, which was employed
in producing the English commodities with which those foreign goods were
purchased, would be annually distributed among the people of England.
The greater part of it would replace the capitals which had been
employed in Virginia, Indostan, and China, and which had given revenue
and maintenance to the inhabitants of those distant countries. If the
capitals were equal, or nearly equal, therefore, this employment of
the French capital would augment much more the revenue of the people of
France, than that of the English capital would the revenue of the people
of England. France would, in this case, carry on a direct foreign
trade of consumption with England; whereas England would carry on a
round-about trade of the same kind with France. The different effects of
a capital employed in the direct, and of one employed in the round-about
foreign trade of consumption, have already been fully explained.

There is not, probably, between any two countries, a trade which
consists altogether in the exchange, either of native commodities on
both sides, or of native commodities on one side, and of foreign goods
on the other. Almost all countries exchange with one another, partly
native and partly foreign goods. That country, however, in whose cargoes
there is the greatest proportion of native, and the least of foreign
goods, will always be the principal gainer.

If it was not with tobacco and East India goods, but with gold and
silver, that England paid for the commodities annually imported from
France, the balance, in this case, would be supposed uneven, commodities
not being paid for with commodities, but with gold and silver. The
trade, however, would in this case, as in the foregoing, give some
revenue to the inhabitants of both countries, but more to those of
France than to those of England. It would give some revenue to those of
England. The capital which had been employed in producing the English
goods that purchased this gold and silver, the capital which had been
distributed among, and given revenue to, certain inhabitants of England,
would thereby be replaced, and enabled to continue that employment. The
whole capital of England would no more be diminished by this exportation
of gold and silver, than by the exportation of an equal value of any
other goods. On the contrary, it would, in most cases, be augmented. No
goods are sent abroad but those for which the demand is supposed to be
greater abroad than at home, and of which the returns, consequently,
it is expected, will be of more value at home than the commodities
exported. If the tobacco which in England is worth only £100,000, when
sent to France, will purchase wine which is in England worth £110,000,
the exchange will augment the capital of England by £10,000. If £100,000
of English gold, in the same manner, purchase French wine, which in
England is worth £110,000, this exchange will equally augment the
capital of England by £10,000. As a merchant, who has £110,000 worth of
wine in his cellar, is a richer man than he who has only £100,000 worth
of tobacco in his warehouse, so is he likewise a richer man than he who
has only £100,000 worth of gold in his coffers. He can put into motion
a greater quantity of industry, and give revenue, maintenance, and
employment, to a greater number of people, than either of the other
two. But the capital of the country is equal to the capital of all
its different inhabitants; and the quantity of industry which can be
annually maintained in it is equal to what all those different capitals
can maintain. Both the capital of the country, therefore, and the
quantity of industry which can be annually maintained in it, must
generally be augmented by this exchange. It would, indeed, be more
advantageous for England that it could purchase the wines of France
with its own hardware and broad cloth, than with either the tobacco of
Virginia, or the gold and silver of Brazil and Peru. A direct foreign
trade of consumption is always more advantageous than a round-about one.
But a round-about foreign trade of consumption, which is carried on with
gold and silver, does not seem to be less advantageous than any other
equally round-about one. Neither is a country which has no mines, more
likely to be exhausted of gold and silver by this annual exportation of
those metals, than one which does not grow tobacco by the like annual
exportation of that plant. As a country which has wherewithal to buy
tobacco will never be long in want of it, so neither will one be long in
want of gold and silver which has wherewithal to purchase those metals.

It is a losing trade, it is said, which a workman carries on with the
alehouse; and the trade which a manufacturing nation would naturally
carry on with a wine country, may be considered as a trade of the same
nature. I answer, that the trade with the alehouse is not necessarily a
losing trade. In its own nature it is just as advantageous as any other,
though, perhaps, somewhat more liable to be abused. The employment of
a brewer, and even that of a retailer of fermented liquors, are as
necessary division's of labour as any other. It will generally be more
advantageous for a workman to buy of the brewer the quantity he has
occasion for, than to brew it himself; and if he is a poor workman,
it will generally be more advantageous for him to buy it by little and
little of the retailer, than a large quantity of the brewer. He may
no doubt buy too much of either, as he may of any other dealers in his
neighbourhood; of the butcher, if he is a glutton; or of the draper, if
he affects to be a beau among his companions. It is advantageous to the
great body of workmen, notwithstanding, that all these trades should
be free, though this freedom may be abused in all of them, and is more
likely to be so, perhaps, in some than in others. Though individuals,
besides, may sometimes ruin their fortunes by an excessive consumption
of fermented liquors, there seems to be no risk that a nation should do
so. Though in every country there are many people who spend upon such
liquors more than they can afford, there are always many more who spend
less. It deserves to be remarked, too, that if we consult experience,
the cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but
of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine countries are in general the
soberest people of Europe; witness the Spaniards, the Italians, and
the inhabitants of the southern provinces of France. People are seldom
guilty of excess in what is their daily fare. Nobody affects the
character of liberality and good fellowship, by being profuse of
a liquor which is as cheap as small beer. On the contrary, in the
countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes,
and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a
common vice, as among the northern nations, and all those who live
between the tropics, the negroes, for example on the coast of Guinea.
When a French regiment comes from some of the northern provinces of
France, where wine is somewhat dear, to be quartered in the southern,
where it is very cheap, the soldiers, I have frequently heard it
observed, are at first debauched by the cheapness and novelty of good
wine; but after a few months residence, the greater part of them become
as sober as the rest of the inhabitants. Were the duties upon foreign
wines, and the excises upon malt, beer, and ale, to be taken away all at
once, it might, in the same manner, occasion in Great Britain a pretty
general and temporary drunkenness among the middling and inferior ranks
of people, which would probably be soon followed by a permanent and
almost universal sobriety. At present, drunkenness is by no means the
vice of people of fashion, or of those who can easily afford the most
expensive liquors. A gentleman drunk with ale has scarce ever been seen
among us. The restraints upon the wine trade in Great Britain, besides,
do not so much seem calculated to hinder the people from going, if I may
say so, to the alehouse, as from going where they can buy the best and
cheapest liquor. They favour the wine trade of Portugal, and discourage
that of France. The Portuguese, it is said, indeed, are better customers
for our manufactures than the French, and should therefore be encouraged
in preference to them. As they give us their custom, it is pretended we
should give them ours. The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus
erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for
it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ
chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his goods always
where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest
of this kind.

By such maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their
interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbours. Each nation has
been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the
nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own
loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations as among
individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile
source of discord and animosity. The capricious ambition of kings and
ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been
more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of
merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of
mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of
human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy: but the mean rapacity, the
monopolizing spirit, of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are,
nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot, perhaps, be
corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity
of anybody but themselves.

That it was the spirit of monopoly which originally both invented and
propagated this doctrine, cannot be doubted and they who first taught
it, were by no means such fools as they who believed it. In every
country it always is, and must be, the interest of the great body of
the people, to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. The
proposition is so very manifest, that it seems ridiculous to take any
pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question, had
not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded
the common sense of mankind. Their interest is, in this respect,
directly opposite to that of the great body of the people. As it is
the interest of the freemen of a corporation to hinder the rest of the
inhabitants from employing any workmen but themselves; so it is the
interest of the merchants and manufacturers of every country to secure
to themselves the monopoly of the home market. Hence, in Great Britain,
and in most other European countries, the extraordinary duties upon
almost all goods imported by alien merchants. Hence the high duties and
prohibitions upon all those foreign manufactures which can come into
competition with our own. Hence, too, the extraordinary restraints upon
the importation of almost all sorts of goods from those countries with
which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous; that is,
from those against whom national animosity happens ta be most violently
inflamed.

The wealth of neighbouring nations, however, though dangerous in war and
politics, is certainly advantageous in trade. In a state of hostility,
it may enable our enemies to maintain fleets and armies superior to our
own; but in a state of peace and commerce it must likewise enable them
to exchange with us to a greater value, and to afford a better market,
either for the immediate produce of our own industry, or for whatever
is purchased with that produce. As a rich man is likely to be a better
customer to the industrious people in his neighbourhood, than a poor,
so is likewise a rich nation. A rich man, indeed, who is himself a
manufacturer, is a very dangerous neighbour to all those who deal in
the same way. All the rest of the neighbourhood, however, by far the
greatest number, profit by the good market which his expense affords
them. They even profit by his underselling the poorer workmen who deal
in the same way with him. The manufacturers of a rich nation, in the
same manner, may no doubt be very dangerous rivals to those of their
neighbours. This very competition, however, is advantageous to the great
body of the people, who profit greatly, besides, by the good market
which the great expense of such a nation affords them in every other
way. Private people, who want to make a fortune, never think of retiring
to the remote and poor provinces of the country, but resort either to
the capital, or to some of the great commercial towns. They know, that
where little wealth circulates, there is little to be got; but that
where a great deal is in motion, some share of it may fall to them. The
same maxim which would in this manner direct the common sense of one, or
ten, or twenty individuals, should regulate the judgment of one, or ten,
or twenty millions, and should make a whole nation regard the riches of
its neighbours, as a probable cause and occasion for itself to acquire
riches. A nation that would enrich itself by foreign trade, is certainly
most likely to do so, when its neighbours are all rich, industrious and
commercial nations. A great nation, surrounded on all sides by wandering
savages and poor barbarians, might, no doubt, acquire riches by the
cultivation of its own lands, and by its own interior commerce, but not
by foreign trade. It seems to have been in this manner that the ancient
Egyptians and the modern Chinese acquired their great wealth. The
ancient Egyptians, it is said, neglected foreign commerce, and the
modern Chinese, it is known, hold it in the utmost contempt, and scarce
deign to afford it the decent protection of the laws. The modern
maxims of foreign commerce, by aiming at the impoverishment of all
our neighbours, so far as they are capable of producing their
intended effect, tend to render that very commerce insignificant and
contemptible.

It is in consequence of these maxims, that the commerce between
France and England has, in both countries, been subjected to so many
discouragements and restraints. If those two countries, however, were
to consider their real interest, without either mercantile jealousy or
national animosity, the commerce of France might be more advantageous to
Great Britain than that of any other country, and, for the same reason,
that of Great Britain to France. France is the nearest neighbour to
Great Britain. In the trade between the southern coast of England and
the northern and north-western coast of France, the returns might be
expected, in the same manner as in the inland trade, four, five, or six
times in the year. The capital, therefore, employed in this trade could,
in each of the two countries, keep in motion four, five, or six times
the quantity of industry, and afford employment and subsistence to four,
five, or six times the number of people, which all equal capital could
do in the greater part of the other branches of foreign trade. Between
the parts of France and Great Britain most remote from one another, the
returns might be expected, at least, once in the year; and even this
trade would so far be at least equally advantageous, as the greater part
of the other branches of our foreign European trade. It would be, at
least, three times more advantageous than the boasted trade with our
North American colonies, in which the returns were seldom made in
less than three years, frequently not in less than four or five years.
France, besides, is supposed to contain 24,000,000 of inhabitants.
Our North American colonies were never supposed to contain more than
3,000,000; and France is a much richer country than North America;
though, on account of the more unequal distribution of riches, there
is much more poverty and beggary in the one country than in the other.
France, therefore, could afford a market at least eight times more
extensive, and, on account of the superior frequency of the returns,
four-and-twenty times more advantageous than that which our North
American colonies ever afforded. The trade of Great Britain would
be just as advantageous to France, and, in proportion to the wealth,
population, and proximity of the respective countries, would have
the same superiority over that which France carries on with her own
colonies. Such is the very great difference between that trade which the
wisdom of both nations has thought proper to discourage, and that which
it has favoured the most.

But the very same circumstances which would have rendered an open and
free commerce between the two countries so advantageous to both,
have occasioned the principal obstructions to that commerce. Being
neighbours, they are necessarily enemies, and the wealth and power of
each becomes, upon that account, more formidable to the other; and what
would increase the advantage of national friendship, serves only to
inflame the violence of national animosity. They are both rich and
industrious nations; and the merchants and manufacturers of each
dread the competition of the skill and activity of those of the other.
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself
inflamed, by the violence of national animosity, and the traders of
both countries have announced, with all the passionate confidence of
interested falsehood, the certain ruin of each, in consequence of
that unfavourable balance of trade, which, they pretend, would be the
infallible effect of an unrestrained commerce with the other.

There is no commercial country in Europe, of which the approaching
ruin has not frequently been foretold by the pretended doctors of this
system, from all unfavourably balance of trade. After all the anxiety,
however, which they have excited about this, after all the vain attempts
of almost all trading nations to turn that balance in their own favour,
and against their neighbours, it does not appear that any one nation in
Europe has been, in any respect, impoverished by this cause. Every town
and country, on the contrary, in proportion as they have opened their
ports to all nations, instead of being ruined by this free trade, as the
principles of the commercial system would lead us to expect, have been
enriched by it. Though there are in Europe indeed, a few towns which, in
same respects, deserve the name of free ports, there is no country which
does so. Holland, perhaps, approaches the nearest to this character of
any, though still very remote from it; and Holland, it is acknowledged,
not only derives its whole wealth, but a great part of its necessary
subsistence, from foreign trade.

There is another balance, indeed, which has already been explained, very
different from the balance of trade, and which, according as it happens
to be either favourable or unfavourable, necessarily occasions the
prosperity or decay of every nation. This is the balance of the annual
produce and consumption. If the exchangeable value of the annual
produce, it has already been observed, exceeds that of the annual
consumption, the capital of the society must annually increase in
proportion to this excess. The society in this case lives within its
revenue; and what is annually saved out of its revenue, is naturally
added to its capital, and employed so as to increase still further the
annual produce. If the exchangeable value of the annual produce, on
the contrary, fall short of the annual consumption, the capital of
the society must annually decay in proportion to this deficiency.
The expense of the society, in this case, exceeds its revenue, and
necessarily encroaches upon its capital. Its capital, therefore, must
necessarily decay, and, together with it, the exchangeable value of the
annual produce of its industry.

This balance of produce and consumption is entirely different from what
is called the balance of trade. It might take place in a nation which
had no foreign trade, but which was entirely separated from all the
world. It may take place in the whole globe of the earth, of which the
wealth, population, and improvement, may be either gradually increasing
or gradually decaying.

The balance of produce and consumption may be constantly in favour of a
nation, though what is called the balance of trade be generally against
it. A nation may import to a greater value than it exports for half
a century, perhaps, together; the gold and silver which comes into
it during all this time, may be all immediately sent out of it; its
circulating coin may gradually decay, different sorts of paper money
being substituted in its place, and even the debts, too, which it
contracts in the principal nations with whom it deals, may be gradually
increasing; and yet its real wealth, the exchangeable value of the
annual produce of its lands and labour, may, during the same period,
have been increasing in a much greater proportion. The state of our
North American colonies, and of the trade which they carried on with
Great Britain, before the commencement of the present disturbances,
{This paragraph was written in the year 1775.} may serve as a proof that
this is by no means an impossible supposition.



CHAPTER IV. OF DRAWBACKS.

Merchants and manufacturers are not contented with the monopoly of the
home market, but desire likewise the most extensive foreign sale for
their goods. Their country has no jurisdiction in foreign nations, and
therefore can seldom procure them any monopoly there. They are generally
obliged, therefore, to content themselves with petitioning for certain
encouragements to exportation.

Of these encouragements, what are called drawbacks seem to be the most
reasonable. To allow the merchant to draw back upon exportation, either
the whole, or a part of whatever excise or inland duty is imposed upon
domestic industry, can never occasion the exportation of a greater
quantity of goods than what would have been exported had no duty been
imposed. Such encouragements do not tend to turn towards any particular
employment a greater share of the capital of the country, than what
would go to that employment of its own accord, but only to hinder the
duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments. They
tend not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself
among all the various employments of the society, but to hinder it from
being overturned by the duty. They tend not to destroy, but to preserve,
what it is in most cases advantageous to preserve, the natural division
and distribution of labour in the society.

The same thing may be said of the drawbacks upon the re-exportation of
foreign goods imported, which, in Great Britain, generally amount to by
much the largest part of the duty upon importation. By the second of
the rules, annexed to the act of parliament, which imposed what is now
called the old subsidy, every merchant, whether English or alien.
was allowed to draw back half that duty upon exportation; the English
merchant, provided the exportation took place within twelve months; the
alien, provided it took place within nine months. Wines, currants, and
wrought silks, were the only goods which did not fall within this rule,
having other and more advantageous allowances. The duties imposed by
this act of parliament were, at that time, the only duties upon the
importation of foreign goods. The term within which this, and all other
drawbacks could be claimed, was afterwards (by 7 Geo. I. chap. 21. sect.
10.) extended to three years.

The duties which have been imposed since the old subsidy, are, the
greater part of them, wholly drawn back upon exportation. This general
rule, however, is liable to a great number of exceptions; and the
doctrine of drawbacks has become a much less simple matter than it was
at their first institution.

Upon the exportation of some foreign goods, of which it was expected
that the importation would greatly exceed what was necessary for the
home consumption, the whole duties are drawn back, without retaining
even half the old subsidy. Before the revolt of our North American
colonies, we had the monopoly of the tobacco of Maryland and Virginia.
We imported about ninety-six thousand hogsheads, and the home
consumption was not supposed to exceed fourteen thousand. To facilitate
the great exportation which was necessary, in order to rid us of the
rest, the whole duties were drawn back, provided the exportation took
place within three years.

We still have, though not altogether, yet very nearly, the monopoly of
the sugars of our West Indian islands. If sugars are exported within a
year, therefore, all the duties upon importation are drawn back; and
if exported within three years, all the duties, except half the old
subsidy, which still continues to be retained upon the exportation of
the greater part of goods. Though the importation of sugar exceeds a
good deal what is necessary for the home consumption, the excess is
inconsiderable, in comparison of what it used to be in tobacco.

Some goods, the particular objects of the jealousy of our own
manufacturers, are prohibited to be imported for home consumption. They
may, however, upon paying certain duties, be imported and warehoused for
exportation. But upon such exportation no part of these duties is
drawn back. Our manufacturers are unwilling, it seems, that even this
restricted importation should be encouraged, and are afraid lest some
part of these goods should be stolen out of the warehouse, and thus come
into competition with their own. It is under these regulations only
that we can import wrought silks, French cambrics and lawns, calicoes,
painted, printed, stained, or dyed, etc.

We are unwilling even to be the carriers of French goods, and choose
rather to forego a profit to ourselves than to suffer those whom we
consider as our enemies to make any profit by our means. Not only half
the old subsidy, but the second twenty-five per cent. is retained upon
the exportation of all French goods.

By the fourth of the rules annexed to the old subsidy, the drawback
allowed upon the exportation of all wines amounted to a great deal
more than half the duties which were at that time paid upon their
importation; and it seems at that time to have been the object of the
legislature to give somewhat more than ordinary encouragement to the
carrying trade in wine. Several of the other duties, too which were
imposed either at the same time or subsequent to the old subsidy,
what is called the additional duty, the new subsidy, the one-third and
two-thirds subsidies, the impost 1692, the tonnage on wine, were allowed
to be wholly drawn back upon exportation. All those duties, however,
except the additional duty and impost 1692, being paid down in ready
money upon importation, the interest of so large a sum occasioned an
expense, which made it unreasonable to expect any profitable carrying
trade in this article. Only a part, therefore of the duty called the
impost on wine, and no part of the twenty-five pounds the ton upon
French wines, or of the duties imposed in 1745, in 1763, and in 1778,
were allowed to be drawn back upon exportation. The two imposts of
five per cent. imposed in 1779 and 1781, upon all the former duties of
customs, being allowed to be wholly drawn back upon the exportation of
all other goods, were likewise allowed to be drawn back upon that of
wine. The last duty that has been particularly imposed upon wine, that
of 1780, is allowed to be wholly drawn back; an indulgence which, when
so many heavy duties are retained, most probably could never occasion
the exportation of a single ton of wine. These rules took place with
regard to all places of lawful exportation, except the British colonies
in America.

The 15th Charles II, chap. 7, called an act for the encouragement of
trade, had given Great Britain the monopoly of supplying the colonies
with all the commodities of the growth or manufacture of Europe, and
consequently with wines. In a country of so extensive a coast as our
North American and West Indian colonies, where our authority was always
so very slender, and where the inhabitants were allowed to carry out in
their own ships their non-enumerated commodities, at first to all
parts of Europe, and afterwards to all parts of Europe south of Cape
Finisterre, it is not very probable that this monopoly could ever be
much respected; and they probably at all times found means of bringing
back some cargo from the countries to which they were allowed to carry
out one. They seem, however, to have found some difficulty in importing
European wines from the places of their growth; and they could not well
import them from Great Britain, where they were loaded with many
heavy duties, of which a considerable part was not drawn back upon
exportation. Madeira wine, not being an European commodity, could be
imported directly into America and the West Indies, countries which, in
all their non-enumerated commodities, enjoyed a free trade to the island
of Madeira. These circumstances had probably introduced that general
taste for Madeira wine, which our officers found established in all our
colonies at the commencement of the war which began in 1755, and which
they brought back with them to the mother country, where that wine had
not been much in fashion before. Upon the conclusion of that war, in
1763 (by the 4th Geo. III, chap. 15, sect. 12), all the duties except
£3, 10s. were allowed to be drawn back upon the exportation to the
colonies of all wines, except French wines, to the commerce and
consumption of which national prejudice would allow no sort of
encouragement. The period between the granting of this indulgence and
the revolt of our North American colonies, was probably too short to
admit of any considerable change in the customs of those countries.

The same act which, in the drawbacks upon all wines, except French
wines, thus favoured the colonies so much more than other countries,
in those upon the greater part of other commodities, favoured them much
less. Upon the exportation of the greater part of commodities to other
countries, half the old subsidy was drawn back. But this law enacted,
that no part of that duty should be drawn back upon the exportation to
the colonies of any commodities of the growth or manufacture either of
Europe or the East Indies, except wines, white calicoes, and muslins.

Drawbacks were, perhaps, originally granted for the encouragement of the
carrying trade, which, as the freight of the ship is frequently paid by
foreigners in money, was supposed to be peculiarly fitted for bringing
gold and silver into the country. But though the carrying trade
certainly deserves no peculiar encouragement, though the motive of the
institution was, perhaps, abundantly foolish, the institution itself
seems reasonable enough. Such drawbacks cannot force into this trade a
greater share of the capital of the country than what would have gone
to it of its own accord, had there been no duties upon importation; they
only prevent its being excluded altogether by those duties. The carrying
trade, though it deserves no preference, ought not to be precluded, but
to be left free, like all other trades. It is a necessary resource to
those capitals which cannot find employment, either in the agriculture
or in the manufactures of the country, either in its home trade, or in
its foreign trade of consumption.

The revenue of the customs, instead of suffering, profits from such
drawbacks, by that part of the duty which is retained. If the whole
duties had been retained, the foreign goods upon which they are paid
could seldom have been exported, nor consequently imported, for want
of a market. The duties, therefore, of which a part is retained, would
never have been paid.

These reasons seem sufficiently to justify drawbacks, and would justify
them, though the whole duties, whether upon the produce of domestic
industry or upon foreign goods, were always drawn back upon exportation.
The revenue of excise would, in this case indeed, suffer a little,
and that of the customs a good deal more; but the natural balance of
industry, the natural division and distribution of labour, which is
always more or less disturbed by such duties, would be more nearly
re-established by such a regulation.

These reasons, however, will justify drawbacks only upon exporting goods
to those countries which are altogether foreign and independent, not
to those in which our merchants and manufacturers enjoy a monopoly. A
drawback, for example, upon the exportation of European goods to our
American colonies, will not always occasion a greater exportation than
what would have taken place without it. By means of the monopoly which
our merchants and manufacturers enjoy there, the same quantity might
frequently, perhaps, be sent thither, though the whole duties were
retained. The drawback, therefore, may frequently be pure loss to the
revenue of excise and customs, without altering the state of the trade,
or rendering it in any respect more extensive. How far such drawbacks
can be justified as a proper encouragement to the industry of our
colonies, or how far it is advantageous to the mother country that they
should be exempted from taxes which are paid by all the rest of
their fellow-subjects, will appear hereafter, when I come to treat of
colonies.

Drawbacks, however, it must always be understood, are useful only in
those cases in which the goods, for the exportation of which they
are given, are really exported to some foreign country, and not
clandestinely re-imported into our own. That some drawbacks,
particularly those upon tobacco, have frequently been abused in this
manner, and have given occasion to many frauds, equally hurtful both to
the revenue and to the fair trader, is well known.



CHAPTER V. OF BOUNTIES.

Bounties upon exportation are, in Great Britain, frequently petitioned
for, and sometimes granted, to the produce of particular branches of
domestic industry. By means of them, our merchants and manufacturers,
it is pretended, will be enabled to sell their goods as cheap or cheaper
than their rivals in the foreign market. A greater quantity, it is said,
will thus be exported, and the balance of trade consequently turned more
in favour of our own country. We cannot give our workmen a monopoly
in the foreign, as we have done in the home market. We cannot force
foreigners to buy their goods, as we have done our own countrymen. The
next best expedient, it has been thought, therefore, is to pay them
for buying. It is in this manner that the mercantile system proposes
to enrich the whole country, and to put money into all our pockets, by
means of the balance of trade.

Bounties, it is allowed, ought to be given to those branches of trade
only which cannot be carried on without them. But every branch of trade
in which the merchant can sell his goods for a price which replaces to
him, with the ordinary profits of stock, the whole capital employed
in preparing and sending them to market, can be carried on without a
bounty. Every such branch is evidently upon a level with all the other
branches of trade which are carried on without bounties, and cannot,
therefore, require one more than they. Those trades only require
bounties, in which the merchant is obliged to sell his goods for a price
which does not replace to him his capital, together with the ordinary
profit, or in which he is obliged to sell them for less than it really
cost him to send them to market. The bounty is given in order to make
up this loss, and to encourage him to continue, or, perhaps, to begin a
trade, of which the expense is supposed to be greater than the returns,
of which every operation eats up a part of the capital employed in it,
and which is of such a nature, that if all other trades resembled it,
there would soon be no capital left in the country.

The trades, it is to be observed, which are carried on by means of
bounties, are the only ones which can be carried on between two nations
for any considerable time together, in such a manner as that one of them
shall alway's and regularly lose, or sell its goods for less than it
really cost to send them to market. But if the bounty did not repay to
the merchant what he would otherwise lose upon the price of his goods,
his own interest would soon oblige him to employ his stock in another
way, or to find out a trade in which the price of the goods would
replace to him, with the ordinary profit, the capital employed in
sending them to market. The effect of bounties, like that of all the
other expedients of the mercantile system, can only be to force the
trade of a country into a channel much less advantageous than that in
which it would naturally run of its own accord.

The ingenious and well-informed author of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade
has shown very clearly, that since the bounty upon the exportation
of corn was first established, the price of the corn exported, valued
moderately enough, has exceeded that of the corn imported, valued very
high, by a much greater sum than the amount of the whole bounties which
have been paid during that period. This, he imagines, upon the true
principles of the mercantile system, is a clear proof that this forced
corn trade is beneficial to the nation, the value of the exportation
exceeding that of the importation by a much greater sum than the whole
extraordinary expense which the public has been at in order to get it
exported. He does not consider that this extraordinary expense, or the
bounty, is the smallest part of the expense which the exportation of
corn really costs the society. The capital which the farmer employed in
raising it must likewise be taken into the account. Unless the price
of the corn, when sold in the foreign markets, replaces not only the
bounty, but this capital, together with the ordinary profits of stock,
the society is a loser by the difference, or the national stock is
so much diminished. But the very reason for which it has been thought
necessary to grant a bounty, is the supposed insufficiency of the price
to do this.

The average price of corn, it has been said, has fallen considerably
since the establishment of the bounty. That the average price of corn
began to fall somewhat towards the end of the last century, and has
continued to do so during the course of the sixty-four first years
of the present, I have already endeavoured to show. But this event,
supposing it to be real, as I believe it to be, must have happened in
spite of the bounty, and cannot possibly have happened in consequence of
it. It has happened in France, as well as in England, though in France
there was not only no bounty, but, till 1764, the exportation of corn
was subjected to a general prohibition. This gradual fall in the average
price of grain, it is probable, therefore, is ultimately owing neither
to the one regulation nor to the other, but to that gradual and
insensible rise in the real value of silver, which, in the first book
of this discourse, I have endeavoured to show, has taken place in the
general market of Europe during the course of the present century. It
seems to be altogether impossible that the bounty could ever contribute
to lower the price of grain.

In years of plenty, it has already been observed, the bounty, by
occasioning an extraordinary exportation, necessarily keeps up the price
of corn in the home market above what it would naturally fall to. To
do so was the avowed purpose of the institution. In years of scarcity,
though the bounty is frequently suspended, yet the great exportation
which it occasions in years of plenty, must frequently hinder, more or
less, the plenty of one year from relieving the scarcity of another.
Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the bounty
necessarily tends to raise the money price of corn somewhat higher than
it otherwise would be in the home market.

That in the actual state of tillage the bounty must necessarily have
this tendency, will not, I apprehend, be disputed by any reasonable
person. But it has been thought by many people, that it tends to
encourage tillage, and that in two different ways; first, by opening a
more extensive foreign market to the corn of the farmer, it tends, they
imagine, to increase the demand for, and consequently the production of,
that commodity; and, secondly by securing to him a better price than he
could otherwise expect in the actual state of tillage, it tends, they
suppose, to encourage tillage. This double encouragement must they
imagine, in a long period of years, occasion such an increase in the
production of corn, as may lower its price in the home market, much more
than the bounty can raise it in the actual state which tillage may, at
the end of that period, happen to be in.

I answer, that whatever extension of the foreign market can be
occasioned by the bounty must, in every particular year, be altogether
at the expense of the home market; as every bushel of corn, which is
exported by means of the bounty, and which would not have been exported
without the bounty, would have remained in the home market to increase
the consumption, and to lower the price of that commodity. The corn
bounty, it is to be observed, as well as every other bounty upon
exportation, imposes two different taxes upon the people; first, the tax
which they are obliged to contribute, in order to pay the bounty; and,
secondly, the tax which arises from the advanced price of the commodity
in the home market, and which, as the whole body of the people are
purchasers of corn, must, in this particular commodity, be paid by the
whole body of the people. In this particular commodity, therefore, this
second tax is by much the heaviest of the two. Let us suppose that,
taking one year with another, the bounty of 5s. upon the exportation
of the quarter of wheat raises the price of that commodity in the home
market only 6d. the bushel, or 4s. the quarter higher than it otherwise
would have been in the actual state of the crop. Even upon this very
moderate supposition, the great body of the people, over and above
contributing the tax which pays the bounty of 5s. upon every quarter of
wheat exported, must pay another of 4s. upon every quarter which they
themselves consume. But according to the very well informed author
of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade, the average proportion of the corn
exported to that consumed at home, is not more than that of one to
thirty-one. For every 5s. therefore, which they contribute to the
payment of the first tax, they must contribute £6:4s. to the payment of
the second. So very heavy a tax upon the first necessary of life-must
either reduce the subsistence of the labouring poor, or it must occasion
some augmentation in their pecuniary wages, proportionable to that in
the pecuniary price of their subsistence. So far as it operates in the
one way, it must reduce the ability of the labouring poor to educate
and bring up their children, and must, so far, tend to restrain the
population of the country. So far as it operate's in the other, it must
reduce the ability of the employers of the poor, to employ so great a
number as they otherwise might do, and must so far tend to restrain
the industry of the country. The extraordinary exportation of corn,
therefore occasioned by the bounty, not only in every particular year
diminishes the home, just as much as it extends the foreign market and
consumption, but, by restraining the population and industry of the
country, its final tendency is to stint and restrain the gradual
extension of the home market; and thereby, in the long-run, rather to
diminish than to augment the whole market and consumption of corn.

This enhancement of the money price of corn, however, it has been
thought, by rendering that commodity more profitable to the farmer, must
necessarily encourage its production.

I answer, that this might be the case, if the effect of the bounty was
to raise the real price of corn, or to enable the farmer, with an equal
quantity of it, to maintain a greater number of labourers in the same
manner, whether liberal, moderate, or scanty, than other labourers are
commonly maintained in his neighbourhood. But neither the bounty, it is
evident, nor any other human institution, can have any such effect.
It is not the real, but the nominal price of corn, which can in any
considerable degree be affected by the bounty. And though the tax, which
that institution imposes upon the whole body of the people, may be very
burdensome to those who pay it, it is of very little advantage to those
who receive it.

The real effect of the bounty is not so much to raise the real value
of corn, as to degrade the real value of silver; or to make an equal
quantity of it exchange for a smaller quantity, not only of corn, but of
all other home made commodities; for the money price of corn regulates
that of all other home made commodities.

It regulates the money price of labour, which must always be such as
to enable the labourer to purchase a quantity of corn sufficient to
maintain him and his family, either in the liberal, moderate, or scanty
manner, in which the advancing, stationary, or declining, circumstances
of the society, oblige his employers to maintain him.

It regulates the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce
of land, which, in every period of improvement, must bear a certain
proportion to that of corn, though this proportion is different in
different periods. It regulates, for example, the money price of grass
and hay, of butcher's meat, of horses, and the maintenance of horses,
of land carriage consequently, or of the greater part of the inland
commerce of the country.

By regulating the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce
of land, it regulates that of the materials of almost all manufactures;
by regulating the money price of labour, it regulates that of
manufacturing art and industry; and by regulating both, it regulates
that of the complete manufacture. The money price of labour, and
of every thing that is the produce, either of land or labour, must
necessarily either rise or fall in proportion to the money price of
corn.

Though in consequence of the bounty, therefore, the farmer should be
enabled to sell his corn for 4s. the bushel, instead of 3s:6d. and to
pay his landlord a money rent proportionable to this rise in the money
price of his produce; yet if, in consequence of this rise in the price
of corn, 4s. will purchase no more home made goods of any other kind
than 3s. 6d. would have done before, neither the circumstances of the
farmer, nor those of the landlord, will be much mended by this change.
The farmer will not be able to cultivate much better; the landlord will
not be able to live much better. In the purchase of foreign commodities,
this enhancement in the price of corn may give them some little
advantage. In that of home made commodities, it can give them none at
all. And almost the whole expense of the farmer, and the far greater
part even of that of the landlord, is in home made commodities.

That degradation in the value of silver, which is the effect of the
fertility of the mines, and which operates equally, or very nearly
equally, through the greater part of the commercial world, is a matter
of very little consequence to any particular country. The consequent
rise of all money prices, though it does not make those who receive
them really richer, does not make them really poorer. A service of plate
becomes really cheaper, and every thing else remains precisely of the
same real value as before.

But that degradation in the value of silver, which, being the effect
either of the peculiar situation or of the political institutions of
a particular country, takes place only in that country, is a matter of
very great consequence, which, far from tending to make anybody really
richer, tends to make every body really poorer. The rise in the money
price of all commodities, which is in this case peculiar to that
country, tends to discourage more or less every sort of industry which
is carried on within it, and to enable foreign nations, by furnishing
almost all sorts of goods for a smaller quantity of silver than its own
workmen can afford to do, to undersell them, not only in the foreign,
but even in the home market.

It is the peculiar situation of Spain and Portugal, as proprietors of
the mines, to be the distributers of gold and silver to all the other
countries of Europe. Those metals ought naturally, therefore, to be
somewhat cheaper in Spain and Portugal than in any other part of Europe.
The difference, however, should be no more than the amount of the
freight and insurance; and, on account of the great value and small bulk
of those metals, their freight is no great matter, and their insurance
is the same as that of any other goods of equal value. Spain and
Portugal, therefore, could suffer very little from their peculiar
situation, if they did not aggravate its disadvantages by their
political institutions.

Spain by taxing, and Portugal by prohibiting, the exportation of gold
and silver, load that exportation with the expense of smuggling, and
raise the value of those metals in other countries so much more above
what it is in their own, by the whole amount of this expense. When you
dam up a stream of water, as soon as the dam is full, as much water must
run over the dam-head as if there was no dam at all. The prohibition of
exportation cannot detain a greater quantity of gold and silver in Spain
and Portugal, than what they can afford to employ, than what the annual
produce of their land and labour will allow them to employ, in coin,
plate, gilding, and other ornaments of gold and silver. When they have
got this quantity, the dam is full, and the whole stream which flows in
afterwards must run over. The annual exportation of gold and silver from
Spain and Portugal, accordingly, is, by all accounts, notwithstanding
these restraints, very near equal to the whole annual importation.
As the water, however, must always be deeper behind the dam-head than
before it, so the quantity of gold and silver which these restraints
detain in Spain and Portugal, must, in proportion to the annual produce
of their land and labour, be greater than what is to be found in other
countries. The higher and stronger the dam-head, the greater must be the
difference in the depth of water behind and before it. The higher the
tax, the higher the penalties with which the prohibition is guarded, the
more vigilant and severe the police which looks after the execution of
the law, the greater must be the difference in the proportion of gold
and silver to the annual produce of the land and labour of Spain and
Portugal, and to that of other countries. It is said, accordingly, to
be very considerable, and that you frequently find there a profusion
of plate in houses, where there is nothing else which would in
other countries be thought suitable or correspondent to this sort of
magnificence. The cheapness of gold and silver, or, what is the same
thing, the dearness of all commodities, which is the necessary effect of
this redundancy of the precious metals, discourages both the agriculture
and manufactures of Spain and Portugal, and enables foreign nations
to supply them with many sorts of rude, and with almost all sorts of
manufactured produce, for a smaller quantity of gold and silver than
what they themselves can either raise or make them for at home. The tax
and prohibition operate in two different ways. They not only lower very
much the value of the precious metals in Spain and Portugal, but by
detaining there a certain quantity of those metals which would otherwise
flow over other countries, they keep up their value in those other
countries somewhat above what it otherwise would be, and thereby give
those countries a double advantage in their commerce with Spain and
Portugal. Open the flood-gates, and there will presently be less water
above, and more below the dam-head, and it will soon come to a level in
both places. Remove the tax and the prohibition, and as the quantity of
gold and silver will diminish considerably in Spain and Portugal, so
it will increase somewhat in other countries; and the value of those
metals, their proportion to the annual produce of land and labour, will
soon come to a level, or very near to a level, in all. The loss which
Spain and Portugal could sustain by this exportation of their gold and
silver, would be altogether nominal and imaginary. The nominal value of
their goods, and of the annual produce of their land and labour, would
fall, and would be expressed or represented by a smaller quantity of
silver than before; but their real value would be the same as before,
and would be sufficient to maintain, command, and employ the same
quantity of labour. As the nominal value of their goods would fall, the
real value of what remained of their gold and silver would rise, and a
smaller quantity of those metals would answer all the same purposes of
commerce and circulation which had employed a greater quantity before.
The gold and silver which would go abroad would not go abroad for
nothing, but would bring back an equal value of goods of some kind or
other. Those goods, too, would not be all matters of mere luxury and
expense, to be consumed by idle people, who produce nothing in return
for their consumption. As the real wealth and revenue of idle people
would not be augmented by this extraordinary exportation of gold and
silver, so neither would their consumption be much augmented by it.
Those goods would probably, the greater part of them, and certainly
some part of them, consist in materials, tools, and provisions, for the
employment and maintenance of industrious people, who would reproduce,
with a profit, the full value of their consumption. A part of the dead
stock of the society would thus be turned into active stock, and would
put into motion a greater quantity of industry than had been employed
before. The annual produce of their land and labour would immediately
be augmented a little, and in a few years would probably be augmented
a great deal; their industry being thus relieved from one of the most
oppressive burdens which it at present labours under.

The bounty upon the exportation of corn necessarily operates exactly in
the same way as this absurd policy of Spain and Portugal. Whatever be
the actual state of tillage, it renders our corn somewhat dearer in
the home market than it otherwise would be in that state, and somewhat
cheaper in the foreign; and as the average money price of corn
regulates, more or less, that of all other commodities, it lowers the
value of silver considerably in the one, and tends to raise it a little
in the other. It enables foreigners, the Dutch in particular, not only
to eat our corn cheaper than they otherwise could do, but sometimes to
eat it cheaper than even our own people can do upon the same occasions;
as we are assured by an excellent authority, that of Sir Matthew Decker.
It hinders our own workmen from furnishing their goods for so small a
quantity of silver as they otherwise might do, and enables the Dutch
to furnish theirs for a smaller. It tends to render our manufactures
somewhat dearer in every market, and theirs somewhat cheaper, than they
otherwise would be, and consequently to give their industry a double
advantage over our own.

The bounty, as it raises in the home market, not so much the real,
as the nominal price of our corn; as it augments, not the quantity of
labour which a certain quantity of corn can maintain and employ, but
only the quantity of silver which it will exchange for; it discourages
our manufactures, without rendering any considerable service, either to
our farmers or country gentlemen. It puts, indeed, a little more money
into the pockets of both, and it will perhaps be somewhat difficult to
persuade the greater part of them that this is not rendering them a
very considerable service. But if this money sinks in its value, in
the quantity of labour, provisions, and home-made commodities of all
different kinds which it is capable of purchasing, as much as it rises
in its quantity, the service will be little more than nominal and
imaginary.

There is, perhaps, but one set of men in the whole commonwealth to whom
the bounty either was or could be essentially serviceable. These were
the corn merchants, the exporters and importers of corn. In years of
plenty, the bounty necessarily occasioned a greater exportation than
would otherwise have taken place; and by hindering the plenty of the one
year from relieving the scarcity of another, it occasioned in years of
scarcity a greater importation than would otherwise have been necessary.
It increased the business of the corn merchant in both; and in the years
of scarcity, it not only enabled him to import a greater quantity, but
to sell it for a better price, and consequently with a greater profit,
than he could otherwise have made, if the plenty of one year had not
been more or less hindered from relieving the scarcity of another. It is
in this set of men, accordingly, that I have observed the greatest zeal
for the continuance or renewal of the bounty.

Our country gentlemen, when they imposed the high duties upon the
exportation of foreign corn, which in times of moderate plenty amount
to a prohibition, and when they established the bounty, seem to have
imitated the conduct of our manufacturers. By the one institution, they
secured to themselves the monopoly of the home market, and by the other
they endeavoured to prevent that market from ever being overstocked with
their commodity. By both they endeavoured to raise its real value, in
the same manner as our manufacturers had, by the like institutions,
raised the real value of many different sorts of manufactured goods.
They did not, perhaps, attend to the great and essential difference
which nature has established between corn and almost every other sort of
goods. When, either by the monopoly of the home market, or by a bounty
upon exportation, you enable our woollen or linen manufacturers to sell
their goods for somewhat a better price than they otherwise could get
for them, you raise, not only the nominal, but the real price of those
goods; you render them equivalent to a greater quantity of labour and
subsistence; you increase not only the nominal, but the real profit,
the real wealth and revenue of those manufacturers; and you enable them,
either to live better themselves, or to employ a greater quantity of
labour in those particular manufactures. You really encourage those
manufactures, and direct towards them a greater quantity of the industry
of the country than what would properly go to them of its own accord.
But when, by the like institutions, you raise the nominal or money price
of corn, you do not raise its real value; you do not increase the real
wealth, the real revenue, either of our farmers or country gentlemen;
you do not encourage the growth of corn, because you do not enable
them to maintain and employ more labourers in raising it. The nature of
things has stamped upon corn a real value, which cannot be altered by
merely altering its money price. No bounty upon exportation, no monopoly
of the home market, can raise that value. The freest competition cannot
lower it, Through the world in general, that value is equal to the
quantity of labour which it can maintain, and in every particular place
it is equal to the quantity of labour which it can maintain in the
way, whether liberal, moderate, or scanty, in which labour is commonly
maintained in that place. Woollen or linen cloth are not the regulating
commodities by which the real value of all other commodities must be
finally measured and determined; corn is. The real value of every other
commodity is finally measured and determined by the proportion which its
average money price bears to the average money price of corn. The real
value of corn does not vary with those variations in its average money
price, which sometimes occur from one century to another; it is the real
value of silver which varies with them.

Bounties upon the exportation of any homemade commodity are liable,
first, to that general objection which may be made to all the different
expedients of the mercantile system; the objection of forcing some part
of the industry of the country into a channel less advantageous than
that in which it would run of its own accord; and, secondly, to the
particular objection of forcing it not only into a channel that is less
advantageous, but into one that is actually disadvantageous; the trade
which cannot be carried on but by means of a bounty being necessarily a
losing trade. The bounty upon the exportation of corn is liable to this
further objection, that it can in no respect promote the raising of that
particular commodity of which it was meant to encourage the production.
When our country gentlemen, therefore, demanded the establishment of
the bounty, though they acted in imitation of our merchants and
manufacturers, they did not act with that complete comprehension of
their own interest, which commonly directs the conduct of those two
other orders of people. They loaded the public revenue with a very
considerable expense: they imposed a very heavy tax upon the whole body
of the people; but they did not, in any sensible degree, increase the
real value of their own commodity; and by lowering somewhat the real
value of silver, they discouraged, in some degree, the general industry
of the country, and, instead of advancing, retarded more or less the
improvement of their own lands, which necessarily depend upon the
general industry of the country.

To encourage the production of any commodity, a bounty upon production,
one should imagine, would have a more direct operation than one upon
exportation. It would, besides, impose only one tax upon the people,
that which they must contribute in order to pay the bounty. Instead of
raising, it would tend to lower the price of the commodity in the home
market; and thereby, instead of imposing a second tax upon the people,
it might, at least in part, repay them for what they had contributed
to the first. Bounties upon production, however, have been very rarely
granted. The prejudices established by the commercial system have
taught us to believe, that national wealth arises more immediately
from exportation than from production. It has been more favoured,
accordingly, as the more immediate means of bringing money into the
country. Bounties upon production, it has been said too, have been found
by experience more liable to frauds than those upon exportation. How
far this is true, I know not. That bounties upon exportation have been
abused, to many fraudulent purposes, is very well known. But it is not
the interest of merchants and manufacturers, the great inventors of all
these expedients, that the home market should be overstocked with their
goods; an event which a bounty upon production might sometimes occasion.
A bounty upon exportation, by enabling them to send abroad their surplus
part, and to keep up the price of what remains in the home market,
effectually prevents this. Of all the expedients of the mercantile
system, accordingly, it is the one of which they are the fondest. I have
known the different undertakers of some particular works agree privately
among themselves to give a bounty out of their own pockets upon the
exportation of a certain proportion of the goods which they dealt in.
This expedient succeeded so well, that it more than doubled the price
of their goods in the home market, notwithstanding a very considerable
increase in the produce. The operation of the bounty upon corn must have
been wonderfully different, if it has lowered the money price of that
commodity.

Something like a bounty upon production, however, has been granted
upon some particular occasions. The tonnage bounties given to the white
herring and whale fisheries may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat of
this nature. They tend directly, it may be supposed, to render the
goods cheaper in the home market than they otherwise would be. In other
respects, their effects, it must be acknowledged, are the same as those
of bounties upon exportation. By means of them, a part of the capital of
the country is employed in bringing goods to market, of which the price
does not repay the cost, together with the ordinary profits of stock.

But though the tonnage bounties to those fisheries do not contribute
to the opulence of the nation, it may, perhaps, be thought that they
contribute to its defence, by augmenting the number of its sailors and
shipping. This, it may be alleged, may sometimes be done by means of
such bounties, at a much smaller expense than by keeping up a great
standing navy, if I may use such an expression, in the same way as a
standing army.

Notwithstanding these favourable allegations, however, the following
considerations dispose me to believe, that in granting at least one of
these bounties, the legislature has been very grossly imposed upon:

First, The herring-buss bounty seems too large.

From the commencement of the winter fishing 1771, to the end of the
winter fishing 1781, the tonnage bounty upon the herring-buss fishery
has been at thirty shillings the ton. During these eleven years, the
whole number of barrels caught by the herring-buss fishery of Scotland
amounted to 378,347. The herrings caught and cured at sea are called
sea-sticks. In order to render them what are called merchantable
herrings, it is necessary to repack them with an additional quantity of
salt; and in this case, it is reckoned, that three barrels of sea-sticks
are usually repacked into two barrels of merchantable herrings. The
number of barrels of merchantable herrings, therefore, caught during
these eleven years, will amount only, according to this account, to
252,231¼. During these eleven years, the tonnage bounties paid amounted
to £155,463:11s. or 8s:2¼d. upon every barrel of sea-sticks, and to
12s:3¾d. upon every barrel of merchantable herrings.

The salt with which these herrings are cured is sometimes Scotch, and
sometimes foreign salt; both which are delivered, free of all excise
duty, to the fish-curers. The excise duty upon Scotch salt is at present
1s:6d., that upon foreign salt 10s. the bushel. A barrel of herrings is
supposed to require about one bushel and one-fourth of a bushel foreign
salt. Two bushels are the supposed average of Scotch salt. If the
herrings are entered for exportation, no part of this duty is paid up;
if entered for home consumption, whether the herrings were cured with
foreign or with Scotch salt, only one shilling the barrel is paid up. It
was the old Scotch duty upon a bushel of salt, the quantity which, at
a low estimation, had been supposed necessary for curing a barrel of
herrings. In Scotland, foreign salt is very little used for any other
purpose but the curing of fish. But from the 5th April 1771 to the 5th
April 1782, the quantity of foreign salt imported amounted to 936,974
bushels, at eighty-four pounds the bushel; the quantity of Scotch salt
delivered from the works to the fish-curers, to no more than 168,226, at
fifty-six pounds the bushel only. It would appear, therefore, that it
is principally foreign salt that is used in the fisheries. Upon every
barrel of herrings exported, there is, besides, a bounty of 2s:8d. and
more than two-thirds of the buss-caught herrings are exported. Put
all these things together, and you will find that, during these eleven
years, every barrel of buss-caught herrings, cured with Scotch salt,
when exported, has cost government 17s:11¾d.; and, when entered for home
consumption, 14s:3¾d.; and that every barrel cured with foreign salt,
when exported, has cost government £1:7:5¾d.; and, when entered for
home consumption, £1:3:9¾d. The price of a barrel of good merchantable
herrings runs from seventeen and eighteen to four and five-and-twenty
shillings; about a guinea at an average. {See the accounts at the end of
this Book.}

Secondly, The bounty to the white-herring fishery is a tonnage bounty,
and is proportioned to the burden of the ship, not to her diligence or
success in the fishery; and it has, I am afraid, been too common for the
vessels to fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not the fish but
the bounty. In the year 1759, when the bounty was at fifty shillings the
ton, the whole buss fishery of Scotland brought in only four barrels of
sea-sticks. In that year, each barrel of sea-sticks cost government,
in bounties alone, £113:15s.; each barrel of merchantable herrings
£159:7:6.

Thirdly, The mode of fishing, for which this tonnage bounty in the white
herring fishery has been given (by busses or decked vessels from twenty
to eighty tons burden ), seems not so well adapted to the situation of
Scotland, as to that of Holland, from the practice of which country it
appears to have been borrowed. Holland lies at a great distance from
the seas to which herrings are known principally to resort, and can,
therefore, carry on that fishery only in decked vessels, which can carry
water and provisions sufficient for a voyage to a distant sea; but the
Hebrides, or Western Islands, the islands of Shetland, and the
northern and north-western coasts of Scotland, the countries in whose
neighbourhood the herring fishery is principally carried on, are
everywhere intersected by arms of the sea, which run up a considerable
way into the land, and which, in the language of the country, are called
sea-lochs. It is to these sea-lochs that the herrings principally resort
during the seasons in which they visit these seas; for the visits of
this, and, I am assured, of many other sorts of fish, are not quite
regular and constant. A boat-fishery, therefore, seems to be the mode of
fishing best adapted to the peculiar situation of Scotland, the fishers
carrying the herrings on shore as fast as they are taken, to be either
cured or consumed fresh. But the great encouragement which a bounty of
30s. the ton gives to the buss-fishery, is necessarily a discouragement
to the boat-fishery, which, having no such bounty, cannot bring its
cured fish to market upon the same terms as the buss-fishery. The
boat-fishery; accordingly, which, before the establishment of the
buss-bounty, was very considerable, and is said to have employed a
number of seamen, not inferior to what the buss-fishery employs at
present, is now gone almost entirely to decay. Of the former extent,
however, of this now ruined and abandoned fishery, I must acknowledge
that I cannot pretend to speak with much precision. As no bounty
was-paid upon the outfit of the boat-fishery, no account was taken of it
by the officers of the customs or salt duties.

Fourthly, In many parts of Scotland, during certain seasons of the year,
herrings make no inconsiderable part of the food of the common people.
A bounty which tended to lower their price in the home market,
might contribute a good deal to the relief of a great number of our
fellow-subjects, whose circumstances are by no means affluent. But the
herring-bus bounty contributes to no such good purpose. It has ruined
the boat fishery, which is by far the best adapted for the supply of
the home market; and the additional bounty of 2s:8d. the barrel upon
exportation, carries the greater part, more than two-thirds, of the
produce of the buss-fishery abroad. Between thirty and forty years ago,
before the establishment of the buss-bounty, 16s. the barrel, I have
been assured, was the common price of white herrings. Between ten and
fifteen years ago, before the boat-fishery was entirely ruined, the
price was said to have run from seventeen to twenty shillings the
barrel. For these last five years, it has, at an average, been at
twenty-five shillings the barrel. This high price, however, may have
been owing to the real scarcity of the herrings upon the coast of
Scotland. I must observe, too, that the cask or barrel, which is usually
sold with the herrings, and of which the price is included in all the
foregoing prices, has, since the commencement of the American war, risen
to about double its former price, or from about 3s. to about 6s. I must
likewise observe, that the accounts I have received of the prices of
former times, have been by no means quite uniform and consistent, and an
old man of great accuracy and experience has assured me, that, more
than fifty years ago, a guinea was the usual price of a barrel of good
merchantable herrings; and this, I imagine, may still be looked upon as
the average price. All accounts, however, I think, agree that the
price has not been lowered in the home market in consequence of the
buss-bounty.

When the undertakers of fisheries, after such liberal bounties have been
bestowed upon them, continue to sell their commodity at the same, or
even at a higher price than they were accustomed to do before, it might
be expected that their profits should be very great; and it is not
improbable that those of some individuals may have been so. In general,
however, I have every reason to believe they have been quite otherwise.
The usual effect of such bounties is, to encourage rash undertakers to
adventure in a business which they do not understand; and what they lose
by their own negligence and ignorance, more than compensates all that
they can gain by the utmost liberality of government. In 1750, by
the same act which first gave the bounty of 30s. the ton for the
encouragement of the white herring fishery (the 23d Geo. II. chap. 24),
a joint stock company was erected, with a capital of £500,000, to which
the subscribers (over and above all other encouragements, the tonnage
bounty just now mentioned, the exportation bounty of 2s:8d. the barrel,
the delivery of both British and foreign salt duty free) were, during
the space of fourteen years, for every hundred pounds which they
subscribed and paid into the stock of the society, entitled to three
pounds a-year, to be paid by the receiver-general of the customs in
equal half-yearly payments. Besides this great company, the residence of
whose governor and directors was to be in London, it was declared lawful
to erect different fishing chambers in all the different out-ports of
the kingdom, provided a sum not less than £10,000 was subscribed into
the capital of each, to be managed at its own risk, and for its own
profit and loss. The same annuity, and the same encouragements of all
kinds, were given to the trade of those inferior chambers as to that of
the great company. The subscription of the great company was soon filled
up, and several different fishing chambers were erected in the different
out-ports of the kingdom. In spite of all these encouragements, almost
all those different companies, both great and small, lost either the
whole or the greater part of their capitals; scarce a vestige now
remains of any of them, and the white-herring fishery is now entirely,
or almost entirely, carried on by private adventurers.

If any particular manufacture was necessary, indeed, for the defence
of the society, it might not always be prudent to depend upon our
neighbours for the supply; and if such manufacture could not otherwise
be supported at home, it might not be unreasonable that all the other
branches of industry should be taxed in order to support it. The
bounties upon the exportation of British made sail-cloth, and British
made gunpowder, may, perhaps, both be vindicated upon this principle.

But though it can very seldom be reasonable to tax the industry of the
great body of the people, in order to support that of some particular
class of manufacturers; yet, in the wantonness of great prosperity, when
the public enjoys a greater revenue than it knows well what to do with,
to give such bounties to favourite manufactures, may, perhaps, be as
natural as to incur any other idle expense. In public, as well as in
private expenses, great wealth, may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as
an apology for great folly. But there must surely be something more
than ordinary absurdity in continuing such profusion in times of general
difficulty and distress.

What is called a bounty, is sometimes no more than a drawback, and,
consequently, is not liable to the same objections as what is properly
a bounty. The bounty, for example, upon refined sugar exported, may
be considered as a drawback of the duties upon the brown and Muscovado
sugars, from which it is made; the bounty upon wrought silk exported,
a drawback of the duties upon raw and thrown silk imported; the bounty
upon gunpowder exported, a drawback of the duties upon brimstone and
saltpetre imported. In the language of the customs, those allowances
only are called drawbacks which are given upon goods exported in the
same form in which they are imported. When that form has been so altered
by manufacture of any kind as to come under a new denomination, they are
called bounties.

Premiums given by the public to artists and manufacturers, who excel in
their particular occupations, are not liable to the same objections as
bounties. By encouraging extraordinary dexterity and ingenuity, they
serve to keep up the emulation of the workmen actually employed in those
respective occupations, and are not considerable enough to turn towards
any one of them a greater share of the capital of the country than what
would go to it of its own accord. Their tendency is not to overturn the
natural balance of employments, but to render the work which is done
in each as perfect and complete as possible. The expense of premiums,
besides, is very trifling, that of bounties very great. The bounty
upon corn alone has sometimes cost the public, in one year, more than
£300,000.

Bounties are sometimes called premiums, as drawbacks are sometimes
called bounties. But we must, in all cases, attend to the nature of the
thing, without paying any regard to the word.


Digression concerning the Corn Trade and Corn Laws.


I cannot conclude this chapter concerning bounties, without observing,
that the praises which have been bestowed upon the law which establishes
the bounty upon the exportation of corn, and upon that system of
regulations which is connected with it, are altogether unmerited. A
particular examination of the nature of the corn trade, and of the
principal British laws which relate to it, will sufficiently demonstrate
the truth of this assertion. The great importance of this subject must
justify the length of the digression.

The trade of the corn merchant is composed of four different branches,
which, though they may sometimes be all carried on by the same person,
are, in their own nature, four separate and distinct trades. These
are, first, the trade of the inland dealer; secondly, that of
the merchant-importer for home consumption; thirdly, that of the
merchant-exporter of home produce for foreign consumption; and,
fourthly, that of the merchant-carrier, or of the importer of corn, in
order to export it again.

I. The interest of the inland dealer, and that of the great body of the
people, how opposite soever they may at first appear, are, even in years
of the greatest scarcity, exactly the same. It is his interest to
raise the price of his corn as high as the real scarcity of the season
requires, and it can never be his interest to raise it higher. By
raising the price, he discourages the consumption, and puts every body
more or less, but particularly the inferior ranks of people, upon thrift
and good management If, by raising it too high, he discourages the
consumption so much that the supply of the season is likely to go beyond
the consumption of the season, and to last for some time after the
next crop begins to come in, he runs the hazard, not only of losing a
considerable part of his corn by natural causes, but of being obliged to
sell what remains of it for much less than what he might have had for
it several months before. If, by not raising the price high enough, he
discourages the consumption so little, that the supply of the season is
likely to fall short of the consumption of the season, he not only loses
a part of the profit which he might otherwise have made, but he exposes
the people to suffer before the end of the season, instead of the
hardships of a dearth, the dreadful horrors of a famine. It is the
interest of the people that their daily, weekly, and monthly consumption
should be proportioned as exactly as possible to the supply of the
season. The interest of the inland corn dealer is the same. By supplying
them, as nearly as he can judge, in this proportion, he is likely to
sell all his corn for the highest price, and with the greatest profit;
and his knowledge of the state of the crop, and of his daily, weekly,
and monthly sales, enables him to judge, with more or less accuracy,
how far they really are supplied in this manner. Without intending the
interest of the people, he is necessarily led, by a regard to his own
interest, to treat them, even in years of scarcity, pretty much in the
same manner as the prudent master of a vessel is sometimes obliged
to treat his crew. When he foresees that provisions are likely to run
short, he puts them upon short allowance. Though from excess of caution
he should sometimes do this without any real necessity, yet all the
inconveniencies which his crew can thereby suffer are inconsiderable,
in comparison of the danger, misery, and ruin, to which they might
sometimes be exposed by a less provident conduct. Though, from excess of
avarice, in the same manner, the inland corn merchant should sometimes
raise the price of his corn somewhat higher than the scarcity of the
season requires, yet all the inconveniencies which the people can suffer
from this conduct, which effectually secures them from a famine in the
end of the season, are inconsiderable, in comparison of what they might
have been exposed to by a more liberal way of dealing in the beginning
of it the corn merchant himself is likely to suffer the most by this
excess of avarice; not only from the indignation which it generally
excites against him, but, though he should escape the effects of this
indignation, from the quantity of corn which it necessarily leaves
upon his hands in the end of the season, and which, if the next season
happens to prove favourable, he must always sell for a much lower price
than he might otherwise have had.

Were it possible, indeed, for one great company of merchants to possess
themselves of the whole crop of an extensive country, it might perhaps
be their interest to deal with it, as the Dutch are said to do with the
spiceries of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw away a considerable
part of it, in order to keep up the price of the rest. But it is scarce
possible, even by the violence of law, to establish such an extensive
monopoly with regard to corn; and wherever the law leaves the trade
free, it is of all commodities the least liable to be engrossed or
monopolized by the forced a few large capitals, which buy up the greater
part of it. Not only its value far exceeds what the capitals of a few
private men are capable of purchasing; but, supposing they were capable
of purchasing it, the manner in which it is produced renders this
purchase altogether impracticable. As, in every civilized country, it
is the commodity of which the annual consumption is the greatest; so a
greater quantity of industry is annually employed in producing corn than
in producing any other commodity. When it first comes from the ground,
too, it is necessarily divided among a greater number of owners than any
other commodity; and these owners can never be collected into one
place, like a number of independent manufacturers, but are necessarily
scattered through all the different corners of the country. These
first owners either immediately supply the consumers in their own
neighbourhood, or they supply other inland dealers, who supply those
consumers. The inland dealers in corn, therefore, including both the
farmer and the baker, are necessarily more numerous than the dealers in
any other commodity; and their dispersed situation renders it altogether
impossible for them to enter into any general combination. If, in a year
of scarcity, therefore, any of them should find that he had a good deal
more corn upon hand than, at the current price, he could hope to dispose
of before the end of the season, he would never think of keeping up
this price to his own loss, and to the sole benefit of his rivals and
competitors, but would immediately lower it, in order to get rid of his
corn before the new crop began to come in. The same motives, the same
interests, which would thus regulate the conduct of any one dealer,
would regulate that of every other, and oblige them all in general
to sell their corn at the price which, according to the best of their
judgment, was most suitable to the scarcity or plenty of the season.

Whoever examines, with attention, the history of the dearths and famines
which have afflicted any part of Europe during either the course of the
present or that of the two preceding centuries, of several of which we
have pretty exact accounts, will find, I believe, that a dearth never
has arisen from any combination among the inland dealers in corn, nor
from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned sometimes, perhaps,
and in some particular places, by the waste of war, but in by far the
greatest number of cases by the fault of the seasons; and that a famine
has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government
attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconveniencies of a
dearth.

In an extensive corn country, between all the different parts of which
there is a free commerce and communication, the scarcity occasioned
by the most unfavourable seasons can never be so great as to produce a
famine; and the scantiest crop, if managed with frugality and economy,
will maintain, through the year, the same number of people that are
commonly fed in a more affluent manner by one of moderate plenty. The
seasons most unfavourable to the crop are those of excessive drought or
excessive rain. But as corn grows equally upon high and low lands,
upon grounds that are disposed to be too wet, and upon those that are
disposed to be too dry, either the drought or the rain, which is hurtful
to one part of the country, is favourable to another; and though, both
in the wet and in the dry season, the crop is a good deal less than in
one more properly tempered; yet, in both, what is lost in one part of
the country is in some measure compensated by what is gained in the
other. In rice countries, where the crop not only requires a very moist
soil, but where, in a certain period of its growing, it must be laid
under water, the effects of a drought are much more dismal. Even in such
countries, however, the drought is, perhaps, scarce ever so universal as
necessarily to occasion a famine, if the government would allow a free
trade. The drought in Bengal, a few years ago, might probably have
occasioned a very great dearth. Some improper regulations, some
injudicious restraints, imposed by the servants of the East India
Company upon the rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that dearth
into a famine.

When the government, in order to remedy the inconveniencies of a
dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their corn at what it supposes
a reasonable price, it either hinders them from bringing it to market,
which may sometimes produce a famine even in the beginning of the
season; or, if they bring it thither, it enables the people, and thereby
encourages them to consume it so fast as must necessarily produce a
famine before the end of the season. The unlimited, unrestrained
freedom of the corn trade, as it is the only effectual preventive of
the miseries of a famine, so it is the best palliative of the
inconveniencies of a dearth; for the inconveniencies of a real scarcity
cannot be remedied; they can only be palliated. No trade deserves
more the full protection of the law, and no trade requires it so much;
because no trade is so much exposed to popular odium.

In years of scarcity, the inferior ranks of people impute their distress
to the avarice of the corn merchant, who becomes the object of their
hatred and indignation. Instead of making profit upon such occasions,
therefore, he is often in danger of being utterly ruined, and of having
his magazines plundered and destroyed by their violence. It is in years
of scarcity, however, when prices are high, that the corn merchant
expects to make his principal profit. He is generally in contract with
some farmers to furnish him, for a certain number of years, with a
certain quantity of corn, at a certain price. This contract price is
settled according to what is supposed to be the moderate and reasonable,
that is, the ordinary or average price, which, before the late years of
scarcity, was commonly about 28s. for the quarter of wheat, and for that
of other grain in proportion. In years of scarcity, therefore, the corn
merchant buys a great part of his corn for the ordinary price, and sells
it for a much higher. That this extraordinary profit, however, is no
more than sufficient to put his trade upon a fair level with other
trades, and to compensate the many losses which he sustains upon other
occasions, both from the perishable nature of the commodity itself,
and from the frequent and unforeseen fluctuations of its price, seems
evident enough, from this single circumstance, that great fortunes
are as seldom made in this as in any other trade. The popular odium,
however, which attends it in years of scarcity, the only years in which
it can be very profitable, renders people of character and fortune
averse to enter into it. It is abandoned to an inferior set of dealers;
and millers, bakers, meal-men, and meal-factors, together with a number
of wretched hucksters, are almost the only middle people that, in the
home market, come between the grower and the consumer.

The ancient policy of Europe, instead of discountenancing this popular
odium against a trade so beneficial to the public, seems, on the
contrary, to have authorised and encouraged it.

By the 5th and 6th of Edward VI cap. 14, it was enacted, that whoever
should buy any corn or grain, with intent to sell it again, should be
reputed an unlawful engrosser, and should, for the first fault, suffer
two months imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the corn; for the
second, suffer six months imprisonment, and forfeit double the value;
and, for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer imprisonment during
the king's pleasure, and forfeit all his goods and chattels. The ancient
policy of most other parts of Europe was no better than that of England.

Our ancestors seem to have imagined, that the people would buy their
corn cheaper of the farmer than of the corn merchant, who, they were
afraid, would require, over and above the price which he paid to the
farmer, an exorbitant profit to himself. They endeavoured, therefore,
to annihilate his trade altogether. They even endeavoured to hinder, as
much as possible, any middle man of any kind from coming in between the
grower and the consumer; and this was the meaning of the many restraints
which they imposed upon the trade of those whom they called kidders, or
carriers of corn; a trade which nobody was allowed to exercise without
a licence, ascertaining his qualifications as a man of probity and
fair dealing. The authority of three justices of the peace was, by the
statute of Edward VI. necessary in order to grant this licence. But even
this restraint was afterwards thought insufficient, and, by a statute
of Elizabeth, the privilege of granting it was confined to the
quarter-sessions.

The ancient policy of Europe endeavoured, in this manner, to regulate
agriculture, the great trade of the country, by maxims quite different
from those which it established with regard to manufactures, the great
trade of the towns. By leaving a farmer no other customers but either
the consumers or their immediate factors, the kidders and carriers of
corn, it endeavoured to force him to exercise the trade, not only of a
farmer, but of a corn merchant, or corn retailer. On the contrary, it,
in many cases, prohibited the manufacturer from exercising the trade of
a shopkeeper, or from selling his own goods by retail. It meant, by the
one law, to promote the general interest of the country, or to render
corn cheap, without, perhaps, its being well understood how this was to
be done. By the other, it meant to promote that of a particular order
of men, the shopkeepers, who would be so much undersold by the
manufacturer, it was supposed, that their trade would be ruined, if he
was allowed to retail at all.

The manufacturer, however, though he had been allowed to keep a shop,
and to sell his own goods by retail, could not have undersold the common
shopkeeper. Whatever part of his capital he might have placed in his
shop, he must have withdrawn it from his manufacture. In order to carry
on his business on a level with that of other people, as he must have
had the profit of a manufacturer on the one part, so he must have had
that of a shopkeeper upon the other. Let us suppose, for example, that
in the particular town where he lived, ten per cent. was the ordinary
profit both of manufacturing and shopkeeping stock; he must in this case
have charged upon every piece of his own goods, which he sold in
his shop, a profit of twenty per cent. When he carried them from his
workhouse to his shop, he must have valued them at the price for which
he could have sold them to a dealer or shopkeeper, who would have bought
them by wholesale. If he valued them lower, he lost a part of the profit
of his manufacturing capital. When, again, he sold them from his shop,
unless he got the same price at which a shopkeeper would have sold them,
he lost a part of the profit of his shop-keeping capital. Though he
might appear, therefore, to make a double profit upon the same piece
of goods, yet, as these goods made successively a part of two distinct
capitals, he made but a single profit upon the whole capital employed
about them; and if he made less than his profit, he was a loser, and did
not employ his whole capital with the same advantage as the greater part
of his neighbours.

What the manufacturer was prohibited to do, the farmer was in some
measure enjoined to do; to divide his capital between two different
employments; to keep one part of it in his granaries and stack-yard, for
supplying the occasional demands of the market, and to employ the other
in the cultivation of his land. But as he could not afford to employ the
latter for less than the ordinary profits of farming stock, so he could
as little afford to employ the former for less than the ordinary profits
of mercantile stock. Whether the stock which really carried on the
business of a corn merchant belonged to the person who was called a
farmer, or to the person who was called a corn merchant, an equal
profit was in both cases requisite, in order to indemnify its owner for
employing it in this manner, in order to put his business on a level
with other trades, and in order to hinder him from having an interest to
change it as soon as possible for some other. The farmer, therefore,
who was thus forced to exercise the trade of a corn merchant, could not
afford to sell his corn cheaper than any other corn merchant would have
been obliged to do in the case of a free competition.

The dealer who can employ his whole stock in one single branch of
business, has an advantage of the same kind with the workman who can
employ his whole labour in one single operation. As the latter acquires
a dexterity which enables him, with the same two hands, to perform a
much greater quantity of work, so the former acquires so easy and ready
a method of transacting his business, of buying and disposing of
his goods, that with the same capital he can transact a much greater
quantity of business. As the one can commonly afford his work a good
deal cheaper, so the other can commonly afford his goods somewhat
cheaper, than if his stock and attention were both employed about a
greater variety of objects. The greater part of manufacturers could
not afford to retail their own goods so cheap as a vigilant and active
shopkeeper, whose sole business it was to buy them by wholesale and to
retail them again. The greater part of farmers could still less afford
to retail their own corn, to supply the inhabitants of a town, at
perhaps four or five miles distance from the greater part of them, so
cheap as a vigilant and active corn merchant, whose sole business it was
to purchase corn by wholesale, to collect it into a great magazine, and
to retail it again.

The law which prohibited the manufacturer from exercising the trade of
a shopkeeper, endeavoured to force this division in the employment of
stock to go on faster than it might otherwise have done. The law which
obliged the farmer to exercise the trade of a corn merchant, endeavoured
to hinder it from going on so fast. Both laws were evident violations
of natural liberty, and therefore unjust; and they were both, too, as
impolitic as they were unjust. It is the interest of every society, that
things of this kind should never either he forced or obstructed. The man
who employs either his labour or his stock in a greater variety of ways
than his situation renders necessary, can never hurt his neighbour
by underselling him. He may hurt himself, and he generally does so.
Jack-of-all-trades will never be rich, says the proverb. But the law
ought always to trust people with the care of their own interest, as in
their local situations they must generally be able to judge better of it
than the legislature can do. The law, however, which obliged the farmer
to exercise the trade of a corn merchant was by far the most pernicious
of the two.

It obstructed not only that division in the employment of stock which
is so advantageous to every society, but it obstructed likewise the
improvement and cultivation of the land. By obliging the farmer to carry
on two trades instead of one, it forced him to divide his capital into
two parts, of which one only could be employed in cultivation. But if he
had been at liberty to sell his whole crop to a corn merchant as fast
as he could thresh it out, his whole capital might have returned
immediately to the land, and have been employed in buying more cattle,
and hiring more servants, in order to improve and cultivate it better.
But by being obliged to sell his corn by retail, he was obliged to keep
a great part of his capital in his granaries and stack-yard through the
year, and could not therefore cultivate so well as with the same
capital he might otherwise have done. This law, therefore, necessarily
obstructed the improvement of the land, and, instead of tending
to render corn cheaper, must have tended to render it scarcer, and
therefore dearer, than it would otherwise have been.

After the business of the farmer, that of the corn merchant is in
reality the trade which, if properly protected and encouraged, would
contribute the most to the raising of corn. It would support the trade
of the farmer, in the same manner as the trade of the wholesale dealer
supports that of the manufacturer.

The wholesale dealer, by affording a ready market to the manufacturer,
by taking his goods off his hand as fast as he can make them, and by
sometimes even advancing their price to him before he has made them,
enables him to keep his whole capital, and sometimes even more than his
whole capital, constantly employed in manufacturing, and consequently to
manufacture a much greater quantity of goods than if he was obliged
to dispose of them himself to the immediate consumers, or even to the
retailers. As the capital of the wholesale merchant, too, is generally
sufficient to replace that of many manufacturers, this intercourse
between him and them interests the owner of a large capital to support
the owners of a great number of small ones, and to assist them in those
losses and misfortunes which might otherwise prove ruinous to them.

An intercourse of the same kind universally established between the
farmers and the corn merchants, would be attended with effects equally
beneficial to the farmers. They would be enabled to keep their whole
capitals, and even more than their whole capitals constantly employed in
cultivation. In case of any of those accidents to which no trade is
more liable than theirs, they would find in their ordinary customer,
the wealthy corn merchant, a person who had both an interest to support
them, and the ability to do it; and they would not, as at present, be
entirely dependent upon the forbearance of their landlord, or the mercy
of his steward. Were it possible, as perhaps it is not, to establish
this intercourse universally, and all at once; were it possible to
turn all at once the whole farming stock of the kingdom to its proper
business, the cultivation of land, withdrawing it from every other
employment into which any part of it may be at present diverted; and
were it possible, in order to support and assist, upon occasion, the
operations of this great stock, to provide all at once another stock
almost equally great; it is not, perhaps, very easy to imagine how
great, how extensive, and how sudden, would be the improvement which
this change of circumstances would alone produce upon the whole face of
the country.

The statute of Edward VI. therefore, by prohibiting as much as possible
any middle man from coming in between the grower and the consumer,
endeavoured to annihilate a trade, of which the free exercise is not
only the best palliative of the inconveniencies of a dearth, but the
best preventive of that calamity; after the trade of the farmer, no
trade contributing so much to the growing of corn as that of the corn
merchant.

The rigour of this law was afterwards softened by several subsequent
statutes, which successively permitted the engrossing of corn when
the price of wheat should not exceed 20s. and 24s. 32s. and 40s. the
quarter. At last, by the 15th of Charles II. c.7, the engrossing or
buying of corn, in order to sell it again, as long as the price of wheat
did not exceed 48s. the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion,
was declared lawful to all persons not being forestallers, that is, not
selling again in the same market within three months. All the freedom
which the trade of the inland corn dealer has ever yet enjoyed was
bestowed upon it by this statute. The statute of the twelfth of the
present king, which repeals almost all the other ancient laws against
engrossers and forestallers, does not repeal the restrictions of this
particular statute, which therefore still continue in force.

This statute, however, authorises in some measure two very absurd
popular prejudices.

First, It supposes, that when the price of wheat has risen so high as
48s. the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion, corn is likely
to be so engrossed as to hurt the people. But, from what has been
already said, it seems evident enough, that corn can at no price be
so engrossed by the inland dealers as to hurt the people; and 48s. the
quarter, besides, though it may be considered as a very high price,
yet, in years of scarcity, it is a price which frequently takes place
immediately after harvest, when scarce any part of the new crop can be
sold off, and when it is impossible even for ignorance to suppose that
any part of it can be so engrossed as to hurt the people.

Secondly, It supposes that there is a certain price at which corn is
likely to be forestalled, that is, bought up in order to be sold again
soon after in the same market, so as to hurt the people. But if a
merchant ever buys up corn, either going to a particular market, or in
a particular market, in order to sell it again soon after in the same
market, it must be because he judges that the market cannot be so
liberally supplied through the whole season as upon that particular
occasion, and that the price, therefore, must soon rise. If he judges
wrong in this, and if the price does not rise, he not only loses the
whole profit of the stock which he employs in this manner, but a part of
the stock itself, by the expense and loss which necessarily attend the
storing and keeping of corn. He hurts himself, therefore, much more
essentially than he can hurt even the particular people whom he may
hinder from supplying themselves upon that particular market day,
because they may afterwards supply themselves just as cheap upon any
other market day. If he judges right, instead of hurting the great body
of the people, he renders them a most important service. By making
them feel the inconveniencies of a dearth somewhat earlier than they
otherwise might do, he prevents their feeling them afterwards so
severely as they certainly would do, if the cheapness of price
encouraged them to consume faster than suited the real scarcity of the
season. When the scarcity is real, the best thing that can be done for
the people is, to divide the inconvenience of it as equally as possible,
through all the different months and weeks and days of the year. The
interest of the corn merchant makes him study to do this as exactly as
he can; and as no other person can have either the same interest, or the
same knowledge, or the same abilities, to do it so exactly as he, this
most important operation of commerce ought to be trusted entirely to
him; or, in other words, the corn trade, so far at least as concerns the
supply of the home market, ought to be left perfectly free.

The popular fear of engrossing and forestalling may be compared to the
popular terrors and suspicions of witchcraft. The unfortunate wretches
accused of this latter crime were not more innocent of the misfortunes
imputed to them, than those who have been accused of the former. The law
which put an end to all prosecutions against witchcraft, which put
it out of any man's power to gratify his own malice by accusing his
neighbour of that imaginary crime, seems effectually to have put an
end to those fears and suspicions, by taking away the great cause
which encouraged and supported them. The law which would restore entire
freedom to the inland trade of corn, would probably prove as effectual
to put an end to the popular fears of engrossing and forestalling.

The 15th of Charles II. c. 7, however, with all its imperfections, has,
perhaps, contributed more, both to the plentiful supply of the home
market, and to the increase of tillage, than any other law in the
statute book. It is from this law that the inland corn trade has derived
all the liberty and protection which it has ever yet enjoyed; and both
the supply of the home market and the interest of tillage are much more
effectually promoted by the inland, than either by the importation or
exportation trade.

The proportion of the average quantity of all sorts of grain imported
into Great Britain to that of all sorts of grain consumed, it has been
computed by the author of the Tracts upon the Corn Trade, does not
exceed that of one to five hundred and seventy. For supplying the home
market, therefore, the importance of the inland trade must be to that of
the importation trade as five hundred and seventy to one.

The average quantity of all sorts of grain exported from Great Britain
does not, according to the same author, exceed the one-and-thirtieth
part of the annual produce. For the encouragement of tillage, therefore,
by providing a market for the home produce, the importance of the inland
trade must be to that of the exportation trade as thirty to one.

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant
the exactness of either of these computations. I mention them only in
order to show of how much less consequence, in the opinion of the most
judicious and experienced persons, the foreign trade of corn is than
the home trade. The great cheapness of corn in the years immediately
preceding the establishment of the bounty may, perhaps with reason, he
ascribed in some measure to the operation of this statute of Charles
II. which had been enacted about five-and-twenty years before, and which
had, therefore, full time to produce its effect.

A very few words will sufficiently explain all that I have to say
concerning the other three branches of the corn trade.

II. The trade of the merchant-importer of foreign corn for home
consumption, evidently contributes to the immediate supply of the home
market, and must so far be immediately beneficial to the great body of
the people. It tends, indeed, to lower somewhat the average money price
of corn, but not to diminish its real value, or the quantity of labour
which it is capable of maintaining. If importation was at all times
free, our farmers and country gentlemen would probably, one year with
another, get less money for their corn than they do at present, when
importation is at most times in effect prohibited; but the money which
they got would be of more value, would buy more goods of all other
kinds, and would employ more labour. Their real wealth, their real
revenue, therefore, would be the same as at present, though it might
be expressed by a smaller quantity of silver, and they would neither
be disabled nor discouraged from cultivating corn as much as they do at
present. On the contrary, as the rise in the real value of silver, in
consequence of lowering the money price of corn, lowers somewhat the
money price of all other commodities, it gives the industry of the
country where it takes place some advantage in all foreign markets and
thereby tends to encourage and increase that industry. But the extent of
the home market for corn must be in proportion to the general industry
of the country where it grows, or to the number of those who produce
something else, and therefore, have something else, or, what comes to
the same thing, the price of something else, to give in exchange for
corn. But in every country, the home market, as it is the nearest and
most convenient, so is it likewise the greatest and most important
market for corn. That rise in the real value of silver, therefore, which
is the effect of lowering the average money price of corn, tends to
enlarge the greatest and most important market for corn, and thereby to
encourage, instead of discouraging its growth.

By the 22d of Charles II. c. 13, the importation of wheat, whenever
the price in the home market did not exceed 53s:4d. the quarter, was
subjected to a duty of 16s. the quarter; and to a duty of 8s. whenever
the price did not exceed £4. The former of these two prices has, for
more than a century past, taken place only in times of very great
scarcity; and the latter has, so far as I know, not taken place at
all. Yet, till wheat has risen above this latter price, it was, by this
statute, subjected to a very high duty; and, till it had risen above the
former, to a duty which amounted to a prohibition. The importation
of other sorts of grain was restrained at rates and by duties, in
proportion to the value of the grain, almost equally high. Before the
13th of the present king, the following were the duties payable upon the
importation of the different sorts of grain:

     Grain.                     Duties.          Duties       Duties.
 Beans to 28s. per qr.  19s:10d. after till 40s. 16s:8d. then 12d.
 Barley to 28s.   -     19s:10d.         -  32s. 16s.     -   12d.
 Malt is prohibited by the annual malt-tax bill.
 Oats   to 16s.   -      5s:10d. after   -                    9½d.
 Pease   to 40s.  -     16s: 0d. after   -                    9¾d.
 Rye     to 36s.  -     19s:10d. till 40s.       16s:8d   -   12d.
 Wheat to 44s.    -     21s: 9d. till 53s:4d.    17s.     -    8s.
                          till £4, and after that about       1s:4d.
 Buck-wheat to 32s. per qr.     to pay 16s.

These different duties were imposed, partly by the 22d of Charles II.
in place of the old subsidy, partly by the new subsidy, by the one-third
and two-thirds subsidy, and by the subsidy 1747. Subsequent laws still
further increased those duties.

The distress which, in years of scarcity, the strict execution of those
laws might have brought upon the people, would probably have been very
great; but, upon such occasions, its execution was generally suspended
by temporary statutes, which permitted, for a limited time, the
importation of foreign corn. The necessity of these temporary statutes
sufficiently demonstrates the impropriety of this general one.

These restraints upon importation, though prior to the establishment of
the bounty, were dictated by the same spirit, by the same principles,
which afterwards enacted that regulation. How hurtful soever in
themselves, these, or some other restraints upon importation, became
necessary in consequence of that regulation. If, when wheat was either
below 48s. the quarter, or not much above it, foreign corn could have
been imported, either duty free, or upon paying only a small duty, it
might have been exported again, with the benefit of the bounty, to the
great loss of the public revenue, and to the entire perversion of the
institution, of which the object was to extend the market for the home
growth, not that for the growth of foreign countries.

III. The trade of the merchant-exporter of corn for foreign consumption,
certainly does not contribute directly to the plentiful supply of the
home market. It does so, however, indirectly. From whatever source this
supply maybe usually drawn, whether from home growth, or from foreign
importation, unless more corn is either usually grown, or usually
imported into the country, than what is usually consumed in it, the
supply of the home market can never be very plentiful. But unless the
surplus can, in all ordinary cases, be exported, the growers will be
careful never to grow more, and the importers never to import more, than
what the bare consumption of the home market requires. That market will
very seldom be overstocked; but it will generally be understocked; the
people, whose business it is to supply it, being generally afraid
lest their goods should be left upon their hands. The prohibition of
exportation limits the improvement and cultivation of the country
to what the supply of its own inhabitants require. The freedom of
exportation enables it to extend cultivation for the supply of foreign
nations.

By the 12th of Charles II. c.4, the exportation of corn was permitted
whenever the price of wheat did not exceed 40s. the quarter, and that of
other grain in proportion. By the 15th of the same prince, this liberty
was extended till the price of wheat exceeded 48s. the quarter; and by
the 22d, to all higher prices. A poundage, indeed, was to be paid to the
king upon such exportation; but all grain was rated so low in the book
of rates, that this poundage amounted only, upon wheat to 1s., upon
oats to 4d., and upon all other grain to 6d. the quarter. By the 1st of
William and Mary, the act which established this bounty, this small duty
was virtually taken off whenever the price of wheat did not exceed 48s.
the quarter; and by the 11th and 12th of William III. c. 20, it was
expressly taken off at all higher prices.

The trade of the merchant-exporter was, in this manner, not only
encouraged by a bounty, but rendered much more free than that of the
inland dealer. By the last of these statutes, corn could be engrossed
at any price for exportation; but it could not be engrossed for inland
sale, except when the price did not exceed 48s. the quarter. The
interest of the inland dealer, however, it has already been shown, can
never be opposite to that of the great body of the people. That of
the merchant-exporter may, and in fact sometimes is. If, while his
own country labours under a dearth, a neighbouring country should be
afflicted with a famine, it might be his interest to carry corn to the
latter country, in such quantities as might very much aggravate the
calamities of the dearth. The plentiful supply of the home market was
not the direct object of those statutes; but, under the pretence of
encouraging agriculture, to raise the money price of corn as high as
possible, and thereby to occasion, as much as possible, a constant
dearth in the home market. By the discouragement of importation, the
supply of that market; even in times of great scarcity, was confined to
the home growth; and by the encouragement of exportation, when the price
was so high as 48s. the quarter, that market was not, even in times of
considerable scarcity, allowed to enjoy the whole of that growth. The
temporary laws, prohibiting, for a limited time, the exportation
of corn, and taking off, for a limited time, the duties upon its
importation, expedients to which Great Britain has been obliged so
frequently to have recourse, sufficiently demonstrate the impropriety
of her general system. Had that system been good, she would not so
frequently have been reduced to the necessity of departing from it.

Were all nations to follow the liberal system of free exportation and
free importation, the different states into which a great continent
was divided, would so far resemble the different provinces of a great
empire. As among the different provinces of a great empire, the freedom
of the inland trade appears, both from reason and experience, not only
the best palliative of a dearth, but the most effectual preventive of a
famine; so would the freedom of the exportation and importation trade be
among the different states into which a great continent was divided.
The larger the continent, the easier the communication through all the
different parts of it, both by land and by water, the less would any one
particular part of it ever be exposed to either of these calamities,
the scarcity of any one country being more likely to be relieved by the
plenty of some other. But very few countries have entirely adopted this
liberal system. The freedom of the corn trade is almost everywhere more
or less restrained, and in many countries is confined by such absurd
regulations, as frequently aggravate the unavoidable misfortune of
a dearth into the dreadful calamity of a famine. The demand of such
countries for corn may frequently become so great and so urgent, that a
small state in their neighbourhood, which happened at the same time to
be labouring under some degree of dearth, could not venture to supply
them without exposing itself to the like dreadful calamity. The very bad
policy of one country may thus render it, in some measure, dangerous
and imprudent to establish what would otherwise be the best policy in
another. The unlimited freedom of exportation, however, would be much
less dangerous in great states, in which the growth being much greater,
the supply could seldom be much affected by any quantity or corn that
was likely to be exported. In a Swiss canton, or in some of the little
states in Italy, it may, perhaps, sometimes be necessary to restrain the
exportation of corn. In such great countries as France or England, it
scarce ever can. To hinder, besides, the farmer from sending his goods
at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary
laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of
state; an act or legislative authority which ought to be exercised only,
which can be pardoned only, in cases of the most urgent necessity. The
price at which exportation of corn is prohibited, if it is ever to be
prohibited, ought always to be a very high price.

The laws concerning corn may everywhere be compared to the laws
concerning religion. The people feel themselves so much interested
in what relates either to their subsistence in this life, or to their
happiness in a life to come, that government must yield to their
prejudices, and, in order to preserve the public tranquillity, establish
that system which they approve of. It is upon this account, perhaps,
that we so seldom find a reasonable system established with regard to
either of those two capital objects.

IV. The trade of the merchant-carrier, or of the importer of foreign
corn, in order to export it again, contributes to the plentiful supply
of the home market. It is not, indeed, the direct purpose of his trade
to sell his corn there; but he will generally be willing to do so,
and even for a good deal less money than he might expect in a foreign
market; because he saves in this manner the expense of loading and
unloading, of freight and insurance. The inhabitants of the country
which, by means of the carrying trade, becomes the magazine and
storehouse for the supply of other countries, can very seldom be in want
themselves. Though the carrying trade must thus contribute to reduce
the average money price of corn in the home market, it would not thereby
lower its real value; it would only raise somewhat the real value of
silver.

The carrying trade was in effect prohibited in Great Britain, upon all
ordinary occasions, by the high duties upon the importation of foreign
corn, of the greater part of which there was no drawback; and upon
extraordinary occasions, when a scarcity made it necessary to suspend
those duties by temporary statutes, exportation was always prohibited.
By this system of laws, therefore, the carrying trade was in effect
prohibited.

That system of laws, therefore, which is connected with the
establishment of the bounty, seems to deserve no part of the praise
which has been bestowed upon it. The improvement and prosperity of Great
Britain, which has been so often ascribed to those laws, may very easily
be accounted for by other causes. That security which the laws in Great
Britain give to every man, that he shall enjoy the fruits of his
own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish,
notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of commerce;
and this security was perfected by the Revolution, much about the
same time that the bounty was established. The natural effort of every
individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself
with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone,
and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society
to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent
obstructions, with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its
operations: though the effect of those obstructions is always, more or
less, either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.
In Great Britain industry is perfectly secure; and though it is far from
being perfectly free, it is as free or freer than in any other part of
Europe.

Though the period of the greatest prosperity and improvement of Great
Britain has been posterior to that system of laws which is connected
with the bounty, we must not upon that account, impute it to those laws.
It has been posterior likewise to the national debt; but the national
debt has most assuredly not been the cause of it.

Though the system of laws which is connected with the bounty, has
exactly the same tendency with the practice of Spain and Portugal, to
lower somewhat the value of the precious metals in the country where it
takes place; yet Great Britain is certainly one of the richest countries
in Europe, while Spain and Portugal are perhaps amongst the most
beggarly. This difference of situation, however, may easily be accounted
for from two different causes. First, the tax in Spain, the prohibition
in Portugal of exporting gold and silver, and the vigilant police
which watches over the execution of those laws, must, in two very poor
countries, which between them import annually upwards of six millions
sterling, operate not only more directly, but much more forcibly, in
reducing the value of those metals there, than the corn laws can do in
Great Britain. And, secondly, this bad policy is not in those countries
counterbalanced by the general liberty and security of the people.
Industry is there neither free nor secure; and the civil and
ecclesiastical governments of both Spain and Portugal are such as would
alone be sufficient to perpetuate their present state of poverty, even
though their regulations of commerce were as wise as the greatest part
of them are absurd and foolish.

The 13th of the present king, c. 43, seems to have established a new
system with regard to the corn laws, in many respects better than the
ancient one, but in one or two respects perhaps not quite so good.

By this statute, the high duties upon importation for home consumption
are taken off, so soon as the price of middling wheat rises to 48s. the
quarter; that of middling rye, pease, or beans, to 32s.; that of barley
to 24s.; and that of oats to 16s.; and instead of them, a small duty
is imposed of only 6d upon the quarter of wheat, and upon that or other
grain in proportion. With regard to all those different sorts of grain,
but particularly with regard to wheat, the home market is thus opened to
foreign supplies, at prices considerably lower than before.

By the same statute, the old bounty of 5s. upon the exportation of
wheat, ceases so soon as the price rises to 44s. the quarter, instead
of 48s. the price at which it ceased before; that of 2s:6d. upon the
exportation of barley, ceases so soon as the price rises to 22s. instead
of 24s. the price at which it ceased before; that of 2s:6d. upon the
exportation of oatmeal, ceases so soon as the price rises to 14s.
instead of 15s. the price at which it ceased before. The bounty upon rye
is reduced from 3s:6d. to 3s. and it ceases so soon as the price rises
to 28s. instead of 32s. the price at which it ceased before. If bounties
are as improper as I have endeavoured to prove them to be, the sooner
they cease, and the lower they are, so much the better.

The same statute permits, at the lowest prices, the importation of corn
in order to be exported again, duty free, provided it is in the mean
time lodged in a warehouse under the joint locks of the king and the
importer. This liberty, indeed, extends to no more than twenty-five of
the different ports of Great Britain. They are, however, the principal
ones; and there may not, perhaps, be warehouses proper for this purpose
in the greater part of the others.

So far this law seems evidently an improvement upon the ancient system.

But by the same law, a bounty of 2s. the quarter is given for the
exportation of oats, whenever the price does not exceed fourteen
shillings. No bounty had ever been given before for the exportation of
this grain, no more than for that of pease or beans.

By the same law, too, the exportation of wheat is prohibited so soon as
the price rises to forty-four shillings the quarter; that of rye so
soon as it rises to twenty-eight shillings; that of barley so soon as it
rises to twenty-two shillings; and that of oats so soon as they rise to
fourteen shillings. Those several prices seem all of them a good deal
too low; and there seems to be an impropriety, besides, in prohibiting
exportation altogether at those precise prices at which that bounty,
which was given in order to force it, is withdrawn. The bounty ought
certainly either to have been withdrawn at a much lower price, or
exportation ought to have been allowed at a much higher.

So far, therefore, this law seems to be inferior to the ancient system.
With all its imperfections, however, we may perhaps say of it what was
said of the laws of Solon, that though not the best in itself, it is
the best which the interest, prejudices, and temper of the times, would
admit of. It may perhaps in due time prepare the way for a better.



CHAPTER VI. OF TREATIES OF COMMERCE.

When a nation binds itself by treaty, either to permit the entry of
certain goods from one foreign country which it prohibits from all
others, or to exempt the goods of one country from duties to which it
subjects those of all others, the country, or at least the merchants
and manufacturers of the country, whose commerce is so favoured, must
necessarily derive great advantage from the treaty. Those merchants
and manufacturers enjoy a sort of monopoly in the country which is so
indulgent to them. That country becomes a market, both more extensive
and more advantageous for their goods: more extensive, because the goods
of other nations being either excluded or subjected to heavier duties,
it takes off a greater quantity of theirs; more advantageous, because
the merchants of the favoured country, enjoying a sort of monopoly
there, will often sell their goods for a better price than if exposed to
the free competition of all other nations.

Such treaties, however, though they may be advantageous to the merchants
and manufacturers of the favoured, are necessarily disadvantageous to
those of the favouring country. A monopoly is thus granted against them
to a foreign nation; and they must frequently buy the foreign goods they
have occasion for, dearer than if the free competition of other nations
was admitted. That part of its own produce with which such a nation
purchases foreign goods, must consequently be sold cheaper; because,
when two things are exchanged for one another, the cheapness of the
one is a necessary consequence, or rather is the same thing, with the
dearness of the other. The exchangeable value of its annual produce,
therefore, is likely to be diminished by every such treaty. This
diminution, however, can scarce amount to any positive loss, but only to
a lessening of the gain which it might otherwise make. Though it sells
its goods cheaper than it otherwise might do, it will not probably sell
them for less than they cost; nor, as in the case of bounties, for a
price which will not replace the capital employed in bringing them to
market, together with the ordinary profits of stock. The trade could not
go on long if it did. Even the favouring country, therefore, may still
gain by the trade, though less than if there was a free competition.

Some treaties of commerce, however, have been supposed advantageous,
upon principles very different from these; and a commercial country has
sometimes granted a monopoly of this kind, against itself, to certain
goods of a foreign nation, because it expected, that in the whole
commerce between them, it would annually sell more than it would buy,
and that a balance in gold and silver would be annually returned to it.
It is upon this principle that the treaty of commerce between England
and Portugal, concluded in 1703 by Mr Methuen, has been so much
commended. The following is a literal translation of that treaty, which
consists of three articles only.

ART. I. His sacred royal majesty of Portugal promises, both in his
own name and that of his successors, to admit for ever hereafter, into
Portugal, the woollen cloths, and the rest of the woollen manufactures
of the British, as was accustomed, till they were prohibited by the law;
nevertheless upon this condition:

ART. II. That is to say, that her sacred royal majesty of Great Britain
shall, in her own name, and that of her successors, be obliged, for ever
hereafter, to admit the wines of the growth of Portugal into Britain;
so that at no time, whether there shall be peace or war between the
kingdoms of Britain and France, any thing more shall be demanded for
these wines by the name of custom or duty, or by whatsoever other
title, directly or indirectly, whether they shall be imported into
Great Britain in pipes or hogsheads, or other casks, than what shall be
demanded for the like quantity or measure of French wine, deducting or
abating a third part of the custom or duty. But if, at any time, this
deduction or abatement of customs, which is to be made as aforesaid,
shall in any manner be attempted and prejudiced, it shall be just and
lawful for his sacred royal majesty of Portugal, again to prohibit the
woollen cloths, and the rest of the British woollen manufactures.

ART. III. The most excellent lords the plenipotentiaries promise and
take upon themselves, that their above named masters shall ratify this
treaty; and within the space of two months the ratification shall be
exchanged.

By this treaty, the crown of Portugal becomes bound to admit the English
woollens upon the same footing as before the prohibition; that is, not
to raise the duties which had been paid before that time. But it does
not become bound to admit them upon any better terms than those of any
other nation, of France or Holland, for example. The crown of Great
Britain, on the contrary, becomes bound to admit the wines of Portugal,
upon paying only two-thirds of the duty which is paid for those of
France, the wines most likely to come into competition with them. So
far this treaty, therefore, is evidently advantageous to Portugal, and
disadvantageous to Great Britain.

It has been celebrated, however, as a masterpiece of the commercial
policy of England. Portugal receives annually from the Brazils a greater
quantity of gold than can be employed in its domestic commerce, whether
in the shape of coin or of plate. The surplus is too valuable to be
allowed to lie idle and locked up in coffers; and as it can find no
advantageous market at home, it must, notwithstanding; any prohibition,
be sent abroad, and exchanged for something for which there is a more
advantageous market at home. A large share of it comes annually to
England, in return either for English goods, or for those of other
European nations that receive their returns through England. Mr Barretti
was informed, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon brings, one week
with another, more than £50,000 in gold to England. The sum had probably
been exaggerated. It would amount to more than £2,600,000 a year, which
is more than the Brazils are supposed to afford.

Our merchants were, some years ago, out of humour with the crown of
Portugal. Some privileges which had been granted them, not by treaty,
but by the free grace of that crown, at the solicitation, indeed, it is
probable, and in return for much greater favours, defence and protection
from the crown of Great Britain, had been either infringed or revoked.
The people, therefore, usually most interested in celebrating the
Portugal trade, were then rather disposed to represent it as less
advantageous than it had commonly been imagined. The far greater part,
almost the whole, they pretended, of this annual importation of gold,
was not on account of Great Britain, but of other European nations; the
fruits and wines of Portugal annually imported into Great Britain nearly
compensating the value of the British goods sent thither.

Let us suppose, however, that the whole was on account of Great Britain,
and that it amounted to a still greater sum than Mr Barretti seems to
imagine; this trade would not, upon that account, be more advantageous
than any other, in which, for the same value sent out, we received an
equal value of consumable goods in return.

It is but a very small part of this importation which, it can be
supposed, is employed as an annual addition, either to the plate or to
the coin of the kingdom. The rest must all be sent abroad, and exchanged
for consumable goods of some kind or other. But if those consumable
goods were purchased directly with the produce of English industry, it
would be more for the advantage of England, than first to purchase with
that produce the gold of Portugal, and afterwards to purchase with that
gold those consumable goods. A direct foreign trade of consumption is
always more advantageous than a round-about one; and to bring the
same value of foreign goods to the home market requires a much smaller
capital in the one way than in the ether. If a smaller share of its
industry, therefore, had been employed in producing goods fit for the
Portugal market, and a greater in producing those lit for the other
markets, where those consumable goods for which there is a demand in
Great Britain are to be had, it would have been more for the advantage
of England. To procure both the gold which it wants for its own use, and
the consumable goods, would, in this way, employ a much smaller capital
than at present. There would be a spare capital, therefore, to be
employed for other purposes, in exciting an additional quantity of
industry, and in raising a greater annual produce.

Though Britain were entirely excluded from the Portugal trade, it could
find very little difficulty in procuring all the annual supplies of
gold which it wants, either for the purposes of plate, or of coin, or of
foreign trade. Gold, like every other commodity, is always somewhere or
another to be got for its value by those who have that value to give for
it. The annual surplus of gold in Portugal, besides, would still be sent
abroad, and though not carried away by Great Britain, would be carried
away by some other nation, which would be glad to sell it again for its
price, in the same manner as Great Britain does at present. In buying
gold of Portugal, indeed, we buy it at the first hand; whereas, in
buying it of any other nation, except Spain, we should buy it at the
second, and might pay somewhat dearer. This difference, however, would
surely be too insignificant to deserve the public attention.

Almost all our gold, it is said, comes from Portugal. With other
nations, the balance of trade is either against as, or not much in our
favour. But we should remember, that the more gold we import from
one country, the less we must necessarily import from all others. The
effectual demand for gold, like that for every other commodity, is in
every country limited to a certain quantity. If nine-tenths of this
quantity are imported from one country, there remains a tenth only to
be imported from all others. The more gold, besides, that is annually
imported from some particular countries, over and above what is
requisite for plate and for coin, the more must necessarily be exported
to some others: and the more that most insignificant object of modern
policy, the balance of trade, appears to be in our favour with some
particular countries, the more it must necessarily appear to be against
us with many others.

It was upon this silly notion, however, that England could not subsist
without the Portugal trade, that, towards the end of the late war,
France and Spain, without pretending either offence or provocation,
required the king of Portugal to exclude all British ships from his
ports, and, for the security of this exclusion, to receive into them
French or Spanish garrisons. Had the king of Portugal submitted to those
ignominious terms which his brother-in-law the king of Spain proposed
to him, Britain would have been freed from a much greater inconveniency
than the loss of the Portugal trade, the burden of supporting a very
weak ally, so unprovided of every thing for his own defence, that the
whole power of England, had it been directed to that single purpose,
could scarce, perhaps, have defended him for another campaign. The loss
of the Portugal trade would, no doubt, have occasioned a considerable
embarrassment to the merchants at that time engaged in it, who might
not, perhaps, have found out, for a year or two, any other equally
advantageous method of employing their capitals; and in this would
probably have consisted all the inconveniency which England could have
suffered from this notable piece of commercial policy.

The great annual importation of gold and silver is neither for the
purpose of plate nor of coin, but of foreign trade. A round-about
foreign trade of consumption can be carried on more advantageously by
means of these metals than of almost any other goods. As they are the
universal instruments of commerce, they are more readily received in
return for all commodities than any other goods; and, on account of
their small bulk and great value, it costs less to transport them
backward and forward from one place to another than almost any other
sort of merchandize, and they lose less of their value by being so
transported. Of all the commodities, therefore, which are bought in one
foreign country, for no other purpose but to be sold or exchanged again
for some other goods in another, there are none so convenient as gold
and silver. In facilitating all the different round-about foreign trades
of consumption which are carried on in Great Britain, consists the
principal advantage of the Portugal trade; and though it is not a
capital advantage, it is, no doubt, a considerable one.

That any annual addition which, it can reasonably be supposed, is made
either to the plate or to the coin of the kingdom, could require but a
very small annual importation of gold and silver, seems evident enough;
and though we had no direct trade with Portugal, this small quantity
could always, somewhere or another, be very easily got.

Though the goldsmiths trade be very considerable in Great Britain, the
far greater part of the new plate which they annually sell, is made from
other old plate melted down; so that the addition annually made to the
whole plate of the kingdom cannot be very great, and could require but a
very small annual importation.

It is the same case with the coin. Nobody imagines, I believe, that
even the greater part of the annual coinage, amounting, for ten years
together, before the late reformation of the gold coin, to upwards of
£800,000 a-year in gold, was an annual addition to the money before
current in the kingdom. In a country where the expense of the coinage is
defrayed by the government, the value of the coin, even when it contains
its full standard weight of gold and silver, can never be much greater
than that of an equal quantity of those metals uncoined, because it
requires only the trouble of going to the mint, and the delay, perhaps,
of a few weeks, to procure for any quantity of uncoined gold and silver
an equal quantity of those metals in coin; but in every country the
greater part of the current coin is almost always more or less worn, or
otherwise degenerated from its standard. In Great Britain it was, before
the late reformation, a good deal so, the gold being more than two
per cent., and the silver more than eight per cent. below its standard
weight. But if forty-four guineas and a-half, containing their full
standard weight, a pound weight of gold, could purchase very little more
than a pound weight of uncoined gold; forty-four guineas and a-half,
wanting a part of their weight, could not purchase a pound weight,
and something was to be added, in order to make up the deficiency. The
current price of gold bullion at market, therefore, instead of being
the same with the mint price, or £46:14:6, was then about £47:14s., and
sometimes about £48. When the greater part of the coin, however, was in
this degenerate condition, forty four guineas and a-half, fresh from the
mint, would purchase no more goods in the market than any other ordinary
guineas; because, when they came into the coffers of the merchant, being
confounded with other money, they could not afterwards be distinguished
without more trouble than the difference was worth. Like other guineas,
they were worth no more than £46:14:6. If thrown into the melting pot,
however, they produced, without any sensible loss, a pound weight of
standard gold, which could be sold at any time for between £47:14s. and
£48, either in gold or silver, as fit for all the purposes of coin as
that which had been melted down. There was an evident profit, therefore,
in melting down new-coined money; and it was done so instantaneously,
that no precaution of government could prevent it. The operations of
the mint were, upon this account, somewhat like the web of Penelope;
the work that was done in the day was undone in the night. The mint
was employed, not so much in making daily additions to the coin, as in
replacing the very best part of it, which was daily melted down.

Were the private people who carry their gold and silver to the mint
to pay themselves for the coinage, it would add to the value of those
metals, in the same manner as the fashion does to that of plate. Coined
gold and silver would be more valuable than uncoined. The seignorage, if
it was not exorbitant, would add to the bullion the whole value of the
duty; because, the government having everywhere the exclusive privilege
of coining, no coin can come to market cheaper than they think proper to
afford it. If the duty was exorbitant, indeed, that is, if it was
very much above the real value of the labour and expense requisite for
coinage, false coiners, both at home and abroad, might be encouraged, by
the great difference between the value of bullion and that of coin, to
pour in so great a quantity of counterfeit money as might reduce the
value of the government money. In France, however, though the seignorage
is eight per cent., no sensible inconveniency of this kind is found
to arise from it. The dangers to which a false coiner is everywhere
exposed, if he lives in the country of which he counterfeits the coin,
and to which his agents or correspondents are exposed, if he lives in a
foreign country, are by far too great to be incurred for the sake of a
profit of six or seven per cent.

The seignorage in France raises the value of the coin higher than in
proportion to the quantity of pure gold which it contains. Thus, by the
edict of January 1726, the mint price of fine gold of twenty-four carats
was fixed at seven hundred and forty livres nine sous and one denier
one-eleventh the mark of eight Paris ounces. {See Dictionnaire des
Monnoies, tom. ii. article Seigneurage, p. 439, par 81. Abbot de
Bazinghen, Conseiller-Commissaire en la Cour des Monnoies à Paris.} The
gold coin of France, making an allowance for the remedy of the mint,
contains twenty-one carats and three-fourths of fine gold, and two
carats one-fourth of alloy. The mark of standard gold, therefore, is
worth no more than about six hundred and seventy-one livres ten deniers.
But in France this mark of standard gold is coined into thirty louis
d'ors of twenty-four livres each, or into seven hundred and twenty
livres. The coinage, therefore, increases the value of a mark of
standard gold bullion, by the difference between six hundred and
seventy-one livres ten deniers and seven hundred and twenty livres, or
by forty-eight livres nineteen sous and two deniers.

A seignorage will, in many cases, take away altogether, and will in all
cases diminish, the profit of melting down the new coin. This profit
always arises from the difference between the quantity of bullion which
the common currency ought to contain and that which it actually does
contain. If this difference is less than the seignorage, there will be
loss instead of profit. If it is equal to the seignorage, there will
be neither profit nor loss. If it is greater than the seignorage, there
will, indeed, be some profit, but less than if there was no seignorage.
If, before the late reformation of the gold coin, for example, there had
been a seignorage of five per cent. upon the coinage, there would have
been a loss of three per cent. upon the melting down of the gold coin.
If the seignorage had been two per cent., there would have been neither
profit nor loss. If the seignorage had been one per cent., there would
have been a profit but of one per cent. only, instead of two per cent.
Wherever money is received by tale, therefore, and not by weight, a
seignorage is the most effectual preventive of the melting down of the
coin, and, for the same reason, of its exportation. It is the best
and heaviest pieces that are commonly either melted down or exported,
because it is upon such that the largest profits are made.

The law for the encouragement of the coinage, by rendering it duty-free,
was first enacted during the reign of Charles II. for a limited time,
and afterwards continued, by different prolongations, till 1769, when it
was rendered perpetual. The bank of England, in order to replenish their
coffers with money, are frequently obliged to carry bullion to the mint;
and it was more for their interest, they probably imagined, that the
coinage should be at the expense of the government than at their own.
It was probably out of complaisance to this great company, that the
government agreed to render this law perpetual. Should the custom of
weighing gold, however, come to be disused, as it is very likely to be
on account of its inconveniency; should the gold coin of England come
to be received by tale, as it was before the late recoinage this great
company may, perhaps, find that they have, upon this, as upon some other
occasions, mistaken their own interest not a little.

Before the late recoinage, when the gold currency of England was two per
cent. below its standard weight, as there was no seignorage, it was
two per cent. below the value of that quantity of standard gold bullion
which it ought to have contained. When this great company, therefore,
bought gold bullion in order to have it coined, they were obliged to pay
for it two per cent. more than it was worth after the coinage. But
if there had been a seignorage of two per cent. upon the coinage, the
common gold currency, though two per cent. below its standard weight,
would, notwithstanding, have been equal in value to the quantity of
standard gold which it ought to have contained; the value of the fashion
compensating in this case the diminution of the weight. They would,
indeed, have had the seignorage to pay, which being two per cent., their
loss upon the whole transaction would have been two per cent., exactly
the same, but no greater than it actually was.

If the seignorage had been five per cent. and the gold currency only two
per cent. below its standard weight, the bank would, in this case, have
gained three per cent. upon the price of the bullion; but as they would
have had a seignorage of five per cent. to pay upon the coinage, their
loss upon the whole transaction would, in the same manner, have been
exactly two per cent.

If the seignorage had been only one per cent., and the gold currency two
per cent. below its standard weight, the bank would, in this case, have
lost only one per cent. upon the price of the bullion; but as they would
likewise have had a seignorage of one per cent. to pay, their loss upon
the whole transaction would have been exactly two per cent., in the same
manner as in all other cases.

If there was a reasonable seignorage, while at the same time the coin
contained its full standard weight, as it has done very nearly since
the late recoinage, whatever the bank might lose by the seignorage, they
would gain upon the price of the bullion; and whatever they might gain
upon the price of the bullion, they would lose by the seignorage. They
would neither lose nor gain, therefore, upon the whole transaction, and
they would in this, as in all the foregoing cases, be exactly in the
same situation as if there was no seignorage.

When the tax upon a commodity is so moderate as not to encourage
smuggling, the merchant who deals in it, though he advances, does not
properly pay the tax, as he gets it back in the price of the commodity.
The tax is finally paid by the last purchaser or consumer. But money is
a commodity, with regard to which every man is a merchant. Nobody buys
it but in order to sell it again; and with regard to it there is,
in ordinary cases, no last purchaser or consumer. When the tax upon
coinage, therefore, is so moderate as not to encourage false coining,
though every body advances the tax, nobody finally pays it; because
every body gets it back in the advanced value of the coin.

A moderate seignorage, therefore, would not, in any case, augment the
expense of the bank, or of any other private persons who carry their
bullion to the mint in order to be coined; and the want of a moderate
seignorage does not in any case diminish it. Whether there is or is not
a seignorage, if the currency contains its full standard weight, the
coinage costs nothing to anybody; and if it is short of that weight, the
coinage must always cost the difference between the quantity of bullion
which ought to be contained in it, and that which actually is contained
in it.

The government, therefore, when it defrays the expense of coinage, not
only incurs some small expense, but loses some small revenue which it
might get by a proper duty; and neither the bank, nor any other private
persons, are in the smallest degree benefited by this useless piece of
public generosity.

The directors of the bank, however, would probably be unwilling to agree
to the imposition of a seignorage upon the authority of a speculation
which promises them no gain, but only pretends to insure them from any
loss. In the present state of the gold coin, and as long as it continues
to be received by weight, they certainly would gain nothing by such a
change. But if the custom of weighing the gold coin should ever go into
disuse, as it is very likely to do, and if the gold coin should ever
fall into the same state of degradation in which it was before the
late recoinage, the gain, or more properly the savings, of the bank,
inconsequence of the imposition of a seignorage, would probably be very
considerable. The bank of England is the only company which sends any
considerable quantity of bullion to the mint, and the burden of the
annual coinage falls entirely, or almost entirely, upon it. If this
annual coinage had nothing to do but to repair the unavoidable losses
and necessary wear and tear of the coin, it could seldom exceed fifty
thousand, or at most a hundred thousand pounds. But when the coin is
degraded below its standard weight, the annual coinage must, besides
this, fill up the large vacuities which exportation and the melting pot
are continually making in the current coin. It was upon this account,
that during the ten or twelve years immediately preceding the late
reformation of the gold coin, the annual coinage amounted, at an
average, to more than £850,000. But if there had been a seignorage of
four or five per cent. upon the gold coin, it would probably, even in
the state in which things then were, have put an effectual stop to the
business both of exportation and of the melting pot. The bank, instead
of losing every year about two and a half per cent. upon the bullion
which was to be coined into more than eight hundred and fifty thousand
pounds, or incurring an annual loss of more than £21,250 pounds, would
not probably have incurred the tenth part of that loss.

The revenue allotted by parliament for defraying the expense of the
coinage is but fourteen thousand pounds a-year; and the real expense
which it costs the government, or the fees of the officers of the mint,
do not, upon ordinary occasions, I am assured, exceed the half of that
sum. The saving of so very small a sum, or even the gaining of another,
which could not well be much larger, are objects too inconsiderable, it
may be thought, to deserve the serious attention of government. But the
saving of eighteen or twenty thousand pounds a-year, in case of an event
which is not improbable, which has frequently happened before, and which
is very likely to happen again, is surely an object which well deserves
the serious attention, even of so great a company as the bank of
England.

Some of the foregoing reasonings and observations might, perhaps, have
been more properly placed in those chapters of the first book which
treat of the origin and use of money, and of the difference between
the real and the nominal price of commodities. But as the law for the
encouragement of coinage derives its origin from those vulgar prejudices
which have been introduced by the mercantile system, I judged it more
proper to reserve them for this chapter. Nothing could be more agreeable
to the spirit of that system than a sort of bounty upon the production
of money, the very thing which, it supposes, constitutes the wealth of
every nation. It is one of its many admirable expedients for enriching
the country.



CHAPTER VII. OF COLONIES.

PART I. Of the Motives for Establishing New Colonies.

The interest which occasioned the first settlement of the different
European colonies in America and the West Indies, was not altogether so
plain and distinct as that which directed the establishment of those of
ancient Greece and Rome.

All the different states of ancient Greece possessed, each of them, but
a very small territory; and when the people in anyone of them multiplied
beyond what that territory could easily maintain, a part of them were
sent in quest of a new habitation, in some remote and distant part of
the world; the warlike neighbours who surrounded them on all sides,
rendering it difficult for any of them to enlarge very much its
territory at home. The colonies of the Dorians resorted chiefly to Italy
and Sicily, which, in the times preceding the foundation of Rome, were
inhabited by barbarous and uncivilized nations; those of the Ionians and
Aeolians, the two other great tribes of the Greeks, to Asia Minor and
the islands of the Aegean sea, of which the inhabitants sewn at that
time to have been pretty much in the same state as those of Sicily and
Italy. The mother city, though she considered the colony as a child, at
all times entitled to great favour and assistance, and owing in return
much gratitude and respect, yet considered it as an emancipated child,
over whom she pretended to claim no direct authority or jurisdiction.
The colony settled its own form of government, enacted its own laws,
elected its own magistrates, and made peace or war with its neighbours,
as an independent state, which had no occasion to wait for the
approbation or consent of the mother city. Nothing can be more plain and
distinct than the interest which directed every such establishment.

Rome, like most of the other ancient republics, was originally founded
upon an agrarian law, which divided the public territory, in a certain
proportion, among the different citizens who composed the state. The
course of human affairs, by marriage, by succession, and by alienation,
necessarily deranged this original division, and frequently threw the
lands which had been allotted for the maintenance of many different
families, into the possession of a single person. To remedy this
disorder, for such it was supposed to be, a law was made, restricting
the quantity of land which any citizen could possess to five hundred
jugera; about 350 English acres. This law, however, though we read of
its having been executed upon one or two occasions, was either
neglected or evaded, and the inequality of fortunes went on continually
increasing. The greater part of the citizens had no land; and without
it the manners and customs of those times rendered it difficult for a
freeman to maintain his independency. In the present times, though a
poor man has no land of his own, if he has a little stock, he may either
farm the lands of another, or he may carry on some little retail trade;
and if he has no stock, he may find employment either as a country
labourer, or as an artificer. But among the ancient Romans, the lands of
the rich were all cultivated by slaves, who wrought under an overseer,
who was likewise a slave; so that a poor freeman had little chance
of being employed either as a farmer or as a labourer. All trades and
manufactures, too, even the retail trade, were carried on by the slaves
of the rich for the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, authority,
and protection, made it difficult for a poor freeman to maintain the
competition against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had
scarce any other means of subsistence but the bounties of the candidates
at the annual elections. The tribunes, when they had a mind to animate
the people against the rich and the great, put them in mind of the
ancient divisions of lands, and represented that law which restricted
this sort of private property as the fundamental law of the republic.
The people became clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great,
we may believe, were perfectly determined not to give them any part
of theirs. To satisfy them in some measure, therefore, they frequently
proposed to send out a new colony. But conquering Rome was, even upon
such occasions, under no necessity of turning out her citizens to seek
their fortune, if one may so, through the wide world, without knowing
where they were to settle. She assigned them lands generally in the
conquered provinces of Italy, where, being within the dominions of the
republic, they could never form any independent state, but were at best
but a sort of corporation, which, though it had the power of enacting
bye-laws for its own government, was at all times subject to the
correction, jurisdiction, and legislative authority of the mother city.
The sending out a colony of this kind not only gave some satisfaction
to the people, but often established a sort of garrison, too, in a newly
conquered province, of which the obedience might otherwise have been
doubtful. A Roman colony, therefore, whether we consider the nature of
the establishment itself, or the motives for making it, was altogether
different from a Greek one. The words, accordingly, which in the
original languages denote those different establishments, have very
different meanings. The Latin word (colonia) signifies simply a
plantation. The Greek word (apoixia), on the contrary, signifies a
separation of dwelling, a departure from home, a going out of the house.
But though the Roman colonies were, in many respects, different from the
Greek ones, the interest which prompted to establish them was equally
plain and distinct. Both institutions derived their origin, either from
irresistible necessity, or from clear and evident utility.

The establishment of the European colonies in America and the West
Indies arose from no necessity; and though the utility which has
resulted from them has been very great, it is not altogether so clear
and evident. It was not understood at their first establishment, and
was not the motive, either of that establishment, or of the discoveries
which gave occasion to it; and the nature, extent, and limits of that
utility, are not, perhaps, well understood at this day.

The Venetians, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, carried
on a very advantageous commerce in spiceries and other East India goods,
which they distributed among the other nations of Europe. They purchased
them chiefly in Egypt, at that time under the dominion of the Mamelukes,
the enemies of the Turks, of whom the Venetians were the enemies; and
this union of interest, assisted by the money of Venice, formed such a
connexion as gave the Venetians almost a monopoly of the trade.

The great profits of the Venetians tempted the avidity of the
Portuguese. They had been endeavouring, during the course of the
fifteenth century, to find out by sea a way to the countries from which
the Moors brought them ivory and gold dust across the desert. They
discovered the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, the Cape de Verd
islands, the coast of Guinea, that of Loango, Congo, Angola, and
Benguela, and, finally, the Cape of Good Hope. They had long wished
to share in the profitable traffic of the Venetians, and this last
discovery opened to them a probable prospect of doing so. In 1497, Vasco
de Gamo sailed from the port of Lisbon with a fleet of four ships, and,
after a navigation of eleven months, arrived upon the coast of Indostan;
and thus completed a course of discoveries which had been pursued with
great steadiness, and with very little interruption, for near a century
together.

Some years before this, while the expectations of Europe were in
suspense about the projects of the Portuguese, of which the success
appeared yet to be doubtful, a Genoese pilot formed the yet more daring
project of sailing to the East Indies by the west. The situation of
those countries was at that time very imperfectly known in Europe. The
few European travellers who had been there, had magnified the distance,
perhaps through simplicity and ignorance; what was really very great,
appearing almost infinite to those who could not measure it; or,
perhaps, in order to increase somewhat more the marvellous of their
own adventures in visiting regions so immensely remote from Europe.
The longer the way was by the east, Columbus very justly concluded, the
shorter it would be by the west. He proposed, therefore, to take that
way, as both the shortest and the surest, and he had the good fortune
to convince Isabella of Castile of the probability of his project. He
sailed from the port of Palos in August 1492, near five years before the
expedition of Vasco de Gamo set out from Portugal; and, after a voyage
of between two and three months, discovered first some of the small
Bahama or Lucyan islands, and afterwards the great island of St.
Domingo.

But the countries which Columbus discovered, either in this or in any of
his subsequent voyages, had no resemblance to those which he had gone in
quest of. Instead of the wealth, cultivation, and populousness of China
and Indostan, he found, in St. Domingo, and in all the other parts of
the new world which he ever visited, nothing but a country quite covered
with wood, uncultivated, and inhabited only by some tribes of naked and
miserable savages. He was not very willing, however, to believe that
they were not the same with some of the countries described by Marco
Polo, the first European who had visited, or at least had left behind
him any description of China or the East Indies; and a very slight
resemblance, such as that which he found between the name of Cibao, a
mountain in St. Domingo, and that of Cipange, mentioned by Marco
Polo, was frequently sufficient to make him return to this favourite
prepossession, though contrary to the clearest evidence. In his
letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, he called the countries which he had
discovered the Indies. He entertained no doubt but that they were the
extremity of those which had been described by Marco Polo, and that they
were not very distant from the Ganges, or from the countries which had
been conquered by Alexander. Even when at last convinced that they were
different, he still flattered himself that those rich countries were
at no great distance; and in a subsequent voyage, accordingly, went in
quest of them along the coast of Terra Firma, and towards the Isthmus of
Darien.

In consequence of this mistake of Columbus, the name of the Indies has
stuck to those unfortunate countries ever since; and when it was at last
clearly discovered that the new were altogether different from the old
Indies, the former were called the West, in contradistinction to the
latter, which were called the East Indies.

It was of importance to Columbus, however, that the countries which he
had discovered, whatever they were, should be represented to the court
of Spain as of very great consequence; and, in what constitutes the real
riches of every country, the animal and vegetable productions of the
soil, there was at that time nothing which could well justify such a
representation of them.

The cori, something between a rat and a rabbit, and supposed by Mr
Buffon to be the same with the aperea of Brazil, was the largest
viviparous quadruped in St. Domingo. This species seems never to have
been very numerous; and the dogs and cats of the Spaniards are said
to have long ago almost entirely extirpated it, as well as some other
tribes of a still smaller size. These, however, together with a pretty
large lizard, called the ivana or iguana, constituted the principal part
of the animal food which the land afforded.

The vegetable food of the inhabitants, though, from their want of
industry, not very abundant, was not altogether so scanty. It consisted
in Indian corn, yams, potatoes, bananas, etc., plants which were then
altogether unknown in Europe, and which have never since been very much
esteemed in it, or supposed to yield a sustenance equal to what is drawn
from the common sorts of grain and pulse, which have been cultivated in
this part of the world time out of mind.

The cotton plant, indeed, afforded the material of a very important
manufacture, and was at that time, to Europeans, undoubtedly the most
valuable of all the vegetable productions of those islands. But though,
in the end of the fifteenth century, the muslins and other cotton goods
of the East Indies were much esteemed in every part of Europe, the
cotton manufacture itself was not cultivated in any part of it. Even
this production, therefore, could not at that time appear in the eyes of
Europeans to be of very great consequence.

Finding nothing, either in the animals or vegetables of the newly
discovered countries which could justify a very advantageous
representation of them, Columbus turned his view towards their minerals;
and in the richness of their productions of this third kingdom,
he flattered himself he had found a full compensation for the
insignificancy of those of the other two. The little bits of gold
with which the inhabitants ornamented their dress, and which, he was
informed, they frequently found in the rivulets and torrents which fell
from the mountains, were sufficient to satisfy him that those mountains
abounded with the richest gold mines. St. Domingo, therefore, was
represented as a country abounding with gold, and upon that account
(according to the prejudices not only of the present times, but of those
times), an inexhaustible source of real wealth to the crown and kingdom
of Spain. When Columbus, upon his return from his first voyage, was
introduced with a sort of triumphal honours to the sovereigns of Castile
and Arragon, the principal productions of the countries which he had
discovered were carried in solemn procession before him. The only
valuable part of them consisted in some little fillets, bracelets, and
other ornaments of gold, and in some bales of cotton. The rest were mere
objects of vulgar wonder and curiosity; some reeds of an extraordinary
size, some birds of a very beautiful plumage, and some stuffed skins
of the huge alligator and manati; all of which were preceded by six
or seven of the wretched natives, whose singular colour and appearance
added greatly to the novelty of the show.

In consequence of the representations of Columbus, the council of
Castile determined to take possession of the countries of which the
inhabitants were plainly incapable of defending themselves. The pious
purpose of converting them to Christianity sanctified the injustice of
the project. But the hope of finding treasures of gold there was the
sole motive which prompted to undertake it; and to give this motive the
greater weight, it was proposed by Columbus, that the half of all the
gold and silver that should be found there, should belong to the crown.
This proposal was approved of by the council.

As long as the whole, or the greater part of the gold which the first
adventurers imported into Europe was got by so very easy a method as the
plundering of the defenceless natives, it was not perhaps very difficult
to pay even this heavy tax; but when the natives were once fairly
stript of all that they had, which, in St. Domingo, and in all the other
countries discovered by Columbus, was done completely in six or eight
years, and when, in order to find more, it had become necessary to dig
for it in the mines, there was no longer any possibility of paying this
tax. The rigorous exaction of it, accordingly, first occasioned, it is
said, the total abandoning of the mines of St. Domingo, which have never
been wrought since. It was soon reduced, therefore, to a third; then to
a fifth; afterwards to a tenth; and at last to a twentieth part of the
gross produce of the gold mines. The tax upon silver continued for a
long time to be a fifth of the gross produce. It was reduced to a tenth
only in the course of the present century. But the first adventurers
do not appear to have been much interested about silver. Nothing less
precious than gold seemed worthy of their attention.

All the other enterprizes of the Spaniards in the New World, subsequent
to those of Columbus, seem to have been prompted by the same motive. It
was the sacred thirst of gold that carried Ovieda, Nicuessa, and Vasco
Nugnes de Balboa, to the Isthmus of Darien; that carried Cortes to
Mexico, Almagro and Pizarro to Chili and Peru. When those adventurers
arrived upon any unknown coast, their first inquiry was always if there
was any gold to be found there; and according to the information which
they received concerning this particular, they determined either to quit
the country or to settle in it.

Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring
bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in them,
there is none, perhaps, more perfectly ruinous than the search after new
silver and gold mines. It is, perhaps, the most disadvantageous lottery
in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who draw the prizes
bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks; for
though the prizes are few, and the blanks many, the common price of
a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man. Projects of mining,
instead of replacing the capital employed in them, together with the
ordinary profits of stock, commonly absorb both capital and profit.
They are the projects, therefore, to which, of all others, a prudent
lawgiver, who desired to increase the capital of his nation, would least
choose to give any extraordinary encouragement, or to turn towards them
a greater share of that capital than what would go to them of its own
accord. Such, in reality, is the absurd confidence which almost all
men have in their own good fortune, that wherever there is the least
probability of success, too great a share of it is apt to go to them of
its own accord.

But though the judgment of sober reason and experience concerning such
projects has always been extremely unfavourable, that of human avidity
has commonly been quite otherwise. The same passion which has suggested
to so many people the absurd idea of the philosopher's stone, has
suggested to others the equally absurd one of immense rich mines of gold
and silver. They did not consider that the value of those metals has, in
all ages and nations, arisen chiefly from their scarcity, and that their
scarcity has arisen from the very small quantities of them which nature
has anywhere deposited in one place, from the hard and intractable
substances with which she has almost everywhere surrounded those small
quantities, and consequently from the labour and expense which are
everywhere necessary in order to penetrate, and get at them. They
flattered themselves that veins of those metals might in many places
be found, as large and as abundant as those which are commonly found
of lead, or copper, or tin, or iron. The dream of Sir Waiter Raleigh,
concerning the golden city and country of El Dorado, may satisfy us,
that even wise men are not always exempt from such strange delusions.
More than a hundred years after the death of that great man, the Jesuit
Gumila was still convinced of the reality of that wonderful country, and
expressed, with great warmth, and, I dare say, with great sincerity,
how happy he should be to carry the light of the gospel to a people who
could so well reward the pious labours of their missionary.

In the countries first discovered by the Spaniards, no gold and silver
mines are at present known which are supposed to be worth the working.
The quantities of those metals which the first adventurers are said to
have found there, had probably been very much magnified, as well as the
fertility of the mines which were wrought immediately after the first
discovery. What those adventurers were reported to have found, however,
was sufficient to inflame the avidity of all their countrymen. Every
Spaniard who sailed to America expected to find an El Dorado. Fortune,
too, did upon this what she has done upon very few other occasions. She
realized in some measure the extravagant hopes of her votaries; and in
the discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru (of which the one
happened about thirty, and the other about forty, years after the first
expedition of Columbus), she presented them with something not very
unlike that profusion of the precious metals which they sought for.

A project of commerce to the East Indies, therefore, gave occasion to
the first discovery of the West. A project of conquest gave occasion
to all the establishments of the Spaniards in those newly discovered
countries. The motive which excited them to this conquest was a project
of gold and silver mines; and a course of accidents which no human
wisdom could foresee, rendered this project much more successful than
the undertakers had any reasonable grounds for expecting.

The first adventurers of all the other nations of Europe who attempted
to make settlements in America, were animated by the like chimerical
views; but they were not equally successful. It was more than a hundred
years after the first settlement of the Brazils, before any silver,
gold, or diamond mines, were discovered there. In the English, French,
Dutch, and Danish colonies, none have ever yet been discovered, at least
none that are at present supposed to be worth the working. The first
English settlers in North America, however, offered a fifth of all the
gold and silver which should be found there to the king, as a motive for
granting them their patents. In the patents of Sir Waiter Raleigh, to
the London and Plymouth companies, to the council of Plymouth, etc.
this fifth was accordingly reserved to the crown. To the expectation of
finding gold and silver mines, those first settlers, too, joined that of
discovering a north-west passage to the East Indies. They have hitherto
been disappointed in both.


PART II. Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies.

The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession either of a
waste country, or of one so thinly inhabited that the natives easily
give place to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and
greatness than any other human society.

The colonies carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other
useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its own accord, in the
course of many centuries, among savage and barbarous nations. They
carry out with them, too, the habit of subordination, some notion of the
regular government which takes place in their own country, of the system
of laws which support it, and of a regular administration of justice;
and they naturally establish something of the same kind in the new
settlement. But among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress
of law and government is still slower than the natural progress of arts,
after law and government have been so far established as is necessary
for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly
cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes, to pay. No landlord
shares with him in its produce, and, the share of the sovereign is
commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as
possible a produce which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his
land is commonly so extensive, that, with all his own industry, and
with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he
can seldom make it produce the tenth part of what it is capable of
producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect labourers from all
quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal wages. But those
liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make
those labourers leave him, in order to become landlords themselves, and
to reward with equal liberality other labourers, who soon leave them for
the same reason that they left their first master. The liberal reward
of labour encourages marriage. The children, during the tender years
of infancy, are well fed and properly taken care of; and when they are
grown up, the value of their labour greatly overpays their maintenance.
When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour, and the low price
of land, enable them to establish themselves in the same manner as their
fathers did before them.

In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior
orders of people oppress the inferior one; but in new colonies, the
interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior
one with more generosity and humanity, at least where that inferior
one is not in a state of slavery. Waste lands, of the greatest natural
fertility, are to be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which
the proprietor, who is always the undertaker, expects from their
improvement, constitutes his profit, which, in these circumstances,
is commonly very great; but this great profit cannot be made, without
employing the labour of other people in clearing and cultivating the
land; and the disproportion between the great extent of the land and the
small number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies,
makes it difficult for him to get this labour. He does not, therefore,
dispute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price. The
high wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty of
good land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay those
high wages. In those wages consists almost the whole price of the land;
and though they are high, considered as the wages of labour, they
are low, considered as the price of what is so very valuable. What
encourages the progress of population and improvement, encourages that
of real wealth and greatness.

The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and
greatness seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In the course of
a century or two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even to
have surpassed, their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily,
Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear,
by all accounts, to have been at least equal to any of the cities of
ancient Greece. Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the
arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, seem to have been
cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them as
in any part of the mother country. The schools of the two oldest Greek
philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were established, it is
remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in an Asiatic, the other
in an Italian colony. All those colonies had established themselves in
countries inhabited by savage and barbarous nations, who easily gave
place to the new settlers. They had plenty of good land; and as they
were altogether independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to
manage their own affairs in the way that they judged was most suitable
to their own interest.

The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant. Some of
them, indeed, such as Florence, have, in the course of many ages, and
after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be considerable states.
But the progress of no one of them seems ever to have been very rapid.
They were all established in conquered provinces, which in most cases
had been fully inhabited before. The quantity of land assigned to
each colonist was seldom very considerable, and, as the colony was not
independent, they were not always at liberty to manage their own affairs
in the way that they judged was most suitable to their own interest.

In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America
and the West Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass, those of ancient
Greece. In their dependency upon the mother state, they resemble those
of ancient Rome; but their great distance from Europe has in all of them
alleviated more or less the effects of this dependency. Their situation
has placed them less in the view, and less in the power of their mother
country. In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has
upon many occasions been overlooked, either because not known or
not understood in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly
suffered and submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficult
to restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary government of Spain has,
upon many occasions, been obliged to recall or soften the orders which
had been given for the government of her colonies, for fear of a general
insurrection. The progress of all the European colonies in wealth,
population, and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived some
revenue from its colonies from the moment of their first establishment.
It was a revenue, too, of a nature to excite in human avidity the most
extravagant expectation of still greater riches. The Spanish colonies,
therefore, from the moment of their first establishment, attracted very
much the attention of their mother country; while those of the other
European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected.
The former did not, perhaps, thrive the better in consequence of this
attention, nor the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect.
In proportion to the extent of the country which they in some measure
possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less populous and
thriving than those of almost any other European nation. The progress
even of the Spanish colonies, however, in population and improvement,
has certainly been very rapid and very great. The city of Lima, founded
since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand
inhabitants near thirty years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable
hamlet of Indians, is represented by the same author as in his time
equally populous. Gemel i Carreri, a pretended traveller, it is said,
indeed, but who seems everywhere to have written upon extreme good
information, represents the city of Mexico as containing a hundred
thousand inhabitants; a number which, in spite of all the exaggerations
of the Spanish writers, is probably more than five times greater than
what it contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed greatly
those of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities
of the English colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards, there
were no cattle fit for draught, either in Mexico or Peru. The lama was
their only beast of burden, and its strength seems to have been a good
deal inferior to that of a common ass. The plough was unknown among
them. They were ignorant of the use of iron. They had no coined money,
nor any established instrument of commerce of any kind. Their commerce
was carried on by barter. A sort of wooden spade was their principal
instrument of agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and
hatchets to cut with; fish bones, and the hard sinews of certain
animals, served them with needles to sew with; and these seem to have
been their principal instruments of trade. In this state of things, it
seems impossible that either of those empires could have been so much
improved or so well cultivated as at present, when they are plentifully
furnished with all sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron,
of the plough, and of many of the arts of Europe, have been introduced
among them. But the populousness of every country must be in proportion
to the degree of its improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel
destruction of the natives which followed the conquest, these two great
empires are probably more populous now than they ever were before;
and the people are surely very different; for we must acknowledge, I
apprehend, that the Spanish creoles are in many respects superior to the
ancient Indians.

After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portuguese in Brazil
is the oldest of any European nation in America. But as for a long time
after the first discovery neither gold nor silver mines were found in
it, and as it afforded upon that account little or no revenue to the
crown, it was for a long time in a great measure neglected; and during
this state of neglect, it grew up to be a great and powerful colony.
While Portugal was under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by
the Dutch, who got possession of seven of the fourteen provinces into
which it is divided. They expected soon to conquer the other seven, when
Portugal recovered its independency by the elevation of the family of
Braganza to the throne. The Dutch, then, as enemies to the Spaniards,
became friends to the Portuguese, who were likewise the enemies of the
Spaniards. They agreed, therefore, to leave that part of Brazil which
they had not conquered to the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that
part which they had conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing
about, with such good allies. But the Dutch government soon began to
oppress the Portuguese colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves
with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own
valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without any
avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of Brazil. The
Dutch, therefore, finding it impossible to keep any part of the country
to themselves, were contented that it should be entirely restored to
the crown of Portugal. In this colony there are said to be more than six
hundred thousand people, either Portuguese or descended from Portuguese,
creoles, mulattoes, and a mixed race between Portuguese and Brazilians.
No one colony in America is supposed to contain so great a number of
people of European extraction.

Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of the
sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were the two great naval powers
upon the ocean; for though the commerce of Venice extended to every part
of Europe, its fleet had scarce ever sailed beyond the Mediterranean.
The Spaniards, in virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as
their own; and though they could not hinder so great a naval power as
that of Portugal from settling in Brazil, such was at that time the
terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of
Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that
great continent. The French, who attempted to settle in Florida, were
all murdered by the Spaniards. But the declension of the naval power of
this latter nation, in consequence of the defeat or miscarriage of what
they called their invincible armada, which happened towards the end of
the sixteenth century, put it out of their power to obstruct any longer
the settlements of the other European nations. In the course of the
seventeenth century, therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes,
and Swedes, all the great nations who had any ports upon the ocean,
attempted to make some settlements in the new world.

The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number of
Swedish families still to be found there sufficiently demonstrates, that
this colony was very likely to prosper, had it been protected by the
mother country. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon swallowed up
by the Dutch colony of New York, which again, in 1674, fell under the
dominion of the English.

The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, are the only countries
in the new world that have ever been possessed by the Danes. These
little settlements, too, were under the government of an exclusive
company, which had the sole right, both of purchasing the surplus
produce of the colonies, and of supplying them with such goods of other
countries as they wanted, and which, therefore, both in its purchases
and sales, had not only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest
temptation to do so. The government of an exclusive company of merchants
is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.
It was not, however, able to stop altogether the progress of these
colonies, though it rendered it more slow and languid. The late king of
Denmark dissolved this company, and since that time the prosperity of
these colonies has been very great.

The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East Indies,
were originally put under the government of an exclusive company. The
progress of some of them, therefore, though it has been considerable in
comparison with that of almost any country that has been long peopled
and established, has been languid and slow in comparison with that of
the greater part of new colonies. The colony of Surinam, though very
considerable, is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar
colonies of the other European nations. The colony of Nova Belgia,
now divided into the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would
probably have soon become considerable too, even though it had remained
under the government of the Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good land
are such powerful causes of prosperity, that the very worst government
is scarce capable of checking altogether the efficacy of their
operation. The great distance, too, from the mother country, would
enable the colonists to evade more or less, by smuggling, the monopoly
which the company enjoyed against them. At present, the company allows
all Dutch ships to trade to Surinam, upon paying two and a-half per
cent. upon the value of their cargo for a license; and only reserves
to itself exclusively, the direct trade from Africa to America, which
consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This relaxation in the
exclusive privileges of the company, is probably the principal cause of
that degree of prosperity which that colony at present enjoys. Curacoa
and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to the Dutch, are free
ports, open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom, in the midst
of better colonies, whose ports are open to those of one nation only,
has been the great cause of the prosperity of those two barren islands.

The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last
century, and some part of the present, under the government of an
exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration, its
progress was necessarily very slow, in comparison with that of other new
colonies; but it became much more rapid when this company was dissolved,
after the fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the
English got possession of this country, they found in it near double the
number of inhabitants which father Charlevoix had assigned to it between
twenty and thirty years before. That jesuit had travelled over the whole
country, and had no inclination to represent it as less inconsiderable
than it really was.

The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and
freebooters, who, for a long time, neither required the protection, nor
acknowledged the authority of France; and when that race of banditti
became so far citizens as to acknowledge this authority, it was for a
long time necessary to exercise it with very great gentleness. During
this period, the population and improvement of this colony increased
very fast. Even the oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was
for some time subjected with all the other colonies of France, though
it no doubt retarded, had not been able to stop its progress altogether.
The course of its prosperity returned as soon as it was relieved from
that oppression. It is now the most important of the sugar colonies of
the West Indies, and its produce is said to be greater than that of all
the English sugar colonies put together. The other sugar colonies of
France are in general all very thriving.

But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than
that of the English in North America.

Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their
own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new
colonies.

In the plenty of good land, the English colonies of North America,
though no doubt very abundantly provided, are, however, inferior to
those of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and not superior to some of
those possessed by the French before the late war. But the political
institutions of the English colonies have been more favourable to the
improvement and cultivation of this land, than those of the other three
nations.

First, The engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means
been prevented altogether, has been more restrained in the English
colonies than in any other. The colony law, which imposes upon every
proprietor the obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited
time, a certain proportion of his lands, and which, in case of failure,
declares those neglected lands grantable to any other person; though
it has not perhaps been very strictly executed, has, however, had some
effect.

Secondly, In Pennsylvania there is no right of primogeniture, and
lands, like moveables, are divided equally among all the children of the
family. In three of the provinces of New England, the oldest has only
a double share, as in the Mosaical law. Though in those provinces,
therefore, too great a quantity of land should sometimes be engrossed by
a particular individual, it is likely, in the course of a generation or
two, to be sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies,
indeed, the right of primogeniture takes place, as in the law of
England: But in all the English colonies, the tenure of the lands, which
are all held by free soccage, facilitates alienation; and the grantee
of an extensive tract of land generally finds it for his interest to
alienate, as fast as he can, the greater part of it, reserving only a
small quit-rent. In the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, what is called
the right of majorazzo takes place in the succession of all those great
estates to which any title of honour is annexed. Such estates go all
to one person, and are in effect entailed and unalienable. The French
colonies, indeed, are subject to the custom of Paris, which, in the
inheritance of land, is much more favourable to the younger children
than the law of England. But, in the French colonies, if any part of an
estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and homage, is alienated,
it is, for a limited time, subject to the right of redemption, either
by the heir of the superior, or by the heir of the family; and all the
largest estates of the country are held by such noble tenures, which
necessarily embarrass alienation. But, in a new colony, a great
uncultivated estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by
alienation than by succession. The plenty and cheapness of good land,
it has already been observed, are the principal causes of the rapid
prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing of land, in effect, destroys
this plenty and cheapness. The engrossing of uncultivated land, besides,
is the greatest obstruction to its improvement; but the labour that is
employed in the improvement and cultivation of land affords the greatest
and most valuable produce to the society. The produce of labour, in
this case, pays not only its own wages and the profit of the stock which
employs it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The
labour of the English colonies, therefore, being more employed in the
improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater
and more valuable produce than that of any of the other three nations,
which, by the engrossing of land, is more or less diverted towards other
employments.

Thirdly, The labour of the English colonists is not only likely to
afford a greater and more valuable produce, but, in consequence of the
moderation of their taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs
to themselves, which they may store up and employ in putting into motion
a still greater quantity of labour. The English colonists have never
yet contributed any thing towards the defence of the mother country,
or towards the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the
contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at the expense of
the mother country; but the expense of fleets and armies is out of all
proportion greater than the necessary expense of civil government. The
expense of their own civil government has always been very moderate. It
has generally been confined to what was necessary for paying competent
salaries to the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of
police, and for maintaining a few of the most useful public works. The
expense of the civil establishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the
commencement of the present disturbances, used to be but about £18;000
a-year; that of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, £3500 each; that of
Connecticut, £4000; that of New York and Pennsylvania, £4500 each; that
of New Jersey, £1200; that of Virginia and South Carolina, £8000 each.
The civil establishments of Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported
by an annual grant of parliament; but Nova Scotia pays, besides, about
£7000 a-year towards the public expenses of the colony, and Georgia
about £2500 a-year. All the different civil establishments in North
America, in short, exclusive of those of Maryland and North Carolina, of
which no exact account has been got, did not, before the commencement of
the present disturbances, cost the inhabitants about £64,700 a-year; an
ever memorable example, at how small an expense three millions of people
may not only be governed but well governed. The most important part of
the expense of government, indeed, that of defence and protection, has
constantly fallen upon the mother country. The ceremonial, too, of the
civil government in the colonies, upon the reception of a new governor,
upon the opening of a new assembly, etc. though sufficiently decent, is
not accompanied with any expensive pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical
government is conducted upon a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown
among them; and their clergy, who are far from being numerous,
are maintained either by moderate stipends, or by the voluntary
contributions of the people. The power of Spain and Portugal, on
the contrary, derives some support from the taxes levied upon their
colonies. France, indeed, has never drawn any considerable revenue from
its colonies, the taxes which it levies upon them being generally spent
among them. But the colony government of all these three nations is
conducted upon a much more extensive plan, and is accompanied with a
much more expensive ceremonial. The sums spent upon the reception of a
new viceroy of Peru, for example, have frequently been enormous. Such
ceremonials are not only real taxes paid by the rich colonists upon
those particular occasions, but they serve to introduce among them the
habit of vanity and expense upon all other occasions. They are not
only very grievous occasional taxes, but they contribute to establish
perpetual taxes, of the same kind, still more grievous; the ruinous
taxes of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all
those three nations, too, the ecclesiastical government is extremely
oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with the
utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them, besides, are
oppressed with a numerous race of mendicant friars, whose beggary being
not only licensed but consecrated by religion, is a most grievous tax
upon the poor people, who are most carefully taught that it is a duty to
give, and a very great sin to refuse them their charity. Over and above
all this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of
land.

Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over
and above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more
favoured, and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of
any other European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured, more
or less, to monopolize to itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon
that account, has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading
to them, and has prohibited them from importing European goods from any
foreign nation. But the manner in which this monopoly has been exercised
in different nations, has been very different.

Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an
exclusive company, of whom the colonists were obliged to buy all such
European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell
the whole of their surplus produce. It was the interest of the company,
therefore, not only to sell the former as dear, and to buy the latter
as cheap as possible, but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low
price, than what they could dispose of for a very high price in Europe.
It was their interest not only to degrade in all cases the value of the
surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep
down the natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that
can well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of a new colony,
that of an exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual. This,
however, has been the policy of Holland, though their company, in
the course of the present century, has given up in many respects the
exertion of their exclusive privilege. This, too, was the policy of
Denmark, till the reign of the late king. It has occasionally been the
policy of France; and of late, since 1755, after it had been abandoned
by all other nations on account of its absurdity, it has become the
policy of Portugal, with regard at least to two of the principal
provinces of Brazil, Pernambucco, and Marannon.

Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined
the whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother
country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a
fleet and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a
particular license, which in most cases was very well paid for. This
policy opened, indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the natives of
the mother country, provided they traded from the proper port, at the
proper season, and in the proper vessels. But as all the different
merchants, who joined their stocks in order to fit out those licensed
vessels, would find it for their interest to act in concert, the trade
which was carried on in this manner would necessarily be conducted very
nearly upon the same principles as that of an exclusive company.
The profit of those merchants would be almost equally exorbitant and
oppressive. The colonies would be ill supplied, and would be obliged
both to buy very dear, and to sell very cheap. This, however, till
within these few years, had always been the policy of Spain; and the
price of all European goods, accordingly, is said to have been enormous
in the Spanish West Indies. At Quito, we are told by Ulloa, a pound
of iron sold for about 4s:6d., and a pound of steel for about 6s:9d.
sterling. But it is chiefly in order to purchase European goods that the
colonies part with their own produce. The more, therefore, they pay for
the one, the less they really get for the other, and the dearness of
the one is the same thing with the cheapness of the other. The policy of
Portugal is, in this respect, the same as the ancient policy of Spain,
with regard to all its colonies, except Pernambucco and Marannon; and
with regard to these it has lately adopted a still worse.

Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their
subjects, who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother
country, and who have occasion for no other license than the common
despatches of the custom-house. In this case the number and dispersed
situation of the different traders renders it impossible for them to
enter into any general combination, and their competition is sufficient
to hinder them from making very exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a
policy, the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce, and to
buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price; but since the dissolution
of the Plymouth company, when our colonies were but in their infancy,
this has always been the policy of England. It has generally, too, been
that of France, and has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what
in England is commonly called their Mississippi company. The profits
of the trade, therefore, which France and England carry on with their
colonies, though no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition were
free to all other nations, are, however, by no means exorbitant; and the
price of European goods, accordingly, is not extravagantly high in the
greater past of the colonies of either of those nations.

In the exportation of their own surplus produce, too, it is only with
regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain are
confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having
been enumerated in the act of navigation, and in some other subsequent
acts, have upon that account been called enumerated commodities. The
rest are called non-enumerated, and may be exported directly to other
countries, provided it is in British or plantation ships, of which the
owners and three fourths of the mariners are British subjects.

Among the non-enumerated commodities are some of the most important
productions of America and the West Indies, grain of all sorts, lumber,
salt provisions, fish, sugar, and rum.

Grain is naturally the first and principal object of the culture of all
new colonies. By allowing them a very extensive market for it, the law
encourages them to extend this culture much beyond the consumption of
a thinly inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand an ample
subsistence for a continually increasing population.

In a country quite covered with wood, where timber consequently is of
little or no value, the expense of clearing the ground is the principal
obstacle to improvement. By allowing the colonies a very extensive
market for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate improvement
by raising the price of a commodity which would otherwise be of little
value, and thereby enabling them to make some profit of what would
otherwise be mere expense.

In a country neither half peopled nor half cultivated, cattle naturally
multiply beyond the consumption of the inhabitants, and are often, upon
that account, of little or no value. But it is necessary, it has already
been shown, that the price of cattle should bear a certain proportion to
that of corn, before the greater part of the lands of any country can be
improved. By allowing to American cattle, in all shapes, dead and alive,
a very extensive market, the law endeavours to raise the value of a
commodity, of which the high price is so very essential to improvement.
The good effects of this liberty, however, must be somewhat diminished
by the 4th of Geo. III. c. 15, which puts hides and skins among the
enumerated commodities, and thereby tends to reduce the value of
American cattle.

To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain by the
extension of the fisheries of our colonies, is an object which
the legislature seems to have had almost constantly in view. Those
fisheries, upon this account, have had all the encouragement which
freedom can give them, and they have flourished accordingly. The New
England fishery, in particular, was, before the late disturbances, one
of the most important, perhaps, in the world. The whale fishery which,
notwithstanding an extravagant bounty, is in Great Britain carried on to
so little purpose, that in the opinion of many people ( which I do not,
however, pretend to warrant), the whole produce does not much exceed the
value of the bounties which are annually paid for it, is in New England
carried on, without any bounty, to a very great extent. Fish is one of
the principal articles with which the North Americans trade to Spain,
Portugal, and the Mediterranean.

Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity, which could only be
exported to Great Britain; but in 1751, upon a representation of the
sugar-planters, its exportation was permitted to all parts of the world.
The restrictions, however, with which this liberty was granted, joined
to the high price of sugar in Great Britain, have rendered it in a great
measure ineffectual. Great Britain and her colonies still continue to
be almost the sole market for all sugar produced in the British
plantations. Their consumption increases so fast, that, though in
consequence of the increasing improvement of Jamaica, as well as of
the ceded islands, the importation of sugar has increased very greatly
within these twenty years, the exportation to foreign countries is said
to be not much greater than before.

Rum is a very important article in the trade which the Americans carry
on to the coast of Africa, from which they bring back negro slaves in
return.

If the whole surplus produce of America, in grain of all sorts, in salt
provisions, and in fish, had been put into the enumeration, and thereby
forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too
much with the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably
not so much from any regard to the interest of America, as from a
jealousy of this interference, that those important commodities have
not only been kept out of the enumeration, but that the importation into
Great Britain of all grain, except rice, and of all salt provisions,
has, in the ordinary state of the law, been prohibited.

The non-enumerated commodities could originally be exported to all parts
of the world. Lumber and rice having been once put into the enumeration,
when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to the
European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre.
By the 6th of George III. c. 52, all non-enumerated commodities were
subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south
of Cape Finisterre are not manufacturing countries, and we are less
jealous of the colony ships carrying home from them any manufactures
which could interfere with our own.

The enumerated commodities are of two sorts; first, such as are either
the peculiar produce of America, or as cannot be produced, or at least
are not produced in the mother country. Of this kind are molasses,
coffee, cocoa-nuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whalefins, raw silk,
cotton, wool, beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustick, and
other dyeing woods; secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce
of America, but which are, and may be produced in the mother country,
though not in such quantities as to supply the greater part of her
demand, which is principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this
kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and
turpentine, pig and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl
ashes. The largest importation of commodities of the first kind could
not discourage the growth, or interfere with the sale, of any part of
the produce of the mother country. By confining them to the home market,
our merchants, it was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them
cheaper in the plantations, and consequently to sell them with a better
profit at home, but to establish between the plantations and foreign
countries an advantageous carrying trade, of which Great Britain was
necessarily to be the centre or emporium, as the European country into
which those commodities were first to be imported. The importation of
commodities of the second kind might be so managed too, it was supposed,
as to interfere, not with the sale of those of the same kind which
were produced at home, but with that of those which were imported from
foreign countries; because, by means of proper duties, they might be
rendered always somewhat dearer than the former, and yet a good deal
cheaper than the latter. By confining such commodities to the home
market, therefore, it was proposed to discourage the produce, not of
Great Britain, but of some foreign countries with which the balance of
trade was believed to be unfavourable to Great Britain.

The prohibition of exporting from the colonies to any other country but
Great Britain, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine,
naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and
consequently to increase the expense of clearing their lands, the
principal obstacle to their improvement. But about the beginning of
the present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden
endeavoured to raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by
prohibiting their exportation, except in their own ships, at their
own price, and in such quantities as they thought proper. In order
to counteract this notable piece of mercantile policy, and to render
herself as much as possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of
all the other northern powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the
importation of naval stores from America; and the effect of this
bounty was to raise the price of timber in America much more than the
confinement to the home market could lower it; and as both regulations
were enacted at the same time, their joint effect was rather to
encourage than to discourage the clearing of land in America.

Though pig and bar iron, too, have been put among the enumerated
commodities, yet as, when imported from America, they are exempted from
considerable duties to which they are subject when imported front
any other country, the one part of the regulation contributes more
to encourage the erection of furnaces in America than the other to
discourage it. There is no manufacture which occasions so great a
consumption of wood as a furnace, or which can contribute so much to the
clearing of a country overgrown with it.

The tendency of some of these regulations to raise the value of timber
in America, and thereby to facilitate the clearing of the land, was
neither, perhaps, intended nor understood by the legislature. Though
their beneficial effects, however, have been in this respect accidental,
they have not upon that account been less real.

The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British
colonies of America and the West Indies, both in the enumerated and in
the non-enumerated commodities Those colonies are now become so populous
and thriving, that each of them finds in some of the others a great
and extensive market for every part of its produce. All of them taken
together, they make a great internal market for the produce of one
another.

The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies,
has been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce,
either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage
of manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures, even
of the colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain
chuse to reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature
to prevent their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high
duties, and sometimes by absolute prohibitions.

While, for example, Muscovado sugars from the British plantations pay,
upon importation, only 6s:4d. the hundred weight, white sugars pay
£1:1:1; and refined, either double or single, in loaves, £4:2:5 8/20ths.
When those high duties were imposed, Great Britain was the sole, and she
still continues to be, the principal market, to which the sugars of
the British colonies could be exported. They amounted, therefore, to
a prohibition, at first of claying or refining sugar for any foreign
market, and at present of claying or refining it for the market which
takes off, perhaps, more than nine-tenths of the whole produce. The
manufacture of claying or refining sugar, accordingly, though it
has flourished in all the sugar colonies of France, has been little
cultivated in any of those of England, except for the market of the
colonies themselves. While Grenada was in the hands of the French,
there was a refinery of sugar, by claying, at least upon almost every
plantation. Since it fell into those of the English, almost all works of
this kind have been given up; and there are at present (October 1773), I
am assured, not above two or three remaining in the island. At present,
however, by an indulgence of the custom-house, clayed or refined sugar,
if reduced from loaves into powder, is commonly imported as Muscovado.

While Great Britain encourages in America the manufacturing of pig and
bar iron, by exempting them from duties to which the like commodities
are subject when imported from any other country, she imposes an
absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces and slit-mills
in any of her American plantations. She will not suffer her colonies to
work in those more refined manufactures, even for their own consumption;
but insists upon their purchasing of her merchants and manufacturers all
goods of this kind which they have occasion for.

She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water,
and even the carriage by land upon horseback, or in a cart, of hats, of
wools, and woollen goods, of the produce of America; a regulation
which effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of such
commodities for distant sale, and confines the industry of her colonists
in this way to such coarse and household manufactures as a private
family commonly makes for its own use, or for that of some of its
neighbours in the same province.

To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can
of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and
industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves,
is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust,
however, as such prohibitions may be, they have not hitherto been very
hurtful to the colonies. Land is still so cheap, and, consequently,
labour so dear among them, that they can import from the mother country
almost all the more refined or more advanced manufactures cheaper than
they could make them for themselves. Though they had not, therefore,
been prohibited from establishing such manufactures, yet, in their
present state of improvement, a regard to their own interest would
probably have prevented them from doing so. In their present state
of improvement, those prohibitions, perhaps, without cramping their
industry, or restraining it from any employment to which it would have
gone of its own accord, are only impertinent badges of slavery imposed
upon them, without any sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy
of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country. In a more
advanced state, they might be really oppressive and insupportable.

Great Britain, too, as she confines to her own market some of the most
important productions of the colonies, so, in compensation, she gives to
some of them an advantage in that market, sometimes by imposing higher
duties upon the like productions when imported from other countries, and
sometimes by giving bounties upon their importation from the colonies.
In the first way, she gives an advantage in the home market to the
sugar, tobacco, and iron of her own colonies; and, in the second, to
their raw silk, to their hemp and flax, to their indigo, to their naval
stores, and to their building timber. This second way of encouraging the
colony produce, by bounties upon importation, is, so far as I have been
able to learn, peculiar to Great Britain: the first is not. Portugal
does not content herself with imposing higher duties upon the
importation of tobacco from any other country, but prohibits it under
the severest penalties.

With regard to the importation of goods from Europe, England has
likewise dealt more liberally with her colonies than any other nation.

Great Britain allows a part, almost always the half, generally a larger
portion, and sometimes the whole, of the duty which is paid upon the
importation of foreign goods, to be drawn back upon their exportation
to any foreign country. No independent foreign country, it was easy to
foresee, would receive them, if they came to it loaded with the
heavy duties to which almost all foreign goods are subjected on their
importation into Great Britain. Unless, therefore, some part of those
duties was drawn back upon exportation, there was an end of the carrying
trade; a trade so much favoured by the mercantile system.

Our colonies, however, are by no means independent foreign countries;
and Great Britain having assumed to herself the exclusive right of
supplying them with all goods from Europe, might have forced them (in
the same manner as other countries have done their colonies) to receive
such goods loaded with all the same duties which they paid in the mother
country. But, on the contrary, till 1763, the same drawbacks were
paid upon the exportation of the greater part of foreign goods to our
colonies, as to any independent foreign country. In 1763, indeed, by the
4th of Geo. III. c. 15, this indulgence was a good deal abated, and it
was enacted, "That no part of the duty called the old subsidy should be
drawn back for any goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of
Europe or the East Indies, which should be exported from this kingdom to
any British colony or plantation in America; wines, white calicoes, and
muslins, excepted." Before this law, many different sorts of foreign
goods might have been bought cheaper in the plantations than in the
mother country, and some may still.

Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, the
merchants who carry it on, it must be observed, have been the principal
advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in a great part of them,
their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies
or that of the mother country. In their exclusive privilege of supplying
the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and
of purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not
interfere with any of the trades which they themselves carried on at
home, the interest of the colonies was sacrificed to the interest of
those merchants. In allowing the same drawbacks upon the re-exportation
of the greater part of European and East India goods to the colonies,
as upon their re-exportation to any independent country, the interest
of the mother country was sacrificed to it, even according to the
mercantile ideas of that interest. It was for the interest of the
merchants to pay as little as possible for the foreign goods which they
sent to the colonies, and, consequently, to get back as much as possible
of the duties which they advanced upon their importation into Great
Britain. They might thereby be enabled to sell in the colonies, either
the same quantity of goods with a greater profit, or a greater quantity
with the same profit, and, consequently, to gain something either in the
one way or the other. It was likewise for the interest of the colonies
to get all such goods as cheap, and in as great abundance as possible.
But this might not always be for the interest of the mother country.
She might frequently suffer, both in her revenue, by giving back a great
part of the duties which had been paid upon the importation of such
goods; and in her manufactures, by being undersold in the colony market,
in consequence of the easy terms upon which foreign manufactures could
be carried thither by means of those drawbacks. The progress of the
linen manufacture of Great Britain, it is commonly said, has been a good
deal retarded by the drawbacks upon the re-exportation of German linen
to the American colonies.

But though the policy of Great Britain, with regard to the trade of her
colonies, has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of
other nations, it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and
oppressive than that of any of them.

In every thing except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English
colonists to manage their own affairs their own way, is complete. It is
in every respect equal to that of their fellow-citizens at home, and is
secured in the same manner, by an assembly of the representatives of the
people, who claim the sole right of imposing taxes for the support
of the colony government. The authority of this assembly overawes
the executive power; and neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious
colonist, as long as he obeys the law, has any thing to fear from the
resentment, either of the governor, or of any other civil or military
officer in the province. The colony assemblies, though, like the house
of commons in England, they are not always a very equal representation
of the people, yet they approach more nearly to that character; and as
the executive power either has not the means to corrupt them, or, on
account of the support which it receives from the mother country, is
not under the necessity of doing so, they are, perhaps, in general more
influenced by the inclinations of their constituents. The councils,
which, in the colony legislatures, correspond to the house of lords in
Great Britain, are not composed of a hereditary nobility. In some of the
colonies, as in three of the governments of New England, those councils
are not appointed by the king, but chosen by the representatives of
the people. In none of the English colonies is there any hereditary
nobility. In all of them, indeed, as in all other free countries, the
descendant of an old colony family is more respected than an upstart of
equal merit and fortune; but he is only more respected, and he has no
privileges by which he can be troublesome to his neighbours. Before the
commencement of the present disturbances, the colony assemblies had not
only the legislative, but a part of the executive power. In Connecticut
and Rhode Island, they elected the governor. In the other colonies, they
appointed the revenue officers, who collected the taxes imposed by
those respective assemblies, to whom those officers were immediately
responsible. There is more equality, therefore, among the English
colonists than among the inhabitants of the mother country. Their
manners are more re publican; and their governments, those of three
of the provinces of New England in particular, have hitherto been more
republican too.

The absolute governments of Spain, Portugal, and France, on the
contrary, take place in their colonies; and the discretionary powers
which such governments commonly delegate to all their inferior officers
are, on account of the great distance, naturally exercised there with
more than ordinary violence. Under all absolute governments, there is
more liberty in the capital than in any other part of the country.
The sovereign himself can never have either interest or inclination
to pervert the order of justice, or to oppress the great body of the
people. In the capital, his presence overawes, more or less, all his
inferior officers, who, in the remoter provinces, from whence the
complaints of the people are less likely to reach him, can exercise
their tyranny with much more safety. But the European colonies in
America are more remote than the most distant provinces of the greatest
empires which had ever been known before. The government of the English
colonies is, perhaps, the only one which, since the world began, could
give perfect security to the inhabitants of so very distant a province.
The administration of the French colonies, however, has always been
conducted with much more gentleness and moderation than that of the
Spanish and Portuguese. This superiority of conduct is suitable both to
the character of the French nation, and to what forms the character of
every nation, the nature of their government, which, though arbitrary
and violent in comparison with that of Great Britain, is legal and free
in comparison with those of Spain and Portugal.

It is in the progress of the North American colonies, however, that the
superiority of the English policy chiefly appears. The progress of the
sugar colonies of France has been at least equal, perhaps superior, to
that of the greater part of those of England; and yet the sugar colonies
of England enjoy a free government, nearly of the same kind with that
which takes place in her colonies of North America. But the sugar
colonies of France are not discouraged, like those of England, from
refining their own sugar; and what is still of greater importance, the
genius of their government naturally introduces a better management of
their negro slaves.

In all European colonies, the culture of the sugar-cane is carried on
by negro slaves. The constitution of those who have been born in the
temperate climate of Europe could not, it is supposed, support the
labour of digging the ground under the burning sun of the West Indies;
and the culture of the sugar-cane, as it is managed at present, is all
hand labour; though, in the opinion of many, the drill plough might be
introduced into it with great advantage. But, as the profit and success
of the cultivation which is carried on by means of cattle, depend very
much upon the good management of those cattle; so the profit and success
of that which is carried on by slaves must depend equally upon the good
management of those slaves; and in the good management of their slaves
the French planters, I think it is generally allowed, are superior to
the English. The law, so far as it gives some weak protection to
the slave against the violence of his master, is likely to be better
executed in a colony where the government is in a great measure
arbitrary, than in one where it is altogether free. In ever country
where the unfortunate law of slavery is established, the magistrate,
when he protects the slave, intermeddles in some measure in the
management of the private property of the master; and, in a free
country, where the master is, perhaps, either a member of the colony
assembly, or an elector of such a member, he dares not do this but with
the greatest caution and circumspection. The respect which he is obliged
to pay to the master, renders it more difficult for him to protect
the slave. But in a country where the government is in a great measure
arbitrary, where it is usual for the magistrate to intermeddle even in
the management of the private property of individuals, and to send them,
perhaps, a lettre de cachet, if they do not manage it according to his
liking, it is much easier for him to give some protection to the slave;
and common humanity naturally disposes him to do so. The protection of
the magistrate renders the slave less contemptible in the eyes of his
master, who is thereby induced to consider him with more regard, and to
treat him with more gentleness. Gentle usage renders the slave not
only more faithful, but more intelligent, and, therefore, upon a double
account, more useful. He approaches more to the condition of a free
servant, and may possess some degree of integrity and attachment to his
master's interest; virtues which frequently belong to free servants, but
which never can belong to a slave, who is treated as slaves commonly are
in countries where the master is perfectly free and secure.

That the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary than under a
free government, is, I believe, supported by the history of all ages and
nations. In the Roman history, the first time we read of the magistrate
interposing to protect the slave from the violence of his master, is
under the emperors. When Vidius Pollio, in the presence of Augustus,
ordered one of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cut
into pieces and thrown into his fish-pond, in order to feed his fishes,
the emperor commanded him, with indignation, to emancipate immediately,
not only that slave, but all the others that belonged to him. Under the
republic no magistrate could have had authority enough to protect the
slave, much less to punish the master.

The stock, it is to be observed, which has improved the sugar colonies
of France, particularly the great colony of St Domingo, has been raised
almost entirely from the gradual improvement and cultivation of those
colonies. It has been almost altogether the produce of the soil and of
the industry of the colonists, or, what comes to the same thing, the
price of that produce, gradually accumulated by good management, and
employed in raising a still greater produce. But the stock which has
improved and cultivated the sugar colonies of England, has, a great part
of it, been sent out from England, and has by no means been altogether
the produce of the soil and industry of the colonists. The prosperity
of the English sugar colonies has been in a great measure owing to the
great riches of England, of which a part has overflowed, if one may say
so, upon these colonies. But the prosperity of the sugar colonies of
France has been entirely owing to the good conduct of the colonists,
which must therefore have had some superiority over that of the English;
and this superiority has been remarked in nothing so much as in the good
management of their slaves.

Such have been the general outlines of the policy of the different
European nations with regard to their colonies.

The policy of Europe, therefore, has very little to boast of, either
in the original establishment, or, so far as concerns their internal
government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America.

Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided over
and directed the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly
of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice of coveting
the possession of a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever
injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with
every mark of kindness and hospitality.

The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the latter establishments,
joined to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines, other
motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do
very little honour to the policy of Europe.

The English puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America,
and established there the four governments of New England. The English
catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of
Maryland; the quakers, that of Pennsylvania. The Portuguese Jews,
persecuted by the inquisition, stript of their fortunes, and banished
to Brazil, introduced, by their example, some sort of order and industry
among the transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was
originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar-cane. Upon
all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the
disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and
cultivated America.

In effectuation some of the most important of these establishments, the
different governments of Europe had as little merit as in projecting
them. The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of
Spain, but of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit
of the bold adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in spite of every thing
which that governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person,
could do to thwart it. The conquerors of Chili and Peru, and of almost
all the other Spanish settlements upon the continent of America, carried
out with them no other public encouragement, but a general permission to
make settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain. Those
adventures were all at the private risk and expense of the adventurers.
The government of Spain contributed scarce any thing to any of
them. That of England contributed as little towards effectuating the
establishment of some of its most important colonies in North America.

When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so
considerable as to attract the attention of the mother country, the
first regulations which she made with regard to them, had always in view
to secure to herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their
market, and to enlarge her own at their expense, and, consequently,
rather to damp and discourage, than to quicken and forward the course of
their prosperity. In the different ways in which this monopoly has been
exercised, consists one of the most essential differences in the policy
of the different European nations with regard to their colonies. The
best of them all, that of England, is only somewhat less illiberal and
oppressive than that of any of the rest.

In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to
the first establishment, or to the present grandeur of the colonies
of America? In one way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good
deal. Magna virum mater! It bred and formed the men who were capable of
achieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great
an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world; of which the
policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually, and in fact, formed
such men. The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and
great views of their active and enterprizing founders; and some of the
greatest and most important of them, so far as concerns their internal
government, owe to it scarce anything else.


PART III. Of the Advantages which Europe has derived From the Discovery
of America, and from that of a Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of
Good Hope.

Such are the advantages which the colonies of America have derived from
the policy of Europe.

What are those which Europe has derived from the discovery and
colonization of America?

Those advantages may be divided, first, into the general advantages
which Europe, considered as one great country, has derived from those
great events; and, secondly, into the particular advantages which each
colonizing country has derived from the colonies which particularly
belong to it, in consequence of the authority or dominion which it
exercises over them.

The general advantages which Europe, considered as one great country,
has derived from the discovery and colonization of America, consist,
first, in the increase of its enjoyments; and, secondly, in the
augmentation of its industry.

The surplus produce of America imported into Europe, furnishes the
inhabitants of this great continent with a variety of commodities which
they could not otherwise have possessed; some for conveniency and use,
some for pleasure, and some for ornament; and thereby contributes to
increase their enjoyments.

The discovery and colonization of America, it will readily be allowed,
have contributed to augment the industry, first, of all the countries
which trade to it directly, such as Spain, Portugal, France, and
England; and, secondly, of all those which, without trading to it
directly, send, through the medium of other countries, goods to it of
their own produce, such as Austrian Flanders, and some provinces of
Germany, which, through the medium of the countries before mentioned,
send to it a considerable quantity of linen and other goods. All such
countries have evidently gained a more extensive market for their
surplus produce, and must consequently have been encouraged to increase
its quantity.

But that those great events should likewise have contributed to
encourage the industry of countries such as Hungary and Poland, which
may never, perhaps, have sent a single commodity of their own produce to
America, is not, perhaps, altogether so evident. That those events have
done so, however, cannot be doubted. Some part of the produce of America
is consumed in Hungary and Poland, and there is some demand there for
the sugar, chocolate, and tobacco, of that new quarter of the world. But
those commodities must be purchased with something which is either the
produce of the industry of Hungary and Poland, or with something which
had been purchased with some part of that produce. Those commodities
of America are new values, new equivalents, introduced into Hungary
and Poland, to be exchanged there for the surplus produce of these
countries. By being carried thither, they create a new and more
extensive market for that surplus produce. They raise its value, and
thereby contribute to encourage its increase. Though no part of it may
ever be carried to America, it may be carried to other countries,
which purchase it with a part of their share of the surplus produce of
America, and it may find a market by means of the circulation of that
trade which was originally put into motion by the surplus produce of
America.

Those great events may even have contributed to increase the enjoyments,
and to augment the industry, of countries which not only never sent
any commodities to America, but never received any from it. Even such
countries may have received a greater abundance of other commodities
from countries, of which the surplus produce had been augmented by means
of the American trade. This greater abundance, as it must necessarily
have increased their enjoyments, so it must likewise have augmented
their industry. A greater number of new equivalents, of some kind or
other, must have been presented to them to be exchanged for the surplus
produce of that industry. A more extensive market must have been
created for that surplus produce, so as to raise its value, and thereby
encourage its increase. The mass of commodities annually thrown into
the great circle of European commerce, and by its various revolutions
annually distributed among all the different nations comprehended within
it, must have been augmented by the whole surplus produce of America. A
greater share of this greater mass, therefore, is likely to have fallen
to each of those nations, to have increased their enjoyments, and
augmented their industry.

The exclusive trade of the mother countries tends to diminish, or at
least to keep down below what they would otherwise rise to, both the
enjoyments and industry of all those nations in general, and of the
American colonies in particular. It is a dead weight upon the action
of one of the great springs which puts into motion a great part of the
business of mankind. By rendering the colony produce dearer in all other
countries, it lessens its consumption, and thereby cramps the industry
of the colonies, and both the enjoyments and the industry of all other
countries, which both enjoy less when they pay more for what they enjoy,
and produce less when they get less for what they produce. By rendering
the produce of all other countries dearer in the colonies, it cramps
in the same manner the industry of all other colonies, and both the
enjoyments and the industry of the colonies. It is a clog which, for the
supposed benefit of some particular countries, embarrasses the pleasures
and encumbers the industry of all other countries, but of the colonies
more than of any other. It not only excludes as much as possible all
other countries from one particular market, but it confines as much as
possible the colonies to one particular market; and the difference is
very great between being excluded from one particular market when all
others are open, and being confined to one particular market when all
others are shut up. The surplus produce of the colonies, however, is the
original source of all that increase of enjoyments and industry which
Europe derives from the discovery and colonization of America, and the
exclusive trade of the mother countries tends to render this source much
less abundant than it otherwise would be.

The particular advantages which each colonizing country derives from the
colonies which particularly belong to it, are of two different kinds;
first, those common advantages which every empire derives from the
provinces subject to its dominion; and, secondly, those peculiar
advantages which are supposed to result from provinces of so very
peculiar a nature as the European colonies of America.

The common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces
subject to its dominion consist, first, in the military force which
they furnish for its defence; and, secondly, in the revenue which they
furnish for the support of its civil government. The Roman colonies
furnished occasionally both the one and the other. The Greek colonies
sometimes furnished a military force, but seldom any revenue. They
seldom acknowledged themselves subject to the dominion of the mother
city. They were generally her allies in war, but very seldom her
subjects in peace.

The European colonies of America have never yet furnished any military
force for the defence of the mother country. The military force has
never yet been sufficient for their own defence; and in the different
wars in which the mother countries have been engaged, the defence of
their colonies has generally occasioned a very considerable distraction
of the military force of those countries. In this respect, therefore,
all the European colonies have, without exception, been a cause rather
of weakness than of strength to their respective mother countries.

The colonies of Spain and Portugal only have contributed any revenue
towards the defence of the mother country, or the support of her
civil government. The taxes which have been levied upon those of other
European nations, upon those of England in particular, have seldom been
equal to the expense laid out upon them in time of peace, and never
sufficient to defray that which they occasioned in time of war. Such
colonies, therefore, have been a source of expense, and not of revenue,
to their respective mother countries.

The advantages of such colonies to their respective mother countries,
consist altogether in those peculiar advantages which are supposed
to result from provinces of so very peculiar a nature as the European
colonies of America; and the exclusive trade, it is acknowledged, is the
sole source of all those peculiar advantages.

In consequence of this exclusive trade, all that part of the surplus
produce of the English colonies, for example, which consists in what
are called enumerated commodities, can be sent to no other country
but England. Other countries must afterwards buy it of her. It must be
cheaper, therefore, in England than it can be in any other country, and
must contribute more to increase the enjoyments of England than those
of any other country. It must likewise contribute more to encourage her
industry. For all those parts of her own surplus produce which England
exchanges for those enumerated commodities, she must get a better price
than any other countries can get for the like parts of theirs, when they
exchange them for the same commodities. The manufactures of England, for
example, will purchase a greater quantity of the sugar and tobacco
of her own colonies than the like manufactures of other countries
can purchase of that sugar and tobacco. So far, therefore, as the
manufactures of England and those of other countries are both to be
exchanged for the sugar and tobacco of the English colonies, this
superiority of price gives an encouragement to the former beyond what
the latter can, in these circumstances, enjoy. The exclusive trade of
the colonies, therefore, as it diminishes, or at least keeps down below
what they would otherwise rise to, both the enjoyments and the industry
of the countries which do not possess it, so it gives an evident
advantage to the countries which do possess it over those other
countries.

This advantage, however, will, perhaps, be found to be rather what
may be called a relative than an absolute advantage, and to give a
superiority to the country which enjoys it, rather by depressing the
industry and produce of other countries, than by raising those of that
particular country above what they would naturally rise to in the case
of a free trade.

The tobacco of Maryland and Virginia, for example, by means of the
monopoly which England enjoys of it, certainly comes cheaper to England
than it can do to France to whom England commonly sells a considerable
part of it. But had France and all other European countries been at
all times allowed a free trade to Maryland and Virginia, the tobacco
of those colonies might by this time have come cheaper than it actually
does, not only to all those other countries, but likewise to England.
The produce of tobacco, in consequence of a market so much more
extensive than any which it has hitherto enjoyed, might, and probably
would, by this time have been so much increased as to reduce the profits
of a tobacco plantation to their natural level with those of a corn
plantation, which it is supposed they are still somewhat above. The
price of tobacco might, and probably would, by this time have fallen
somewhat lower than it is at present. An equal quantity of the
commodities, either of England or of those other countries, might have
purchased in Maryland and Virginia a greater quantity of tobacco than it
can do at present, and consequently have been sold there for so much a
better price. So far as that weed, therefore, can, by its cheapness and
abundance, increase the enjoyments, or augment the industry, either of
England or of any other country, it would probably, in the case of
a free trade, have produced both these effects in somewhat a greater
degree than it can do at present. England, indeed, would not, in this
case, have had any advantage over other countries. She might have bought
the tobacco of her colonies somewhat cheaper, and consequently have sold
some of her own commodities somewhat dearer, than she actually does;
but she could neither have bought the one cheaper, nor sold the other
dearer, than any other country might have done. She might, perhaps,
have gained an absolute, but she would certainly have lost a relative
advantage.

In order, however, to obtain this relative advantage in the colony
trade, in order to execute the invidious and malignant project of
excluding, as much as possible, other nations from any share in it,
England, there are very probable reasons for believing, has not only
sacrificed a part of the absolute advantage which she, as well as every
other nation, might have derived from that trade, but has subjected
herself both to an absolute and to a relative disadvantage in almost
every other branch of trade.

When, by the act of navigation, England assumed to herself the monopoly
of the colony trade, the foreign capitals which had before been employed
in it, were necessarily withdrawn from it. The English capital, which
had before carried on but a part of it, was now to carry on the whole.
The capital which had before supplied the colonies with but a part of
the goods which they wanted from Europe, was now all that was employed
to supply them with the whole. But it could not supply them with the
whole; and the goods with which it did supply them were necessarily sold
very dear. The capital which had before bought but a part of the surplus
produce of the colonies, was now all that was employed to buy the whole.
But it could not buy the whole at any thing near the old price; and
therefore, whatever it did buy, it necessarily bought very cheap. But
in an employment of capital, in which the merchant sold very dear, and
bought very cheap, the profit must have been very great, and much
above the ordinary level of profit in other branches of trade. This
superiority of profit in the colony trade could not fail to draw from
other branches of trade a part of the capital which had before been
employed in them. But this revulsion of capital, as it must have
gradually increased the competition of capitals in the colony trade, so
it must have gradually diminished that competition in all those other
branches of trade; as it must have gradually lowered the profits of
the one, so it must have gradually raised those of the other, till the
profits of all came to a new level, different from, and somewhat higher,
than that at which they had been before.

This double effect of drawing capital from all other trades, and of
raising the rate of profit somewhat higher than it otherwise would have
been in all trades, was not only produced by this monopoly upon its
first establishment, but has continued to be produced by it ever since.

First, This monopoly has been continually drawing capital from all other
trades, to be employed in that of the colonies.

Though the wealth of Great Britain has increased very much since the
establishment of the act of navigation, it certainly has not increased
in the same proportion as that or the colonies. But the foreign trade
of every country naturally increases in proportion to its wealth, its
surplus produce in proportion to its whole produce; and Great Britain
having engrossed to herself almost the whole of what may be called the
foreign trade of the colonies, and her capital not having increased in
the same proportion as the extent of that trade, she could not carry
it on without continually withdrawing from other branches of trade some
part of the capital which had before been employed in them, as well as
withholding from them a great deal more which would otherwise have gone
to them. Since the establishment of the act of navigation, accordingly,
the colony trade has been continually increasing, while many other
branches of foreign trade, particularly of that to other parts of
Europe, have been continually decaying. Our manufactures for foreign
sale, instead of being suited, as before the act of navigation, to
the neighbouring market of Europe, or to the more distant one of the
countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea, have the greater
part of them, been accommodated to the still more distant one of the
colonies; to the market in which they have the monopoly, rather than to
that in which they have many competitors. The causes of decay in other
branches of foreign trade, which, by Sir Matthew Decker and other
writers, have been sought for in the excess and improper mode of
taxation, in the high price of labour, in the increase of luxury, etc.
may all be found in the overgrowth of the colony trade. The mercantile
capital of Great Britain, though very great, yet not being infinite,
and though greatly increased since the act of navigation, yet not being
increased in the same proportion as the colony trade, that trade could
not possibly be carried on without withdrawing some part of that capital
from other branches of trade, nor consequently without some decay of
those other branches.

England, it must be observed, was a great trading country, her
mercantile capital was very great, and likely to become still greater
and greater every day, not only before the act of navigation had
established the monopoly of the corn trade, but before that trade was
very considerable. In the Dutch war, during the government of Cromwell,
her navy was superior to that of Holland; and in that which broke out
in the beginning of the reign of Charles II., it was at least equal,
perhaps superior to the united navies of France and Holland. Its
superiority, perhaps, would scarce appear greater in the present times,
at least if the Dutch navy were to bear the same proportion to the Dutch
commerce now which it did then. But this great naval power could not,
in either of those wars, be owing to the act of navigation. During
the first of them, the plan of that act had been but just formed; and
though, before the breaking out of the second, it had been fully enacted
by legal authority, yet no part of it could have had time to produce any
considerable effect, and least of all that part which established the
exclusive trade to the colonies. Both the colonies and their trade were
inconsiderable then, in comparison of what they are how. The island
of Jamaica was an unwholesome desert, little inhabited, and less
cultivated. New York and New Jersey were in the possession of the Dutch,
the half of St. Christopher's in that of the French. The island of
Antigua, the two Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nova Scotia,
were not planted. Virginia, Maryland, and New England were planted; and
though they were very thriving colonies, yet there was not perhaps at
that time, either in Europe or America, a single person who foresaw, or
even suspected, the rapid progress which they have since made in wealth,
population, and improvement. The island of Barbadoes, in short, was the
only British colony of any consequence, of which the condition at that
time bore any resemblance to what it is at present. The trade of
the colonies, of which England, even for some time after the act of
navigation, enjoyed but a part (for the act of navigation was not very
strictly executed till several years after it was enacted), could not at
that time be the cause of the great trade of England, nor of the great
naval power which was supported by that trade. The trade which at that
time supported that great naval power was the trade of Europe, and of
the countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea. But the share which
Great Britain at present enjoys of that trade could not support any such
great naval power. Had the growing trade of the colonies been left free
to all nations, whatever share of it might have fallen to Great Britain,
and a very considerable share would probably have fallen to her, must
have been all an addition to this great trade of which she was before in
possession. In consequence of the monopoly, the increase of the colony
trade has not so much occasioned an addition to the trade which Great
Britain had before, as a total change in its direction.

Secondly, This monopoly has necessarily contributed to keep up the rate
of profit, in all the different branches of British trade, higher than
it naturally would have been, had all nations been allowed a free trade
to the British colonies.

The monopoly of the colony trade, as it necessarily drew towards that
trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what
would have gone to it of its own accord, so, by the expulsion of all
foreign capitals, it necessarily reduced the whole quantity of capital
employed in that trade below what it naturally would have been in the
case of a free trade. But, by lessening the competition of capitals in
that branch of trade, it necessarily raised the rate of profit in that
branch. By lessening, too, the competition of British capitals in all
other branches of trade, it necessarily raised the rate of British
profit in all those other branches. Whatever may have been, at any
particular period since the establishment of the act of navigation, the
state or extent of the mercantile capital of Great Britain, the monopoly
of the colony trade must, during the continuance of that state, have
raised the ordinary rate of British profit higher than it otherwise
would have been, both in that and in all the other branches of British
trade. If, since the establishment of the act of navigation, the
ordinary rate of British profit has fallen considerably, as it certainly
has, it must have fallen still lower, had not the monopoly established
by that act contributed to keep it up.

But whatever raises, in any country, the ordinary rate of profit higher
than it otherwise would be, necessarily subjects that country both to
an absolute, and to a relative disadvantage in every branch of trade of
which she has not the monopoly.

It subjects her to an absolute disadvantage; because, in such branches
of trade, her merchants cannot get this greater profit without selling
dearer than they otherwise would do, both the goods of foreign countries
which they import into their own, and the goods of their own country
which they export to foreign countries. Their own country must both buy
dearer and sell dearer; must both buy less, and sell less; must both
enjoy less and produce less, than she otherwise would do.

It subjects her to a relative disadvantage; because, in such branches
of trade, it sets other countries, which are not subject to the same
absolute disadvantage, either more above her or less below her, than
they otherwise would be. It enables them both to enjoy more and to
produce more, in proportion to what she enjoys and produces. It renders
their superiority greater, or their inferiority less, than it otherwise
would be. By raising the price of her produce above what it otherwise
would be, it enables the merchants of other countries to undersell her
in foreign markets, and thereby to justle her out of almost all those
branches of trade, of which she has not the monopoly.

Our merchants frequently complain of the high wages of British labour,
as the cause of their manufactures being undersold in foreign markets;
but they are silent about the high profits of stock. They complain of
the extravagant gain of other people; but they say nothing of their
own. The high profits of British stock, however, may contribute towards
raising the price of British manufactures, in many cases, as much, and
in some perhaps more, than the high wages of British labour.

It is in this manner that the capital of Great Britain, one may justly
say, has partly been drawn and partly been driven from the greater part
of the different branches of trade of which she has not the monopoly;
from the trade of Europe, in particular, and from that of the countries
which lie round the Mediterranean sea.

It has partly been drawn from those branches of trade, by the attraction
of superior profit in the colony trade, in consequence of the continual
increase of that trade, and of the continual insufficiency of the
capital which had carried it on one year to carry it on the next.

It has partly been driven from them, by the advantage which the high
rate of profit established in Great Britain gives to other countries, in
all the different branches of trade of which Great Britain has not the
monopoly.

As the monopoly of the colony trade has drawn from those other branches
a part of the British capital, which would otherwise have been employed
in them, so it has forced into them many foreign capitals which would
never have gone to them, had they not been expelled from the colony
trade. In those other branches of trade, it has diminished the
competition of British capitals, and thereby raised the rate of British
profit higher than it otherwise would have been. On the contrary, it has
increased the competition of foreign capitals, and thereby sunk the rate
of foreign profit lower than it otherwise would have been. Both in the
one way and in the other, it must evidently have subjected Great Britain
to a relative disadvantage in all those other branches of trade.

The colony trade, however, it may perhaps be said, is more advantageous
to Great Britain than any other; and the monopoly, by forcing into that
trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what
would otherwise have gone to it, has turned that capital into an
employment, more advantageous to the country than any other which it
could have found.

The most advantageous employment of any capital to the country to which
it belongs, is that which maintains there the greatest quantity of
productive labour, and increases the most the annual produce of the land
and labour of that country. But the quantity of productive labour which
any capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption can maintain,
is exactly in proportion, it has been shown in the second book, to the
frequency of its returns. A capital of a thousand pounds, for example,
employed in a foreign trade of consumption, of which the returns are
made regularly once in the year, can keep in constant employment, in the
country to which it belongs, a quantity of productive labour, equal to
what a thousand pounds can maintain there for a year. If the returns are
made twice or thrice in the year, it can keep in constant employment
a quantity of productive labour, equal to what two or three thousand
pounds can maintain there for a year. A foreign trade of consumption
carried on with a neighbouring, is, upon that account, in general, more
advantageous than one carried on with a distant country; and, for the
same reason, a direct foreign trade of consumption, as it has likewise
been shown in the second book, is in general more advantageous than a
round-about one.

But the monopoly of the colony trade, so far as it has operated upon the
employment of the capital of Great Britain, has, in all cases, forced
some part of it from a foreign trade of consumption carried on with a
neighbouring, to one carried on with a more distant country, and in many
cases from a direct foreign trade of consumption to a round-about one.

First, The monopoly of the colony trade has, in all cases, forced some
part of the capital of Great Britain from a foreign trade of consumption
carried on with a neighbouring, to one carried on with a more distant
country.

It has, in all cases, forced some part of that capital from the trade
with Europe, and with the countries which lie round the Mediterranean
sea, to that with the more distant regions of America and the West
Indies; from which the returns are necessarily less frequent, not only
on account of the greater distance, but on account of the peculiar
circumstances of those countries. New colonies, it has already been
observed, are always understocked. Their capital is always much less
than what they could employ with great profit and advantage in the
improvement and cultivation of their land. They have a constant demand,
therefore, for more capital than they have of their own; and, in order
to supply the deficiency of their own, they endeavour to borrow as much
as they can of the mother country, to whom they are, therefore, always
in debt. The most common way in which the colonies contract this debt,
is not by borrowing upon bond of the rich people of the mother country,
though they sometimes do this too, but by running as much in arrear to
their correspondents, who supply them with goods from Europe, as those
correspondents will allow them. Their annual returns frequently do not
amount to more than a third, and sometimes not to so great a
proportion of what they owe. The whole capital, therefore, which their
correspondents advance to them, is seldom returned to Britain in less
than three, and sometimes not in less than four or five years. But a
British capital of a thousand pounds, for example, which is returned to
Great Britain only once in five years, can keep in constant employment
only one-fifth part of the British industry which it could maintain, if
the whole was returned once in the year; and, instead of the quantity of
industry which a thousand pounds could maintain for a year, can keep
in constant employment the quantity only which two hundred pounds can
maintain for a year. The planter, no doubt, by the high price which he
pays for the goods from Europe, by the interest upon the bills which he
grants at distant dates, and by the commission upon the renewal of those
which he grants at near dates, makes up, and probably more than makes
up, all the loss which his correspondent can sustain by this delay. But,
though he make up the loss of his correspondent, he cannot make up that
of Great Britain. In a trade of which the returns are very distant, the
profit of the merchant may be as great or greater than in one in which
they are very frequent and near; but the advantage of the country
in which he resides, the quantity of productive labour constantly
maintained there, the annual produce of the land and labour, must always
be much less. That the returns of the trade to America, and still
more those of that to the West Indies, are, in general, not only more
distant, but more irregular and more uncertain, too, than those of the
trade to any part of Europe, or even of the countries which lie round
the Mediterranean sea, will readily be allowed, I imagine, by everybody
who has any experience of those different branches of trade.

Secondly, The monopoly of the colony trade, has, in many cases, forced
some part of the capital of Great Britain from a direct foreign trade of
consumption, into a round-about one.

Among the enumerated commodities which can be sent to no other market
but Great Britain, there are several of which the quantity exceeds very
much the consumption of Great Britain, and of which, a part, therefore,
must be exported to other countries. But this cannot be done without
forcing some part of the capital of Great Britain into a round-about
foreign trade of consumption. Maryland, and Virginia, for example, send
annually to Great Britain upwards of ninety-six thousand hogsheads of
tobacco, and the consumption of Great Britain is said not to exceed
fourteen thousand. Upwards of eighty-two thousand hogsheads, therefore,
must be exported to other countries, to France, to Holland, and, to the
countries which lie round the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. But that
part of the capital of Great Britain which brings those eighty-two
thousand hogsheads to Great Britain, which re-exports them from thence
to those other countries, and which brings back from those other
countries to Great Britain either goods or money in return, is employed
in a round-about foreign trade of consumption; and is necessarily forced
into this employment, in order to dispose of this great surplus. If we
would compute in how many years the whole of this capital is likely to
come back to Great Britain, we must add to the distance of the American
returns that of the returns from those other countries. If, in the
direct foreign trade of consumption which we carry on with America, the
whole capital employed frequently does not come back in less than three
or four years, the whole capital employed in this round-about one is not
likely to come back in less than four or five. If the one can keep
in constant employment but a third or a fourth part of the domestic
industry which could be maintained by a capital returned once in the
year, the other can keep in constant employment but a fourth or a fifth
part of that industry. At some of the outports a credit is commonly
given to those foreign correspondents to whom they export them tobacco.
At the port of London, indeed, it is commonly sold for ready money:
the rule is Weigh and pay. At the port of London, therefore, the final
returns of the whole round-about trade are more distant than the returns
from America, by the time only which the goods may lie unsold in the
warehouse; where, however, they may sometimes lie long enough. But, had
not the colonies been confined to the market of Great Britain for the
sale of their tobacco, very little more of it would probably have come
to us than what was necessary for the home consumption. The goods which
Great Britain purchases at present for her own consumption with the
great surplus of tobacco which she exports to other countries, she
would, in this case, probably have purchased with the immediate produce
of her own industry, or with some part of her own manufactures. That
produce, those manufactures, instead of being almost entirely suited to
one great market, as at present, would probably have been fitted to
a great number of smaller markets. Instead of one great round-about
foreign trade of consumption, Great Britain would probably have carried
on a great number of small direct foreign trades of the same kind. On
account of the frequency of the returns, a part, and probably but a
small part, perhaps not above a third or a fourth of the capital which
at present carries on this great round-about trade, might have been
sufficient to carry on all those small direct ones; might have kept
inconstant employment an equal quantity of British industry; and have
equally supported the annual produce of the land and labour of Great
Britain. All the purposes of this trade being, in this manner, answered
by a much smaller capital, there would have been a large spare capital
to apply to other purposes; to improve the lands, to increase the
manufactures, and to extend the commerce of Great Britain; to come into
competition at least with the other British capitals employed in all
those different ways, to reduce the rate of profit in them all, and
thereby to give to Great Britain, in all of them, a superiority over
other countries, still greater than what she at present enjoys.

The monopoly of the colony trade, too, has forced some part of the
capital of Great Britain from all foreign trade of consumption to a
carrying trade; and, consequently from supporting more or less the
industry of Great Britain, to be employed altogether in supporting
partly that of the colonies, and partly that of some other countries.

The goods, for example, which are annually purchased with the great
surplus of eighty-two thousand hogsheads of tobacco annually re-exported
from Great Britain, are not all consumed in Great Britain. Part of them,
linen from Germany and Holland, for example, is returned to the colonies
for their particular consumption. But that part of the capital of Great
Britain which buys the tobacco with which this linen is afterwards
bought, is necessarily withdrawn from supporting the industry of Great
Britain, to be employed altogether in supporting, partly that of the
colonies, and partly that of the particular countries who pay for this
tobacco with the produce of their own industry.


The monopoly of the colony trade, besides, by forcing towards it a
much greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would
naturally have gone to it, seems to have broken altogether that natural
balance which would otherwise have taken place among all the different
branches of British industry. The industry of Great Britain, instead
of being accommodated to a great number of small markets, has been
principally suited to one great market. Her commerce, instead of running
in a great number of small channels, has been taught to run principally
in one great channel. But the whole system of her industry and commerce
has thereby been rendered less secure; the whole state of her body
politic less healthful than it otherwise would have been. In her present
condition, Great Britain resembles one of those unwholesome bodies
in which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and which, upon that
account, are liable to many dangerous disorders, scarce incident to
those in which all the parts are more properly proportioned. A small
stop in that great blood-vessel, which has been artificially swelled
beyond its natural dimensions, and through which an unnatural proportion
of the industry and commerce of the country has been forced to
circulate, is very likely to bring on the most dangerous disorders upon
the whole body politic. The expectation of a rupture with the colonies,
accordingly, has struck the people of Great Britain with more terror
than they ever felt for a Spanish armada, or a French invasion. It was
this terror, whether well or ill grounded, which rendered the repeal of
the stamp act, among the merchants at least, a popular measure. In the
total exclusion from the colony market, was it to last only for a few
years, the greater part of our merchants used to fancy that they
foresaw an entire stop to their trade; the greater part of our master
manufacturers, the entire ruin of their business; and the greater part
of our workmen, an end of their employment. A rupture with any of our
neighbours upon the continent, though likely, too, to occasion some stop
or interruption in the employments of some of all these different orders
of people, is foreseen, however, without any such general emotion. The
blood, of which the circulation is stopt in some of the smaller vessels,
easily disgorges itself into the greater, without occasioning any
dangerous disorder; but, when it is stopt in any of the greater vessels,
convulsions, apoplexy, or death, are the immediate and unavoidable
consequences. If but one of those overgrown manufactures, which, by
means either of bounties or of the monopoly of the home and colony
markets, have been artificially raised up to any unnatural height,
finds some small stop or interruption in its employment, it frequently
occasions a mutiny and disorder alarming to government, and embarrassing
even to the deliberations of the legislature. How great, therefore,
would be the disorder and confusion, it was thought, which must
necessarily be occasioned by a sudden and entire stop in the employment
of so great a proportion of our principal manufacturers?

Some moderate and gradual relaxation of the laws which give to Great
Britain the exclusive trade to the colonies, till it is rendered in a
great measure free, seems to be the only expedient which can, in all
future times, deliver her from this danger; which can enable her, or
even force her, to withdraw some part of her capital from this overgrown
employment, and to turn it, though with less profit, towards other
employments; and which, by gradually diminishing one branch of her
industry, and gradually increasing all the rest, can, by degrees,
restore all the different branches of it to that natural, healthful, and
proper proportion, which perfect liberty necessarily establishes, and
which perfect liberty can alone preserve. To open the colony trade
all at once to all nations, might not only occasion some transitory
inconveniency, but a great permanent loss, to the greater part of those
whose industry or capital is at present engaged in it. The sudden
loss of the employment, even of the ships which import the eighty-two
thousand hogsheads of tobacco, which are over and above the consumption
of Great Britain, might alone be felt very sensibly. Such are the
unfortunate effects of all the regulations of the mercantile system.
They not only introduce very dangerous disorders into the state of
the body politic, but disorders which it is often difficult to remedy,
without occasioning, for a time at least, still greater disorders. In
what manner, therefore, the colony trade ought gradually to be opened;
what are the restraints which ought first, and what are those which
ought last, to be taken away; or in what manner the natural system of
perfect liberty and justice ought gradually to be restored, we must
leave to the wisdom of future statesmen and legislators to determine.

Five different events, unforeseen and unthought of, have very
fortunately concurred to hinder Great Britain from feeling, so sensibly
as it was generally expected she would, the total exclusion which has
now taken place for more than a year (from the first of December 1774)
from a very important branch of the colony trade, that of the twelve
associated provinces of North America. First, those colonies, in
preparing themselves for their non-importation agreement, drained Great
Britain completely of all the commodities which were fit for their
market; secondly, the extra ordinary demand of the Spanish flota has,
this year, drained Germany and the north of many commodities, linen in
particular, which used to come into competition, even in the British
market, with the manufactures of Great Britain; thirdly, the peace
between Russia and Turkey has occasioned an extraordinary demand from
the Turkey market, which, during the distress of the country, and while
a Russian fleet was cruizing in the Archipelago, had been very
poorly supplied; fourthly, the demand of the north of Europe for the
manufactures of Great Britain has been increasing from year to year,
for some time past; and, fifthly, the late partition, and consequential
pacification of Poland, by opening the market of that great country,
have, this year, added an extraordinary demand from thence to the
increasing demand of the north. These events are all, except the fourth,
in their nature transitory and accidental; and the exclusion from so
important a branch of the colony trade, if unfortunately it should
continue much longer, may still occasion some degree of distress. This
distress, however, as it will come on gradually, will be felt much less
severely than if it had come on all at once; and, in the mean time,
the industry and capital of the country may find a new employment
and direction, so as to prevent this distress from ever rising to any
considerable height.

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, so far as it has turned
towards that trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain
than what would otherwise have gone to it, has in all cases turned it,
from a foreign trade of consumption with a neighbouring, into one with
a more distant country; in many cases from a direct foreign trade of
consumption into a round-about one; and, in some cases, from all foreign
trade of consumption into a carrying trade. It has, in all cases,
therefore, turned it from a direction in which it would have maintained
a greater quantity of productive labour, into one in which it can
maintain a much smaller quantity. By suiting, besides, to one particular
market only, so great a part of the industry and commerce of Great
Britain, it has rendered the whole state of that industry and commerce
more precarious and less secure, than if their produce had been
accommodated to a greater variety of markets.

We must carefully distinguish between the effects of the colony trade
and those of the monopoly of that trade. The former are always and
necessarily beneficial; the latter always and necessarily hurtful. But
the former are so beneficial, that the colony trade, though subject to a
monopoly, and, notwithstanding the hurtful effects of that monopoly, is
still, upon the whole, beneficial, and greatly beneficial, though a good
deal less so than it otherwise would be.

The effect of the colony trade, in its natural and free state, is to
open a great though distant market, for such parts of the produce of
British industry as may exceed the demand of the markets nearer home, of
those of Europe, and of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean
sea. In its natural and free state, the colony trade, without drawing
from those markets any part of the produce which had ever been sent to
them, encourages Great Britain to increase the surplus continually, by
continually presenting new equivalents to be exchanged for it. In its
natural and free state, the colony trade tends to increase the quantity
of productive labour in Great Britain, but without altering in any
respect the direction of that which had been employed there before. In
the natural and free state of the colony trade, the competition of all
other nations would hinder the rate of profit from rising above the
common level, either in the new market, or in the new employment. The
new market, without drawing any thing from the old one, would create, if
one may say so, a new produce for its own supply; and that new produce
would constitute a new capital for carrying on the new employment,
which, in the same manner, would draw nothing from the old one.

The monopoly of the colony trade, on the contrary, by excluding the
competition of other nations, and thereby raising the rate of profit,
both in the new market and in the new employment, draws produce from the
old market, and capital from the old employment. To augment our share
of the colony trade beyond what it otherwise would be, is the avowed
purpose of the monopoly. If our share of that trade were to be no
greater with, than it would have been without the monopoly, there could
have been no reason for establishing the monopoly. But whatever forces
into a branch of trade, of which the returns are slower and more distant
than those of the greater part of other trades, a greater proportion of
the capital of any country, than what of its own accord would go to
that branch, necessarily renders the whole quantity of productive labour
annually maintained there, the whole annual produce of the land and
labour of that country, less than they otherwise would be. It keeps
down the revenue of the inhabitants of that country below what it would
naturally rise to, and thereby diminishes their power of accumulation.
It not only hinders, at all times, their capital from maintaining so
great a quantity of productive labour as it would otherwise maintain,
but it hinders it from increasing so fast as it would otherwise
increase, and, consequently, from maintaining a still greater quantity
of productive labour.

The natural good effects of the colony trade, however, more than
counterbalance to Great Britain the bad effects of the monopoly; so
that, monopoly and altogether, that trade, even as it is carried on at
present, is not only advantageous, but greatly advantageous. The new
market and the new employment which are opened by the colony trade, are
of much greater extent than that portion of the old market and of the
old employment which is lost by the monopoly. The new produce and the
new capital which has been created, if one may say so, by the colony
trade, maintain in Great Britain a greater quantity of productive labour
than what can have been thrown out of employment by the revulsion of
capital from other trades of which the returns are more frequent. If
the colony trade, however, even as it is carried on at present, is
advantageous to Great Britain, it is not by means of the monopoly, but
in spite of the monopoly.

It is rather for the manufactured than for the rude produce of Europe,
that the colony trade opens a new market. Agriculture is the proper
business of all new colonies; a business which the cheapness of land
renders more advantageous than any other. They abound, therefore, in the
rude produce of land; and instead of importing it from other countries,
they have generally a large surplus to export. In new colonies,
agriculture either draws hands from all other employments, or keeps them
from going to any other employment. There are few hands to spare for the
necessary, and none for the ornamental manufactures. The greater part of
the manufactures of both kinds they find it cheaper to purchase of other
countries than to make for themselves. It is chiefly by encouraging the
manufactures of Europe, that the colony trade indirectly encourages
its agriculture. The manufacturers of Europe, to whom that trade gives
employment, constitute a new market for the produce of the land, and
the most advantageous of all markets; the home market for the corn and
cattle, for the bread and butcher's meat of Europe, is thus greatly
extended by means of the trade to America.

But that the monopoly of the trade of populous and thriving colonies is
not alone sufficient to establish, or even to maintain, manufactures
in any country, the examples of Spain and Portugal sufficiently
demonstrate. Spain and Portugal were manufacturing countries before
they had any considerable colonies. Since they had the richest and most
fertile in the world, they have both ceased to be so.

In Spain and Portugal, the bad effects of the monopoly, aggravated
by other causes, have, perhaps, nearly overbalanced the natural good
effects of the colony trade. These causes seem to be other monopolies of
different kinds: the degradation of the value of gold and silver below
what it is in most other countries; the exclusion from foreign markets
by improper taxes upon exportation, and the narrowing of the home
market, by still more improper taxes upon the transportation of goods
from one part of the country to another; but above all, that irregular
and partial administration of justice which often protects the rich
and powerful debtor from the pursuit of his injured creditor, and which
makes the industrious part of the nation afraid to prepare goods for the
consumption of those haughty and great men, to whom they dare not refuse
to sell upon credit, and from whom they are altogether uncertain of
repayment.

In England, on the contrary, the natural good effects of the colony
trade, assisted by other causes, have in a great measure conquered
the bad effects of the monopoly. These causes seem to be, the general
liberty of trade, which, notwithstanding some restraints, is at least
equal, perhaps superior, to what it is in any other country; the liberty
of exporting, duty free, almost all sorts of goods which are the produce
of domestic industry, to almost any foreign country; and what, perhaps,
is of still greater importance, the unbounded liberty of transporting
them from one part of our own country to any other, without being
obliged to give any account to any public office, without being liable
to question or examination of any kind; but, above all, that equal and
impartial administration of justice, which renders the rights of the
meanest British subject respectable to the greatest, and which, by
securing to every man the fruits of his own industry, gives the greatest
and most effectual encouragement to every sort of industry.

If the manufactures of Great Britain, however, have been advanced, as
they certainly have, by the colony trade, it has not been by means of
the monopoly of that trade, but in spite of the monopoly. The effect
of the monopoly has been, not to augment the quantity, but to alter the
quality and shape of a part of the manufactures of Great Britain, and
to accommodate to a market, from which the returns are slow and distant,
what would otherwise have been accommodated to one from which the
returns are frequent and near. Its effect has consequently been, to turn
a part of the capital of Great Britain from an employment in which it
would have maintained a greater quantity of manufacturing industry,
to one in which it maintains a much smaller, and thereby to diminish,
instead of increasing, the whole quantity of manufacturing industry
maintained in Great Britain.

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, like all the other mean and
malignant expedients of the mercantile system, depresses the industry
of all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the
least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing, that of the country
in whose favour it is established.

The monopoly hinders the capital of that country, whatever may, at any
particular time, be the extent of that capital, from maintaining so
great a quantity of productive labour as it would otherwise maintain,
and from affording so great a revenue to the industrious inhabitants
as it would otherwise afford. But as capital can be increased only by
savings from revenue, the monopoly, by hindering it from affording so
great a revenue as it would otherwise afford, necessarily hinders it
from increasing so fast as it would otherwise increase, and consequently
from maintaining a still greater quantity of productive labour, and
affording a still greater revenue to the industrious inhabitants of that
country. One great original source of revenue, therefore, the wages of
labour, the monopoly must necessarily have rendered, at all times, less
abundant than it otherwise would have been.

By raising the rate of mercantile profit, the monopoly discourages
the improvement of land. The profit of improvement depends upon the
difference between what the land actually produces, and what, by the
application of a certain capital, it can be made to produce. If this
difference affords a greater profit than what can be drawn from an equal
capital in any mercantile employment, the improvement of land will
draw capital from all mercantile employments. If the profit is less,
mercantile employments will draw capital from the improvement of land.
Whatever, therefore, raises the rate of mercantile profit, either
lessens the superiority, or increases the inferiority of the profit
of improvement: and, in the one case, hinders capital from going to
improvement, and in the other draws capital from it; but by discouraging
improvement, the monopoly necessarily retards the natural increase of
another great original source of revenue, the rent of land. By raising
the rate of profit, too, the monopoly necessarily keeps up the market
rate of interest higher than it otherwise would be. But the price of
land, in proportion to the rent which it affords, the number of years
purchase which is commonly paid for it, necessarily falls as the rate of
interest rises, and rises as the rate of interest falls. The monopoly,
therefore, hurts the interest of the landlord two different ways, by
retarding the natural increase, first, of his rent, and, secondly, of
the price which he would get for his land, in proportion to the rent
which it affords.

The monopoly, indeed, raises the rate of mercantile profit and thereby
augments somewhat the gain of our merchants. But as it obstructs
the natural increase of capital, it tends rather to diminish than to
increase the sum total of the revenue which the inhabitants of the
country derive from the profits of stock; a small profit upon a great
capital generally affording a greater revenue than a great profit upon
a small one. The monopoly raises the rate of profit, but it hinders the
sum of profit from rising so high as it otherwise would do.

All the original sources of revenue, the wages of labour, the rent of
land, and the profits of stock, the monopoly renders much less abundant
than they otherwise would be. To promote the little interest of one
little order of men in one country, it hurts the interest of all
other orders of men in that country, and of all the men in all other
countries.

It is solely by raising the ordinary rate of profit, that the monopoly
either has proved, or could prove, advantageous to any one particular
order of men. But besides all the bad effects to the country in general,
which have already been mentioned as necessarily resulting from a higher
rate of profit, there is one more fatal, perhaps, than all these put
together, but which, if we may judge from experience, is inseparably
connected with it. The high rate of profit seems everywhere to destroy
that parsimony which, in other circumstances, is natural to the
character of the merchant. When profits are high, that sober virtue
seems to be superfluous, and expensive luxury to suit better the
affluence of his situation. But the owners of the great mercantile
capitals are necessarily the leaders and conductors of the whole
industry of every nation; and their example has a much greater influence
upon the manners of the whole industrious part of it than that of any
other order of men. If his employer is attentive and parsimonious, the
workman is very likely to be so too; but if the master is dissolute and
disorderly, the servant, who shapes his work according to the pattern
which his master prescribes to him, will shape his life, too, according
to the example which he sets him. Accumulation is thus prevented in the
hands of all those who are naturally the most disposed to accumulate;
and the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour, receive
no augmentation from the revenue of those who ought naturally to augment
them the most. The capital of the country, instead of increasing,
gradually dwindles away, and the quantity of productive labour
maintained in it grows every day less and less. Have the exorbitant
profits of the merchants of Cadiz and Lisbon augmented the capital of
Spain and Portugal? Have they alleviated the poverty, have they promoted
the industry, of those two beggarly countries? Such has been the tone
of mercantile expense in those two trading cities, that those exorbitant
profits, far from augmenting the general capital of the country, seem
scarce to have been sufficient to keep up the capitals upon which they
were made. Foreign capitals are every day intruding themselves, if I may
say so, more and more into the trade of Cadiz and Lisbon. It is to expel
those foreign capitals from a trade which their own grows every day more
and more insufficient for carrying on, that the Spaniards and Portuguese
endeavour every day to straiten more and more the galling bands of their
absurd monopoly. Compare the mercantile manners of Cadiz and Lisbon with
those of Amsterdam, and you will be sensible how differently the conduct
and character of merchants are affected by the high and by the low
profits of stock. The merchants of London, indeed, have not yet
generally become such magnificent lords as those of Cadiz and Lisbon;
but neither are they in general such attetitive and parsimonious
burghers as those of Amsterdam. They are supposed, however, many of
them, to be a good deal richer than the greater part of the former, and
not quire so rich as many of the latter: but the rate of their profit is
commonly much lower than that of the former, and a good deal higher
than that of the latter. Light come, light go, says the proverb; and the
ordinary tone of expense seems everywhere to be regulated, not so much
according to the real ability of spending, as to the supposed facility
of getting money to spend.

It is thus that the single advantage which the monopoly procures to a
single order of men, is in many different ways hurtful to the general
interest of the country.

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of
customers, may at first sight, appear a project fit only for a nation of
shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation
of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose government is
influenced by shopkeepers. Such statesmen, and such statesmen only, are
capable of fancying that they will find some advantage in employing the
blood and treasure of their fellow-citizens, to found and maintain such
an empire. Say to a shopkeeper, Buy me a good estate, and I shall always
buy my clothes at your shop, even though I should pay somewhat dearer
than what I can have them for at other shops; and you will not find him
very forward to embrace your proposal. But should any other person
buy you such an estate, the shopkeeper will be much obliged to your
benefactor if he would enjoin you to buy all your clothes at his shop.
England purchased for some of her subjects, who found themselves uneasy
at home, a great estate in a distant country. The price, indeed, was
very small, and instead of thirty years purchase, the ordinary price of
land in the present times, it amounted to little more than the
expense of the different equipments which made the first discovery,
reconnoitered the coast, and took a fictitious possession of the
country. The land was good, and of great extent; and the cultivators
having plenty of good ground to work upon, and being for some time at
liberty to sell their produce where they pleased, became, in the course
of little more than thirty or forty years (between 1620 and 1660), so
numerous and thriving a people, that the shopkeepers and other traders
of England wished to secure to themselves the monopoly of their custom.
Without pretending, therefore, that they had paid any part, either
of the original purchase money, or of the subsequent expense of
improvement, they petitioned the parliament, that the cultivators of
America might for the future be confined to their shop; first, for
buying all the goods which they wanted from Europe; and, secondly, for
selling all such parts of their own produce as those traders might find
it convenient to buy. For they did not find it convenient to buy
every part of it. Some parts of it imported into England, might have
interfered with some of the trades which they themselves carried on at
home. Those particular parts of it, therefore, they were willing that
the colonists should sell where they could; the farther off the better;
and upon that account proposed that their market should be confined to
the countries south of Cape Finisterre. A clause in the famous act of
navigation established this truly shopkeeper proposal into a law.

The maintenance of this monopoly has hitherto been the principal, or
more properly, perhaps, the sole end and purpose of the dominion which
Great Britain assumes over her colonies. In the exclusive trade, it is
supposed, consists the great advantage of provinces, which have never
yet afforded either revenue or military force for the support of the
civil government, or the defence of the mother country. The monopoly is
the principal badge of their dependency, and it is the sole fruit which
has hitherto been gathered from that dependency. Whatever expense Great
Britain has hitherto laid out in maintaining this dependency, has really
been laid out in order to support this monopoly. The expense of the
ordinary peace establishment of the colonies amounted, before the
commencement of the present disturbances to the pay of twenty regiments
of foot; to the expense of the artillery, stores, and extraordinary
provisions, with which it was necessary to supply them; and to the
expense of a very considerable naval force, which was constantly kept
up, in order to guard from the smuggling vessels of other nations, the
immense coast of North America, and that of our West Indian islands. The
whole expense of this peace establishment was a charge upon the revenue
of Great Britain, and was, at the same time, the smallest part of what
the dominion of the colonies has cost the mother country. If we would
know the amount of the whole, we must add to the annual expense of this
peace establishment, the interest of the sums which, in consequence of
their considering her colonies as provinces subject to her dominion,
Great Britain has, upon different occasions, laid out upon their
defence. We must add to it, in particular, the whole expense of the late
war, and a great part of that of the war which preceded it. The late
war was altogether a colony quarrel; and the whole expense of it, in
whatever part of the world it might have been laid out, whether in
Germany or the East Indies, ought justly to be stated to the account
of the colonies. It amounted to more than ninety millions sterling,
including not only the new debt which was contracted, but the two
shillings in the pound additional land tax, and the sums which were
every year borrowed from the sinking fund. The Spanish war which began
in 1739 was principally a colony quarrel. Its principal object was to
prevent the search of the colony ships, which carried on a contraband
trade with the Spanish Main. This whole expense is, in reality, a bounty
which has been given in order to support a monopoly. The pretended
purpose of it was to encourage the manufactures, and to increase the
commerce of Great Britain. But its real effect has been to raise the
rate of mercantile profit, and to enable our merchants to turn into a
branch of trade, of which the returns are more slow and distant than
those of the greater part of other trades, a greater proportion of their
capital than they otherwise would have done; two events which, if a
bounty could have prevented, it might perhaps have been very well worth
while to give such a bounty.

Under the present system of management, therefore, Great Britain derives
nothing but loss from the dominion which she assumes over her colonies.

To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority
over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to
enact their own laws, and to make peace and war, as they might think
proper, would be to propose such a measure as never was, and never will
be, adopted by any nation in the world. No nation ever voluntarily gave
up the dominion of any province, how troublesome soever it might be to
govern it, and how small soever the revenue which it afforded might
be in proportion to the expense which it occasioned. Such sacrifices,
though they might frequently be agreeable to the interest, are always
mortifying to the pride of every nation; and, what is perhaps of still
greater consequence, they are always contrary to the private interest of
the governing part of it, who would thereby be deprived of the disposal
of many places of trust and profit, of many opportunities of acquiring
wealth and distinction, which the possession of the most turbulent, and,
to the great body of the people, the most unprofitable province, seldom
fails to afford. The most visionary enthusiasts would scarce be capable
of proposing such a measure, with any serious hopes at least of its ever
being adopted. If it was adopted, however, Great Britain would not
only be immediately freed from the whole annual expense of the peace
establishment of the colonies, but might settle with them such a treaty
of commerce as would effectually secure to her a free trade, more
advantageous to the great body of the people, though less so to the
merchants, than the monopoly which she at present enjoys. By thus
parting good friends, the natural affection of the colonies to the
mother country, which, perhaps, our late dissensions have well nigh
extinguished, would quickly revive. It might dispose them not only to
respect, for whole centuries together, that treaty of commerce which
they had concluded with us at parting, but to favour us in war as well
as in trade, and instead of turbulent and factious subjects, to become
our most faithful, affectionate, and generous allies; and the same sort
of parental affection on the one side, and filial respect on the other,
might revive between Great Britain and her colonies, which used to
subsist between those of ancient Greece and the mother city from which
they descended.

In order to render any province advantageous to the empire to which it
belongs, it ought to afford, in time of peace, a revenue to the public,
sufficient not only for defraying the whole expense of its own peace
establishment, but for contributing its proportion to the support of
the general government of the empire. Every province necessarily
contributes, more or less, to increase the expense of that general
government. If any particular province, therefore, does not contribute
its share towards defraying this expense, an unequal burden must be
thrown upon some other part of the empire. The extraordinary revenue,
too, which every province affords to the public in time of war, ought,
from parity of reason, to bear the same proportion to the extraordinary
revenue of the whole empire, which its ordinary revenue does in time of
peace. That neither the ordinary nor extraordinary revenue which Great
Britain derives from her colonies, bears this proportion to the whole
revenue of the British empire, will readily be allowed. The monopoly,
it has been supposed, indeed, by increasing the private revenue of the
people of Great Britain, and thereby enabling them to pay greater taxes,
compensates the deficiency of the public revenue of the colonies. But
this monopoly, I have endeavoured to show, though a very grievous
tax upon the colonies, and though it may increase the revenue of
a particular order of men in Great Britain, diminishes, instead of
increasing, that of the great body of the people, and consequently
diminishes, instead of increasing, the ability of the great body of the
people to pay taxes. The men, too, whose revenue the monopoly increases,
constitute a particular order, which it is both absolutely impossible to
tax beyond the proportion of other orders, and extremely impolitic even
to attempt to tax beyond that proportion, as I shall endeavour to show
in the following book. No particular resource, therefore, can be drawn
from this particular order.

The colonies may be taxed either by their own assemblies, or by the
parliament of Great Britain.

That the colony assemblies can never be so managed as to levy upon their
constituents a public revenue, sufficient, not only to maintain at
all times their own civil and military establishment, but to pay their
proper proportion of the expense of the general government of the
British empire, seems not very probable. It was a long time before even
the parliament of England, though placed immediately under the eye of
the sovereign, could be brought under such a system of management, or
could be rendered sufficiently liberal in their grants for supporting
the civil and military establishments even of their own country. It was
only by distributing among the particular members of parliament a great
part either of the offices, or of the disposal of the offices arising
from this civil and military establishment, that such a system of
management could be established, even with regard to the parliament of
England. But the distance of the colony assemblies from the eye of the
sovereign, their number, their dispersed situation, and their various
constitutions, would render it very difficult to manage them in the same
manner, even though the sovereign had the same means of doing it; and
those means are wanting. It would be absolutely impossible to distribute
among all the leading members of all the colony assemblies such a share,
either of the offices, or of the disposal of the offices, arising from
the general government of the British empire, as to dispose them to
give up their popularity at home, and to tax their constituents for the
support of that general government, of which almost the whole emoluments
were to be divided among people who were strangers to them. The
unavoidable ignorance of administration, besides, concerning the
relative importance of the different members of those different
assemblies, the offences which must frequently be given, the blunders
which must constantly be committed, in attempting to manage them in
this manner, seems to render such a system of management altogether
impracticable with regard to them.

The colony assemblies, besides, cannot be supposed the proper judges of
what is necessary for the defence and support of the whole empire. The
care of that defence and support is not entrusted to them. It is not
their business, and they have no regular means of information concerning
it. The assembly of a province, like the vestry of a parish, may judge
very properly concerning the affairs of its own particular district,
but can have no proper means of judging concerning those of the whole
empire. It cannot even judge properly concerning the proportion which
its own province bears to the whole empire, or concerning the relative
degree of its wealth and importance, compared with the other provinces;
because those other provinces are not under the inspection and
superintendency of the assembly of a particular province. What is
necessary for the defence and support of the whole empire, and in what
proportion each part ought to contribute, can be judged of only by
that assembly which inspects and super-intends the affairs of the whole
empire.

It has been proposed, accordingly, that the colonies should be taxed by
requisition, the parliament of Great Britain determining the sum which
each colony ought to pay, and the provincial assembly assessing
and levying it in the way that suited best the circumstances of
the province. What concerned the whole empire would in this way be
determined by the assembly which inspects and superintends the affairs
of the whole empire; and the provincial affairs of each colony might
still be regulated by its own assembly. Though the colonies should, in
this case, have no representatives in the British parliament, yet, if we
may judge by experience, there is no probability that the parliamentary
requisition would be unreasonable. The parliament of England has not,
upon any occasion, shewn the smallest disposition to overburden those
parts of the empire which are not represented in parliament. The islands
of Guernsey and Jersey, without any means of resisting the authority
of parliament, are more lightly taxed than any part of Great Britain.
Parliament, in attempting to exercise its supposed right, whether well
or ill grounded, of taxing the colonies, has never hitherto demanded
of them anything which even approached to a just proportion to what
was paid by their fellow subjects at home. If the contribution of the
colonies, besides, was to rise or fall in proportion to the rise or fall
of the land-tax, parliament could not tax them without taxing, at the
same time, its own constituents, and the colonies might, in this case,
be considered as virtually represented in parliament.

Examples are not wanting of empires in which all the different provinces
are not taxed, if I may be allowed the expression, in one mass; but in
which the sovereign regulates the sum which each province ought to pay,
and in some provinces assesses and levies it as he thinks proper; while
in others he leaves it to be assessed and levied as the respective
states of each province shall determine. In some provinces of France,
the king not only imposes what taxes he thinks proper, but assesses
and levies them in the way he thinks proper. From others he demands a
certain sum, but leaves it to the states of each province to assess and
levy that sum as they think proper. According to the scheme of taxing by
requisition, the parliament of Great Britain would stand nearly in the
same situation towards the colony assemblies, as the king of France does
towards the states of those provinces which still enjoy the privilege of
having states of their own, the provinces of France which are supposed
to be the best governed.

But though, according to this scheme, the colonies could have no just
reason to fear that their share of the public burdens should ever exceed
the proper proportion to that of their fellow-citizens at home, Great
Britain might have just reason to fear that it never would amount to
that proper proportion. The parliament of Great Britain has not, for
some time past, had the same established authority in the colonies,
which the French king has in those provinces of France which still enjoy
the privilege of having states of their own. The colony assemblies,
if they were not very favourably disposed (and unless more skilfully
managed than they ever have been hitherto, they are not very likely to
be so), might still find many pretences for evading or rejecting the
most reasonable requisitions of parliament. A French war breaks out,
we shall suppose; ten millions must immediately be raised, in order to
defend the seat of the empire. This sum must be borrowed upon the credit
of some parliamentary fund mortgaged for paying the interest. Part of
this fund parliament proposes to raise by a tax to be levied in Great
Britain; and part of it by a requisition to all the different colony
assemblies of America and the West Indies. Would people readily advance
their money upon the credit of a fund which partly depended upon the
good humour of all those assemblies, far distant from the seat of the
war, and sometimes, perhaps, thinking themselves not much concerned
in the event of it? Upon such a fund, no more money would probably
be advanced than what the tax to be levied in Great Britain might be
supposed to answer for. The whole burden of the debt contracted on
account of the war would in this manner fall, as it always has done
hitherto, upon Great Britain; upon a part of the empire, and not upon
the whole empire. Great Britain is, perhaps, since the world began, the
only state which, as it has extended its empire, has only increased
its expense, without once augmenting its resources. Other states have
generally disburdened themselves, upon their subject and subordinate
provinces, of the most considerable part of the expense of defending the
empire. Great Britain has hitherto suffered her subject and subordinate
provinces to disburden themselves upon her of almost this whole expense.
In order to put Great Britain upon a footing of equality with her
own colonies, which the law has hitherto supposed to be subject and
subordinate, it seems necessary, upon the scheme of taxing them by
parliamentary requisition, that parliament should have some means of
rendering its requisitions immediately effectual, in case the colony
assemblies should attempt to evade or reject them; and what those means
are, it is not very easy to conceive, and it has not yet been explained.

Should the parliament of Great Britain, at the same time, be ever fully
established in the right of taxing the colonies, even independent of
the consent of their own assemblies, the importance of those assemblies
would, from that moment, be at an end, and with it, that of all the
leading men of British America. Men desire to have some share in the
management of public affairs, chiefly on account of the importance which
it gives them. Upon the power which the greater part of the leading
men, the natural aristocracy of every country, have of preserving
or defending their respective importance, depends the stability and
duration of every system of free government. In the attacks which those
leading men are continually making upon the importance of one another,
and in the defence of their own, consists the whole play of domestic
faction and ambition. The leading men of America, like those of all
other countries, desire to preserve their own importance. They feel,
or imagine, that if their assemblies, which they are fond of calling
parliaments, and of considering as equal in authority to the parliament
of Great Britain, should be so far degraded as to become the humble
ministers and executive officers of that parliament, the greater part of
their own importance would be at an end. They have rejected, therefore,
the proposal of being taxed by parliamentary requisition, and, like
other ambitious and high-spirited men, have rather chosen to draw the
sword in defence of their own importance.

Towards the declension of the Roman republic, the allies of Rome, who
had borne the principal burden of defending the state and extending the
empire, demanded to be admitted to all the privileges of Roman citizens.
Upon being refused, the social war broke out. During the course of that
war, Rome granted those privileges to the greater part of them, one
by one, and in proportion as they detached themselves from the general
confederacy. The parliament of Great Britain insists upon taxing the
colonies; and they refuse to be taxed by a parliament in which they are
not represented. If to each colony which should detach itself from
the general confederacy, Great Britain should allow such a number of
representatives as suited the proportion of what it contributed to the
public revenue of the empire, in consequence of its being subjected
to the same taxes, and in compensation admitted to the same freedom
of trade with its fellow-subjects at home; the number of its
representatives to be augmented as the proportion of its contribution
might afterwards augment; a new method of acquiring importance, a new
and more dazzling object of ambition, would be presented to the leading
men of each colony. Instead of piddling for the little prizes which are
to be found in what may be called the paltry raffle of colony faction,
they might then hope, from the presumption which men naturally have in
their own ability and good fortune, to draw some of the great prizes
which sometimes come from the wheel of the great state lottery of
British politics. Unless this or some other method is fallen upon,
and there seems to be none more obvious than this, of preserving the
importance and of gratifying the ambition of the leading men of America,
it is not very probable that they will ever voluntarily submit to us;
and we ought to consider, that the blood which must be shed in forcing
them to do so, is, every drop of it, the blood either of those who are,
or of those whom we wish to have for our fellow citizens. They are very
weak who flatter themselves that, in the state to which things have
come, our colonies will be easily conquered by force alone. The persons
who now govern the resolutions of what they call their continental
congress, feel in themselves at this moment a degree of importance
which, perhaps, the greatest subjects in Europe scarce feel. From
shopkeepers, trades men, and attorneys, they are become statesmen and
legislators, and are employed in contriving a new form of government for
an extensive empire, which, they flatter themselves, will become, and
which, indeed, seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most
formidable that ever was in the world. Five hundred different people,
perhaps, who, in different ways, act immediately under the continental
congress, and five hundred thousand, perhaps, who act under those five
hundred, all feel, in the same manner, a proportionable rise in their
own importance. Almost every individual of the governing party in
America fills, at present, in his own fancy, a station superior, not
only to what he had ever filled before, but to what he had ever expected
to fill; and unless some new object of ambition is presented either to
him or to his leaders, if he has the ordinary spirit of a man, he will
die in defence of that station.

It is a remark of the President Heynaut, that we now read with pleasure
the account of many little transactions of the Ligue, which, when they
happened, were not, perhaps, considered as very important pieces of
news. But everyman then, says he, fancied himself of some importance;
and the innumerable memoirs which have come down to us from those times,
were the greater part of them written by people who took pleasure in
recording and magnifying events, in which they flattered themselves they
had been considerable actors. How obstinately the city of Paris, upon
that occasion, defended itself, what a dreadful famine it supported,
rather than submit to the best, and afterwards the most beloved of all
the French kings, is well known. The greater part of the citizens, or
those who governed the greater part of them, fought in defence of their
own importance, which, they foresaw, was to be at an end whenever the
ancient government should be re-established. Our colonies, unless
they can be induced to consent to a union, are very likely to defend
themselves, against the best of all mother countries, as obstinately as
the city of Paris did against one of the best of kings.

The idea of representation was unknown in ancient times. When the people
of one state were admitted to the right of citizenship in another, they
had no other means of exercising that right, but by coming in a body to
vote and deliberate with the people of that other state. The admission
of the greater part of the inhabitants of Italy to the privileges of
Roman citizens, completely ruined the Roman republic. It was no longer
possible to distinguish between who was, and who was not, a Roman
citizen. No tribe could know its own members. A rabble of any kind could
be introduced into the assemblies of the people, could drive out the
real citizens, and decide upon the affairs of the republic, as if they
themselves had been such. But though America were to send fifty or
sixty new representatives to parliament, the door-keeper of the house
of commons could not find any great difficulty in distinguishing
between who was and who was not a member. Though the Roman constitution,
therefore, was necessarily ruined by the union of Rome with the allied
states of Italy, there is not the least probability that the British
constitution would be hurt by the union of Great Britain with her
colonies. That constitution, on the contrary, would be completed by it,
and seems to be imperfect without it. The assembly which deliberates and
decides concerning the affairs of every part of the empire, in order to
be properly informed, ought certainly to have representatives from every
part of it. That this union, however, could be easily effectuated,
or that difficulties, and great difficulties, might not occur in the
execution, I do not pretend. I have yet heard of none, however, which
appear insurmountable. The principal, perhaps, arise, not from the
nature of things, but from the prejudices and opinions of the people,
both on this and on the other side of the Atlantic.

We on this side the water are afraid lest the multitude of American
representatives should overturn the balance of the constitution, and
increase too much either the influence of the crown on the one hand, or
the force of the democracy on the other. But if the number of American
representatives were to be in proportion to the produce of American
taxation, the number of people to be managed would increase exactly in
proportion to the means of managing them, and the means of managing to
the number of people to be managed. The monarchical and democratical
parts of the constitution would, after the union, stand exactly in the
same degree of relative force with regard to one another as they had
done before.

The people on the other side of the water are afraid lest their distance
from the seat of government might expose them to many oppressions; but
their representatives in parliament, of which the number ought from the
first to be considerable, would easily be able to protect them from all
oppression. The distance could not much weaken the dependency of the
representative upon the constituent, and the former would still feel
that he owed his seat in parliament, and all the consequence which
he derived from it, to the good-will of the latter. It would be the
interest of the former, therefore, to cultivate that good-will, by
complaining, with all the authority of a member of the legislature, of
every outrage which any civil or military officer might be guilty of in
those remote parts of the empire. The distance of America from the
seat of government, besides, the natives of that country might flatter
themselves, with some appearance of reason too, would not be of very
long continuance. Such has hitherto been the rapid progress of that
country in wealth, population, and improvement, that in the course of
little more than a century, perhaps, the produce of the American might
exceed that of the British taxation. The seat of the empire would then
naturally remove itself to that part of the empire which contributed
most to the general defence and support of the whole.

The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by
the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events
recorded in the history of mankind. Their consequences have already been
great; but, in the short period of between two and three centuries which
has elapsed since these discoveries were made, it is impossible that the
whole extent of their consequences can have been seen. What benefits
or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great
events, no human wisdom can foresee. By uniting in some measure the most
distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another's
wants, to increase one another's enjoyments, and to encourage one
another's industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial.
To the natives, however, both of the East and West Indies, all the
commercial benefits which can have resulted from those events have been
sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned.
These misfortunes, however, seem to have arisen rather from accident
than from any thing in the nature of those events themselves. At the
particular time when these discoveries were made, the superiority of
force happened to be so great on the side of the Europeans, that they
were enabled to commit with impunity every sort of injustice in those
remote countries. Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may
grow stronger, or those of Europe may grow weaker; and the inhabitants
of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that equality
of courage and force which, by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe
the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the
rights of one another. But nothing seems more likely to establish this
equality of force, than that mutual communication of knowledge, and
of all sorts of improvements, which an extensive commerce from all
countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries
along with it.

In the mean time, one of the principal effects of those discoveries has
been, to raise the mercantile system to a degree of splendour and glory
which it could never otherwise have attained to. It is the object of
that system to enrich a great nation, rather by trade and manufactures
than by the improvement and cultivation of land, rather by the industry
of the towns than by that of the country. But in consequence of those
discoveries, the commercial towns of Europe, instead of being the
manufacturers and carriers for but a very small part of the world (that
part of Europe which is washed by the Atlantic ocean, and the countries
which lie round the Baltic and Mediterranean seas), have now become the
manufacturers for the numerous and thriving cultivators of America, and
the carriers, and in some respects the manufacturers too, for almost all
the different nations of Asia, Africa, and America. Two new worlds
have been opened to their industry, each of them much greater and more
extensive than the old one, and the market of one of them growing still
greater and greater every day.

The countries which possess the colonies of America, and which trade
directly to the East Indies, enjoy indeed the whole show and splendour
of this great commerce. Other countries, however, notwithstanding
all the invidious restraints by which it is meant to exclude them,
frequently enjoy a greater share of the real benefit of it. The colonies
of Spain and Portugal, for example, give more real encouragement to the
industry of other countries than to that of Spain and Portugal. In
the single article of linen alone, the consumption of those colonies
amounts, it is said (but I do not pretend to warrant the quantity ), to
more than three millions sterling a-year. But this great consumption
is almost entirely supplied by France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany.
Spain and Portugal furnish but a small part of it. The capital which
supplies the colonies with this great quantity of linen, is annually
distributed among, and furnishes a revenue to, the inhabitants of those
other countries. The profits of it only are spent in Spain and Portugal,
where they help to support the sumptuous profusion of the merchants of
Cadiz and Lisbon.

Even the regulations by which each nation endeavours to secure to itself
the exclusive trade of its own colonies, are frequently more hurtful
to the countries in favour of which they are established, than to
those against which they are established. The unjust oppression of the
industry of other countries falls back, if I may say so, upon the heads
of the oppressors, and crushes their industry more than it does that of
those other countries. By those regulations, for example, the merchant
of Hamburg must send the linen which he destines for the American market
to London, and he must bring back from thence the tobacco which he
destines for the German market; because he can neither send the one
directly to America, nor bring the other directly from thence. By this
restraint he is probably obliged to sell the one somewhat cheaper, and
to buy the other somewhat dearer, than he otherwise might have done;
and his profits are probably somewhat abridged by means of it. In this
trade, however, between Hamburg and London, he certainly receives the
returns of his capital much more quickly than he could possibly have
done in the direct trade to America, even though we should suppose, what
is by no means the case, that the payments of America were as punctual
as those of London. In the trade, therefore, to which those regulations
confine the merchant of Hamburg, his capital can keep in constant
employment a much greater quantity of German industry than he possibly
could have done in the trade from which he is excluded. Though the one
employment, therefore, may to him perhaps be less profitable than
the other, it cannot be less advantageous to his country. It is
quite otherwise with the employment into which the monopoly naturally
attracts, if I may say so, the capital of the London merchant. That
employment may, perhaps, be more profitable to him than the greater part
of other employments; but on account of the slowness of the returns, it
cannot be more advantageous to his country.

After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of every country in Europe to
engross to itself the whole advantage of the trade of its own colonies,
no country has yet been able to engross to itself any thing but the
expense of supporting in time of peace, and of defending in time of war,
the oppressive authority which it assumes over them. The inconveniencies
resulting from the possession of its colonies, every country has
engrossed to itself completely. The advantages resulting from their
trade, it has been obliged to share with many other countries.

At first sight, no doubt, the monopoly of the great commerce of America
naturally seems to be an acquisition of the highest value. To the
undiscerning eye of giddy ambition it naturally presents itself, amidst
the confused scramble of politics and war, as a very dazzling object to
fight for. The dazzling splendour of the object, however, the immense
greatness of the commerce, is the very quality which renders the
monopoly of it hurtful, or which makes one employment, in its own nature
necessarily less advantageous to the country than the greater part of
other employments, absorb a much greater proportion of the capital of
the country than what would otherwise have gone to it.

The mercantile stock of every country, it has been shown in the
second book, naturally seeks, if one may say so, the employment most
advantageous to that country. If it is employed in the carrying trade,
the country to which it belongs becomes the emporium of the goods of all
the countries whose trade that stock carries on. But the owner of that
stock necessarily wishes to dispose of as great a part of those goods as
he can at home. He thereby saves himself the trouble, risk, and expense
of exportation; and he will upon that account be glad to sell them at
home, not only for a much smaller price, but with somewhat a smaller
profit, than he might expect to make by sending them abroad. He
naturally, therefore, endeavours as much as he can to turn his carrying
trade into a foreign trade of consumption, If his stock, again, is
employed in a foreign trade of consumption, he will, for the same
reason, be glad to dispose of, at home, as great a part as he can of the
home goods which he collects in order to export to some foreign market,
and he will thus endeavour, as much as he can, to turn his foreign trade
of consumption into a home trade. The mercantile stock of every
country naturally courts in this manner the near, and shuns the distant
employment: naturally courts the employment in which the returns are
frequent, and shuns that in which they are distant and slow; naturally
courts the employment in which it can maintain the greatest quantity of
productive labour in the country to which it belongs, or in which
its owner resides, and shuns that in which it can maintain there the
smallest quantity. It naturally courts the employment which in ordinary
cases is most advantageous, and shuns that which in ordinary cases is
least advantageous to that country.

But if, in any one of those distant employments, which in ordinary cases
are less advantageous to the country, the profit should happen to
rise somewhat higher than what is sufficient to balance the natural
preference which is given to nearer employments, this superiority of
profit will draw stock from those nearer employments, till the profits
of all return to their proper level. This superiority of profit,
however, is a proof that, in the actual circumstances of the society,
those distant employments are somewhat understocked in proportion to
other employments, and that the stock of the society is not distributed
in the properest manner among all the different employments carried on
in it. It is a proof that something is either bought cheaper or sold
dearer than it ought to be, and that some particular class of citizens
is more or less oppressed, either by paying more, or by getting less
than what is suitable to that equality which ought to take place, and
which naturally does take place, among all the different classes of
them. Though the same capital never will maintain the same quantity of
productive labour in a distant as in a near employment, yet a distant
employment maybe as necessary for the welfare of the society as a near
one; the goods which the distant employment deals in being necessary,
perhaps, for carrying on many of the nearer employments. But if the
profits of those who deal in such goods are above their proper level,
those goods will be sold dearer than they ought to be, or somewhat above
their natural price, and all those engaged in the nearer employments
will be more or less oppressed by this high price. Their interest,
therefore, in this case, requires, that some stock should be withdrawn
from those nearer employments, and turned towards that distant one, in
order to reduce its profits to their proper level, and the price of the
goods which it deals in to their natural price. In this extraordinary
case, the public interest requires that some stock should be withdrawn
from those employments which, in ordinary cases, are more advantageous,
and turned towards one which, in ordinary cases, is less advantageous to
the public; and, in this extraordinary case, the natural interests and
inclinations of men coincide as exactly with the public interests as in
all other ordinary cases, and lead them to withdraw stock from the near,
and to turn it towards the distant employments.

It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals
naturally dispose them to turn their stock towards the employments which
in ordinary cases, are most advantageous to the society. But if from
this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those
employments, the fall of profit in them, and the rise of it in all
others, immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution.
Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and
passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock
of every society among all the different employments carried on in it;
as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the
interest of the whole society.

All the different regulations of the mercantile system necessarily
derange more or less this natural and most advantageous distribution of
stock. But those which concern the trade to America and the East Indies
derange it, perhaps, more than any other; because the trade to those two
great continents absorbs a greater quantity of stock than any two other
branches of trade. The regulations, however, by which this derangement
is effected in those two different branches of trade, are not altogether
the same. Monopoly is the great engine of both; but it is a different
sort of monopoly. Monopoly of one kind or another, indeed, seems to be
the sole engine of the mercantile system.

In the trade to America, every nation endeavours to engross as much as
possible the whole market of its own colonies, by fairly excluding all
other nations from any direct trade to them. During the greater part of
the sixteenth century, the Portuguese endeavoured to manage the trade
to the East Indies in the same manner, by claiming the sole right of
sailing in the Indian seas, on account of the merit of having first
found out the road to them. The Dutch still continue to exclude all
other European nations from any direct trade to their spice islands.
Monopolies of this kind are evidently established against all other
European nations, who are thereby not only excluded from a trade to
which it might be convenient for them to turn some part of their stock,
but are obliged to buy the goods which that trade deals in, somewhat
dearer than if they could import them themselves directly from the
countries which produced them.

But since the fall of the power of Portugal, no European nation has
claimed the exclusive right of sailing in the Indian seas, of which
the principal ports are now open to the ships of all European nations.
Except in Portugal, however, and within these few years in France, the
trade to the East Indies has, in every European country, been
subjected to an exclusive company. Monopolies of this kind are properly
established against the very nation which erects them. The greater part
of that nation are thereby not only excluded from a trade to which it
might be convenient for them to turn some part of their stock, but are
obliged to buy the goods which that trade deals in somewhat dearer than
if it was open and free to all their countrymen. Since the establishment
of the English East India company, for example, the other inhabitants of
England, over and above being excluded from the trade, must have paid,
in the price of the East India goods which they have consumed, not only
for all the extraordinary profits which the company may have made
upon those goods in consequence of their monopoly, but for all the
extraordinary waste which the fraud and abuse inseparable from the
management of the affairs of so great a company must necessarily have
occasioned. The absurdity of this second kind of monopoly, therefore, is
much more manifest than that of the first.

Both these kinds of monopolies derange more or less the natural
distribution of the stock of the society; but they do not always derange
it in the same way.

Monopolies of the first kind always attract to the particular trade
in which they are established a greater proportion of the stock of the
society than what would go to that trade of its own accord.

Monopolies of the second kind may sometimes attract stock towards the
particular trade in which they are established, and sometimes repel
it from that trade, according to different circumstances. In poor
countries, they naturally attract towards that trade more stock than
would otherwise go to it. In rich countries, they naturally repel from
it a good deal of stock which would otherwise go to it.

Such poor countries as Sweden and Denmark, for example, would probably
have never sent a single ship to the East Indies, had not the trade been
subjected to an exclusive company. The establishment of such a company
necessarily encourages adventurers. Their monopoly secures them against
all competitors in the home market, and they have the same chance for
foreign markets with the traders of other nations. Their monopoly shows
them the certainty of a great profit upon a considerable quantity of
goods, and the chance of a considerable profit upon a great quantity.
Without such extraordinary encouragement, the poor traders of such poor
countries would probably never have thought of hazarding their small
capitals in so very distant and uncertain an adventure as the trade to
the East Indies must naturally have appeared to them.

Such a rich country as Holland, on the contrary, would probably, in the
case of a free trade, send many more ships to the East Indies than
it actually does. The limited stock of the Dutch East India company
probably repels from that trade many great mercantile capitals which
would otherwise go to it. The mercantile capital of Holland is so great,
that it is, as it were, continually overflowing, sometimes into the
public funds of foreign countries, sometimes into loans to private
traders and adventurers of foreign countries, sometimes into the most
round-about foreign trades of consumption, and sometimes into the
carrying trade. All near employments being completely filled up, all
the capital which can be placed in them with any tolerable profit being
already placed in them, the capital of Holland necessarily flows towards
the most distant employments. The trade to the East Indies, if it
were altogether free, would probably absorb the greater part of
this redundant capital. The East Indies offer a market both for the
manufactures of Europe, and for the gold and silver, as well as for the
several other productions of America, greater and more extensive than
both Europe and America put together.

Every derangement of the natural distribution of stock is necessarily
hurtful to the society in which it takes place; whether it be by
repelling from a particular trade the stock which would otherwise go
to it, or by attracting towards a particular trade that which would not
otherwise come to it. If, without any exclusive company, the trade of
Holland to the East Indies would be greater than it actually is, that
country must suffer a considerable loss, by part of its capital being
excluded from the employment most convenient for that port. And, in the
same manner, if, without an exclusive company, the trade of Sweden and
Denmark to the East Indies would be less than it actually is, or, what
perhaps is more probable, would not exist at all, those two countries
must likewise suffer a considerable loss, by part of their capital being
drawn into an employment which must be more or less unsuitable to
their present circumstances. Better for them, perhaps, in the present
circumstances, to buy East India goods of other nations, even though
they should pay somewhat dearer, than to turn so great a part of their
small capital to so very distant a trade, in which the returns are so
very slow, in which that capital can maintain so small a quantity of
productive labour at home, where productive labour is so much wanted,
where so little is done, and where so much is to do.

Though without an exclusive company, therefore, a particular country
should not be able to carry on any direct trade to the East Indies, it
will not from thence follow, that such a company ought to be established
there, but only that such a country ought not, in these circumstances,
to trade directly to the East Indies. That such companies are not in
general necessary for carrying on the East India trade, is sufficiently
demonstrated by the experience of the Portuguese, who enjoyed almost
the whole of it for more than a century together, without any exclusive
company.

No private merchant, it has been said, could well have capital
sufficient to maintain factors and agents in the different ports of
the East Indies, in order to provide goods for the ships which he might
occasionally send thither; and yet, unless he was able to do this, the
difficulty of finding a cargo might frequently make his ships lose the
season for returning; and the expense of so long a delay would not only
eat up the whole profit of the adventure, but frequently occasion a very
considerable loss. This argument, however, if it proved any thing at
all, would prove that no one great branch of trade could be carried on
without an exclusive company, which is contrary to the experience of all
nations. There is no great branch of trade, in which the capital of any
one private merchant is sufficient for carrying on all the subordinate
branches which must be carried on, in order to carry on the principal
one. But when a nation is ripe for any great branch of trade, some
merchants naturally turn their capitals towards the principal, and some
towards the subordinate branches of it; and though all the different
branches of it are in this manner carried on, yet it very seldom happens
that they are all carried on by the capital of one private merchant. If
a nation, therefore, is ripe for the East India trade, a certain portion
of its capital will naturally divide itself among all the different
branches of that trade. Some of its merchants will find it for their
interest to reside in the East Indies, and to employ their capitals
there in providing goods for the ships which are to be sent out by other
merchants who reside in Europe. The settlements which different European
nations have obtained in the East Indies, if they were taken from the
exclusive companies to which they at present belong, and put under the
immediate protection of the sovereign, would render this residence both
safe and easy, at least to the merchants of the particular nations to
whom those settlements belong. If, at any particular time, that part of
the capital of any country which of its own accord tended and inclined,
if I may say so, towards the East India trade, was not sufficient for
carrying on all those different branches of it, it would be a proof
that, at that particular time, that country was not ripe for that trade,
and that it would do better to buy for some time, even at a higher
price, from other European nations, the East India goods it had occasion
for, than to import them itself directly from the East Indies. What it
might lose by the high price of those goods, could seldom be equal to
the loss which it would sustain by the distraction of a large portion
of its capital from other employments more necessary, or more useful, or
more suitable to its circumstances and situation, than a direct trade to
the East Indies.

Though the Europeans possess many considerable settlements both upon the
coast of Africa and in the East Indies, they have not yet established,
in either of those countries, such numerous and thriving colonies as
those in the islands and continent of America. Africa, however, as well
as several of the countries comprehended under the general name of the
East Indies, is inhabited by barbarous nations. But those nations
were by no means so weak and defenceless as the miserable and helpless
Americans; and in proportion to the natural fertility of the countries
which they inhabited, they were, besides, much more populous. The
most barbarous nations either of Africa or of the East Indies, were
shepherds; even the Hottentots were so. But the natives of every part of
America, except Mexico and Peru, were only hunters and the difference is
very great between the number of shepherds and that of hunters whom the
same extent of equally fertile territory can maintain. In Africa and the
East Indies, therefore, it was more difficult to displace the natives,
and to extend the European plantations over the greater part of the
lands of the original inhabitants. The genius of exclusive companies,
besides, is unfavourable, it has already been observed, to the growth
of new colonies, and has probably been the principal cause of the little
progress which they have made in the East Indies. The Portuguese carried
on the trade both to Africa and the East Indies, without any exclusive
companies; and their settlements at Congo, Angola, and Benguela, on the
coast of Africa, and at Goa in the East Indies though much depressed by
superstition and every sort of bad government, yet bear some resemblance
to the colonies of America, and are partly inhabited by Portuguese
who have been established there for several generations. The Dutch
settlements at the Cape of Good Hope and at Batavia, are at present the
most considerable colonies which the Europeans have established,
either in Africa or in the East Indies; and both those settlements
an peculiarly fortunate in their situation. The Cape of Good Hope
was inhabited by a race of people almost as barbarous, and quite as
incapable of defending themselves, as the natives of America. It is,
besides, the half-way house, if one may say so, between Europe and the
East Indies, at which almost every European ship makes some stay, both
in going and returning. The supplying of those ships with every sort of
fresh provisions, with fruit, and sometimes with wine, affords alone a
very extensive market for the surplus produce of the colonies. What the
Cape of Good Hope is between Europe and every part of the East Indies,
Batavia is between the principal countries of the East Indies. It lies
upon the most frequented road from Indostan to China and Japan, and is
nearly about mid-way upon that road. Almost all the ships too, that sail
between Europe and China, touch at Batavia; and it is, over and above
all this, the centre and principal mart of what is called the country
trade of the East Indies; not only of that part of it which is carried
on by Europeans, but of that which is carried on by the native Indians;
and vessels navigated by the inhabitants of China and Japan, of Tonquin,
Malacca, Cochin-China, and the island of Celebes, are frequently to be
seen in its port. Such advantageous situations have enabled those two
colonies to surmount all the obstacles which the oppressive genius of
an exclusive company may have occasionally opposed to their growth. They
have enabled Batavia to surmount the additional disadvantage of perhaps
the most unwholesome climate in the world.

The English and Dutch companies, though they have established no
considerable colonies, except the two above mentioned, have both made
considerable conquests in the East Indies. But in the manner in which
they both govern their new subjects, the natural genius of an exclusive
company has shewn itself most distinctly. In the spice islands,
the Dutch are said to burn all the spiceries which a fertile season
produces, beyond what they expect to dispose of in Europe with such
a profit as they think sufficient. In the islands where they have no
settlements, they give a premium to those who collect the young blossoms
and green leaves of the clove and nutmeg trees, which naturally
grow there, but which this savage policy has now, it is said, almost
completely extirpated. Even in the islands where they have settlements,
they have very much reduced, it is said, the number of those trees. If
the produce even of their own islands was much greater than what suited
their market, the natives, they suspect, might find means to convey some
part of it to other nations; and the best way, they imagine, to secure
their own monopoly, is to take care that no more shall grow than what
they themselves carry to market. By different arts of oppression, they
have reduced the population of several of the Moluccas nearly to the
number which is sufficient to supply with fresh provisions, and other
necessaries of life, their own insignificant garrisons, and such of
their ships as occasionally come there for a cargo of spices. Under the
government even of the Portuguese, however, those islands are said to
have been tolerably well inhabited. The English company have not yet had
time to establish in Bengal so perfectly destructive a system. The plan
of their government, however, has had exactly the same tendency. It has
not been uncommon, I am well assured, for the chief, that is, the first
clerk or a factory, to order a peasant to plough up a rich field of
poppies, and sow it with rice, or some other grain. The pretence was, to
prevent a scarcity of provisions; but the real reason, to give the chief
an opportunity of selling at a better price a large quantity of opium
which he happened then to have upon hand. Upon other occasions, the
order has been reversed; and a rich field of rice or other grain has
been ploughed up, in order to make room for a plantation of poppies,
when the chief foresaw that extraordinary profit was likely to be made
by opium. The servants of the company have, upon several occasions,
attempted to establish in their own favour the monopoly of some of the
most important branches, not only of the foreign, but of the inland
trade of the country. Had they been allowed to go on, it is impossible
that they should not, at some time or another, have attempted to
restrain the production of the particular articles of which they
had thus usurped the monopoly, not only to the quantity which they
themselves could purchase, but to that which they could expect to sell
with such a profit as they might think sufficient. In the course of a
century or two, the policy of the English company would, in this manner,
have probably proved as completely destructive as that of the Dutch.

Nothing, however, can be more directly contrary to the real interest
of those companies, considered as the sovereigns of the countries
which they have conquered, than this destructive plan. In almost all
countries, the revenue of the sovereign is drawn from that of the
people. The greater the revenue of the people, therefore, the greater
the annual produce of their land and labour, the more they can afford
to the sovereign. It is his interest, therefore, to increase as much
as possible that annual produce. But if this is the interest of every
sovereign, it is peculiarly so of one whose revenue, like that of the
sovereign of Bengal, arises chiefly from a land-rent. That rent must
necessarily be in proportion to the quantity and value of the produce;
and both the one and the other must depend upon the extent of the
market. The quantity will always be suited, with more or less exactness,
to the consumption of those who can afford to pay for it; and the price
which they will pay will always be in proportion to the eagerness of
their competition. It is the interest of such a sovereign, therefore, to
open the most extensive market for the produce of his country, to allow
the most perfect freedom of commerce, in order to increase as much as
possible the number and competition of buyers; and upon this account
to abolish, not only all monopolies, but all restraints upon the
transportation of the home produce from one part of the country
to mother, upon its exportation to foreign countries, or upon the
importation of goods of' any kind for which it can be exchanged. He is
in this manner most likely to increase both the quantity and value of
that produce, and consequently of his own share of it, or of his own
revenue.

But a company of merchants, are, it seems, incapable of considering
themselves as sovereigns, even after they have become such. Trade, or
buying in order to sell again, they still consider as their principal
business, and by a strange absurdity, regard the character of the
sovereign as but an appendix to that of the merchant; as something which
ought to be made subservient to it, or by means of which they may be
enabled to buy cheaper in India, and thereby to sell with a better
profit in Europe. They endeavour, for this purpose, to keep out as much
as possible all competitors from the market of the countries which are
subject to their government, and consequently to reduce, at least,
some part of the surplus produce of those countries to what is barely
sufficient for supplying their own demand, or to what they can expect to
sell in Europe, with such a profit as they may think reasonable. Their
mercantile habits draw them in this manner, almost necessarily, though
perhaps insensibly, to prefer, upon all ordinary occasions, the little
and transitory profit of the monopolist to the great and permanent
revenue of the sovereign; and would gradually lead them to treat the
countries subject to their government nearly as the Dutch treat the
Moluccas. It is the interest of the East India company, considered as
sovereigns, that the European goods which are carried to their Indian
dominions should be sold there as cheap as possible; and that the Indian
goods which are brought from thence should bring there as good a price,
or should be sold there as dear as possible. But the reverse of this is
their interest as merchants. As sovereigns, their interest is exactly
the same with that of the country which they govern. As merchants, their
interest is directly opposite to that interest.

But if the genius of such a government, even as to what concerns
its direction in Europe, is in this manner essentially, and perhaps
incurably faulty, that of its administration in India is still more so.
That administration is necessarily composed of a council of merchants,
a profession no doubt extremely respectable, but which in no country in
the world carries along with it that sort of authority which naturally
overawes the people, and without force commands their willing obedience.
Such a council can command obedience only by the military force
with which they are accompanied; and their government is, therefore,
necessarily military and despotical. Their proper business, however,
is that of merchants. It is to sell, upon their master's account, the
European goods consigned to them, and to buy, in return, Indian goods
for the European market. It is to sell the one as dear, and to buy the
other as cheap as possible, and consequently to exclude, as much as
possible, all rivals from the particular market where they keep their
shop. The genius of the administration, therefore, so far as concerns
the trade of the company, is the same as that of the direction. It
tends to make government subservient to the interest of monopoly, and
consequently to stunt the natural growth of some parts, at least, of
the surplus produce of the country, to what is barely sufficient for
answering the demand of the company.

All the members of the administration besides, trade more or less upon
their own account; and it is in vain to prohibit them from doing so.
Nothing can be more completely foolish than to expect that the clerk of
a great counting-house, at ten thousand miles distance, and consequently
almost quite out of sight, should, upon a simple order from their
master, give up at once doing any sort of business upon their own
account abandon for ever all hopes of making a fortune, of which they
have the means in their hands; and content themselves with the moderate
salaries which those masters allow them, and which, moderate as they
are, can seldom be augmented, being commonly as large as the real
profits of the company trade can afford. In such circumstances, to
prohibit the servants of the company from trading upon their own
account, can have scarce any other effect than to enable its superior
servants, under pretence of executing their master's order, to oppress
such of the inferior ones as have had the misfortune to fall under their
displeasure. The servants naturally endeavour to establish the same
monopoly in favour of their own private trade as of the public trade of
the company. If they are suffered to act as they could wish, they will
establish this monopoly openly and directly, by fairly prohibiting all
other people from trading in the articles in which they choose to deal;
and this, perhaps, is the best and least oppressive way of establishing
it. But if, by an order from Europe, they are prohibited from doing
this, they will, notwithstanding, endeavour to establish a monopoly
of the same kind secretly and indirectly, in a way that is much more
destructive to the country. They will employ the whole authority of
government, and pervert the administration of Justice, in order to
harass and ruin those who interfere with them in any branch of commerce,
which by means of agents, either concealed, or at least not publicly
avowed, they may choose to carry on. But the private trade of the
servants will naturally extend to a much greater variety of articles
than the public trade of the company. The public trade of the company
extends no further than the trade with Europe, and comprehends a part
only of the foreign trade of the country. But the private trade of the
servants may extend to all the different branches both of its inland and
foreign trade. The monopoly of the company can tend only to stunt the
natural growth of that part of the surplus produce which, in the case of
a free trade, would be exported to Europe. That of the servants tends
to stunt the natural growth of every part of the produce in which they
choose to deal; of what is destined for home consumption, as well as
of what is destined for exportation; and consequently to degrade the
cultivation of the whole country, and to reduce the number of its
inhabitants. It tends to reduce the quantity of every sort of produce,
even that of the necessaries of life, whenever the servants of the
country choose to deal in them, to what those servants can both afford
to buy and expect to sell with such a profit as pleases them.

From the nature of their situation, too, the servants must be more
disposed to support with rigourous severity their own interest, against
that of the country which they govern, than their masters can be to
support theirs. The country belongs to their masters, who cannot avoid
having some regard for the interest of what belongs to them; but it does
not belong to the servants. The real interest of their masters, if they
were capable of understanding it, is the same with that of the country;
{The interest of every proprietor of India stock, however, is by no
means the same with that of the country in the government of which his
vote gives him some influence.--See book v, chap. 1, part ii.}and it is
from ignorance chiefly, and the meanness of mercantile prejudice, that
they ever oppress it. But the real interest of the servants is by
no means the same with that of the country, and the most perfect
information would not necessarily put an end to their oppressions. The
regulations, accordingly, which have been sent out from Europe, though
they have been frequently weak, have upon most occasions been well
meaning. More intelligence, and perhaps less good meaning, has sometimes
appeared in those established by the servants in India. It is a very
singular government in which every member of the administration wishes
to get out of the country, and consequently to have done with the
government, as soon as he can, and to whose interest, the day after he
has left it, and carried his whole fortune with him, it is perfectly
indifferent though the whole country was swallowed up by an earthquake.

I mean not, however, by any thing which I have here said, to throw any
odious imputation upon the general character of the servants of the East
India company, and touch less upon that of any particular persons. It is
the system of government, the situation in which they are placed, that
I mean to censure, not the character of those who have acted in it. They
acted as their situation naturally directed, and they who have
clamoured the loudest against them would probably not have acted better
themselves. In war and negotiation, the councils of Madras and Calcutta,
have upon several occasions, conducted themselves with a resolution and
decisive wisdom, which would have done honour to the senate of Rome in
the best days of that republic. The members of those councils, however,
had been bred to professions very different from war and politics. But
their situation alone, without education, experience, or even example,
seems to have formed in them all at once the great qualities which it
required, and to have inspired them both with abilities and virtues
which they themselves could not well know that they possessed. If
upon some occasions, therefore, it has animated them to actions of
magnanimity which could not well have been expected from them, we should
not wonder if, upon others, it has prompted them to exploits of somewhat
a different nature.

Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect;
always more or less inconvenient to the countries in which they are
established, and destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall
under their government.



CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION OF THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.

Though the encouragement of exportation, and the discouragement of
importation, are the two great engines by which the mercantile system
proposes to enrich every country, yet, with regard to some particular
commodities, it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage
exportation, and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object,
however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by an
advantageous balance of trade. It discourages the exportation of the
materials of manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order to
give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those
of other nations in all foreign markets; and by restraining, in this
manner, the exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it
proposes to occasion a much greater and more valuable exportation of
others. It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture,
in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more
cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of
the manufactured commodities. I do not observe, at least in our statute
book, any encouragement given to the importation of the instruments of
trade. When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness,
the fabrication of the instruments of trade becomes itself the object
of a great number of very important manufactures. To give any particular
encouragement to the importation of such instruments, would interfere
too much with the interest of those manufactures. Such importation,
therefore, instead of being encouraged, has frequently been prohibited.
Thus the importation of wool cards, except from Ireland, or when brought
in as wreck or prize goods, was prohibited by the 3rd of Edward IV.;
which prohibition was renewed by the 39th of Elizabeth, and has been
continued and rendered perpetual by subsequent laws.

The importation of the materials of manufacture has sometimes been
encouraged by an exemption from the duties to which other goods are
subject, and sometimes by bounties.

The importation of sheep's wool from several different countries, of
cotton wool from all countries, of undressed flax, of the greater part
of dyeing drugs, of the greater part of undressed hides from Ireland, or
the British colonies, of seal skins from the British Greenland fishery,
of pig and bar iron from the British colonies, as well as of several
other materials of manufacture, has been encouraged by an exemption
from all duties, if properly entered at the custom-house. The private
interest of our merchants and manufacturers may, perhaps, have extorted
from the legislature these exemptions, as well as the greater part of
our other commercial regulations. They are, however, perfectly just and
reasonable; and if, consistently with the necessities of the state, they
could be extended to all the other materials of manufacture, the public
would certainly be a gainer.

The avidity of our great manufacturers, however, has in some cases
extended these exemptions a good deal beyond what can justly be
considered as the rude materials of their work. By the 24th Geo. II.
chap. 46, a small duty of only 1d. the pound was imposed upon the
importation of foreign brown linen yarn, instead of much higher duties,
to which it had been subjected before, viz. of 6d. the pound upon sail
yarn, of 1s. the pound upon all French and Dutch yarn, and of £2:13:4
upon the hundred weight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn. But our
manufacturers were not long satisfied with this reduction: by the 29th
of the same king, chap. 15, the same law which gave a bounty upon the
exportation of British and Irish linen, of which the price did not
exceed 18d. the yard, even this small duty upon the importation of brown
linen yarn was taken away. In the different operations, however, which
are necessary for the preparation of linen yarn, a good deal more
industry is employed, than in the subsequent operation of preparing
linen cloth from linen yarn. To say nothing of the industry of the
flax-growers and flaxdressers, three or four spinners at least are
necessary in order to keep one weaver in constant employment; and more
than four-fifths of the whole quantity of labour necessary for the
preparation of linen cloth, is employed in that of linen yarn; but
our spinners are poor people; women commonly scattered about in all
different parts of the country, without support or protection. It is
not by the sale of their work, but by that of the complete work of the
weavers, that our great master manufacturers make their profits. As it
is their interest to sell the complete manufacture as dear, so it is
to buy the materials as cheap as possible. By extorting from the
legislature bounties upon the exportation of their own linen,
high duties upon the importation of all foreign linen, and a total
prohibition of the home consumption of some sorts of French linen, they
endeavour to sell their own goods as dear as possible. By encouraging
the importation of foreign linen yarn, and thereby bringing it into
competition with that which is made by our own people, they endeavour
to buy the work of the poor spinners as cheap as possible. They are as
intent to keep down the wages of their own weavers, as the earnings of
the poor spinners; and it is by no means for the benefit of the workmen
that they endeavour either to raise the price of the complete work, or
to lower that of the rude materials. It is the industry which is carried
on for the benefit of the rich and the powerful, that is principally
encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is carried on for the
benefit of the poor and the indigent is too often either neglected or
oppressed.

Both the bounty upon the exportation of linen, and the exemption from
the duty upon the importation of foreign yarn, which were granted only
for fifteen years, but continued by two different prolongations, expire
with the end of the session of parliament which shall immediately follow
the 24th of June 1786.

The encouragement given to the importation of the materials of
manufacture by bounties, has been principally confined to such as were
imported from our American plantations.

The first bounties of this kind were those granted about the beginning
of the present century, upon the importation of naval stores from
America. Under this denomination were comprehended timber fit for masts,
yards, and bowsprits; hemp, tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty,
however, of £1 the ton upon masting-timber, and that of £6 the ton upon
hemp, were extended to such as should be imported into England from
Scotland. Both these bounties continued, without any variation, at the
same rate, till they were severally allowed to expire; that upon hemp on
the 1st of January 1741, and that upon masting-timber at the end of the
session of parliament immediately following the 24th June 1781.

The bounties upon the importation of tar, pitch, and turpentine,
underwent, during their continuance, several alterations. Originally,
that upon tar was £4 the ton; that upon pitch the same; and that upon
turpentine £3 the ton. The bounty of £4 the ton upon tar was afterwards
confined to such as had been prepared in a particular manner; that upon
other good, clean, and merchantable tar was reduced to £2:4s. the
ton. The bounty upon pitch was likewise reduced to £1, and that upon
turpentine to £1:10s. the ton.

The second bounty upon the importation of any of the materials of
manufacture, according to the order of time, was that granted by the
21st Geo. II. chap.30, upon the importation of indigo from the British
plantations. When the plantation indigo was worth three-fourths of the
price of the best French indigo, it was, by this act, entitled to a
bounty of 6d. the pound. This bounty, which, like most others, was
granted only for a limited time, was continued by several prolongations,
but was reduced to 4d. the pound. It was allowed to expire with the end
of the session of parliament which followed the 25th March 1781.

The third bounty of this kind was that granted (much about the time that
we were beginning sometimes to court, and sometimes to quarrel with our
American colonies), by the 4th. Geo. III. chap. 26, upon the importation
of hemp, or undressed flax, from the British plantations. This bounty
was granted for twenty-one years, from the 24th June 1764 to the 24th
June 1785. For the first seven years, it was to be at the rate of £8 the
ton; for the second at £6; and for the third at £4. It was not extended
to Scotland, of which the climate (although hemp is sometimes raised
there in small quantities, and of an inferior quality) is not very fit
for that produce. Such a bounty upon the importation of Scotch flax in
England would have been too great a discouragement to the native produce
of the southern part of the united kingdom.

The fourth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 5th Geo. III.
chap. 45, upon the importation of wood from America. It was granted for
nine years from the 1st January 1766 to the 1st January 1775. During the
first three years, it was to be for every hundred-and-twenty good deals,
at the rate of £1, and for every load containing fifty cubic feet of
other square timber, at the rate of 12s. For the second three years, it
was for deals, to be at the rate of 15s., and for other squared timber
at the rate of 8s.; and for the third three years, it was for deals, to
be at the rate of 10s.; and for every other squared timber at the rate
of 5s.

The fifth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 9th Geo. III.
chap. 38, upon the importation of raw silk from the British plantations.
It was granted for twenty-one years, from the 1st January 1770, to the
1st January 1791. For the first seven years, it was to be at the rate of
£25 for every hundred pounds value; for the second, at £20; and for the
third, at £15. The management of the silk-worm, and the preparation
of silk, requires so much hand-labour, and labour is so very dear in
America, that even this great bounty, I have been informed, was not
likely to produce any considerable effect.

The sixth Bounty of this kind was that granted by 11th Geo. III. chap.
50, for the importation of pipe, hogshead, and barrelstaves and leading
from the British plantations. It was granted for nine years, from 1st
January 1772 to the 1st January 1781. For the first three years, it was,
for a certain quantity of each, to be at the rate of £6; for the second
three years at £4; and for the third three years at £2.

The seventh and last bounty of this kind was that granted by the 19th
Geo. III chap. 37, upon the importation of hemp from Ireland. It was
granted in the same manner as that for the importation of hemp and
undressed flax from America, for twenty-one years, from the 24th June
1779 to the 24th June 1800. The term is divided likewise into three
periods, of seven years each; and in each of those periods, the rate
of the Irish bounty is the same with that of the American. It does
not, however, like the American bounty, extend to the importation of
undressed flax. It would have been too great a discouragement to the
cultivation of that plant in Great Britain. When this last bounty was
granted, the British and Irish legislatures were not in much better
humour with one another, than the British and American had been before.
But this boon to Ireland, it is to be hoped, has been granted under more
fortunate auspices than all those to America. The same commodities, upon
which we thus gave bounties, when imported from America, were subjected
to considerable duties when imported from any other country. The
interest of our American colonies was regarded as the same with that of
the mother country. Their wealth was considered as our wealth. Whatever
money was sent out to them, it was said, came all back to us by the
balance of trade, and we could never become a farthing the poorer by
any expense which we could lay out upon them. They were our own in every
respect, and it was an expense laid out upon the improvement of our own
property, and for the profitable employment of our own people. It is
unnecessary, I apprehend, at present to say anything further, in
order to expose the folly of a system which fatal experience has now
sufficiently exposed. Had our American colonies really been a part of
Great Britain, those bounties might have been considered as bounties
upon production, and would still have been liable to all the objections
to which such bounties are liable, but to no other.

The exportation of the materials of manufacture is sometimes discouraged
by absolute prohibitions, and sometimes by high duties.

Our woollen manufacturers have been more successful than any other class
of workmen, in persuading the legislature that the prosperity of the
nation depended upon the success and extension of their particular
business. They have not only obtained a monopoly against the consumers,
by an absolute prohibition of importing woollen cloths from any foreign
country; but they have likewise obtained another monopoly against the
sheep farmers and growers of wool, by a similar prohibition of the
exportation of live sheep and wool. The severity of many of the laws
which have been enacted for the security of the revenue is very
justly complained of, as imposing heavy penalties upon actions which,
antecedent to the statutes that declared them to be crimes, had always
been understood to be innocent. But the cruellest of our revenue laws,
I will venture to affirm, are mild and gentle, in comparison to some of
those which the clamour of our merchants and manufacturers has extorted
from the legislature, for the support of their own absurd and oppressive
monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws may be said to be all
written in blood.

By the 8th of Elizabeth, chap. 3, the exporter of sheep, lambs, or rams,
was for the first offence, to forfeit all his goods for ever, to suffer
a year's imprisonment, and then to have his left hand cut off in a
market town, upon a market day, to be there nailed up; and for the
second offence, to be adjudged a felon, and to suffer death accordingly.
To prevent the breed of our sheep from being propagated in foreign
countries, seems to have been the object of this law. By the 13th and
14th of Charles II. chap. 18, the exportation of wool was made felony,
and the exporter subjected to the same penalties and forfeitures as a
felon.

For the honour of the national humanity, it is to be hoped that neither
of these statutes was ever executed. The first of them, however, so far
as I know, has never been directly repealed, and serjeant Hawkins seems
to consider it as still in force. It may, however, perhaps be considered
as virtually repealed by the 12th of Charles II. chap. 32, sect. 3,
which, without expressly taking away the penalties imposed by former
statutes, imposes a new penalty, viz. that of 20s. for every sheep
exported, or attempted to be exported, together with the forfeiture of
the sheep, and of the owner's share of the sheep. The second of them was
expressly repealed by the 7th and 8th of William III. chap. 28, sect. 4,
by which it is declared that "Whereas the statute of the 13th and 14th
of king Charles II. made against the exportation of wool, among other
things in the said act mentioned, doth enact the same to be deemed
felony, by the severity of which penalty the prosecution of offenders
hath not been so effectually put in execution; be it therefore enacted,
by the authority aforesaid, that so much of the said act, which relates
to the making the said offence felony, be repealed and made void."

The penalties, however, which are either imposed by this milder statute,
or which, though imposed by former statutes, are not repealed by this
one, are still sufficiently severe. Besides the forfeiture of the goods,
the exporter incurs the penalty of 3s. for every pound weight of wool,
either exported or attempted to be exported, that is, about four or
five times the value. Any merchant, or other person convicted of this
offence, is disabled from requiring any debt or account belonging to
him from any factor or other person. Let his fortune be what it will,
whether he is or is not able to pay those heavy penalties, the law means
to ruin him completely. But, as the morals of the great body of the
people are not yet so corrupt as those of the contrivers of this
statute, I have not heard that any advantage has ever been taken of this
clause. If the person convicted of this offence is not able to pay the
penalties within three months after judgment, he is to be transported
for seven years; and if he returns before the expiration of that term,
he is liable to the pains of felony, without benefit of clergy. The
owner of the ship, knowing this offence, forfeits all his interest in
the ship and furniture. The master and mariners, knowing this
offence, forfeit all their goods and chattels, and suffer three months
imprisonment. By a subsequent statute, the master suffers six months
imprisonment.

In order to prevent exportation, the whole inland commerce of wool is
laid under very burdensome and oppressive restrictions. It cannot be
packed in any box, barrel, cask, case, chest, or any other package, but
only in packs of leather or pack-cloth, on which must be marked on the
outside the words WOOL or YARN, in large letters, not less than three
inches long, on pain of forfeiting the same and the package, and 8s.
for every pound weight, to be paid by the owner or packer. It cannot be
loaden on any horse or cart, or carried by land within five miles of the
coast, but between sun-rising, and sun-setting, on pain of forfeiting
the same, the horses and carriages. The hundred next adjoining to the
sea coast, out of, or through which the wool is carried or exported,
forfeits £20, if the wool is under the value of £10; and if of greater
value, then treble that value, together with treble costs, to be
sued for within the year. The execution to be against any two of the
inhabitants, whom the sessions must reimburse, by an assessment on
the other inhabitants, as in the cases of robbery. And if any person
compounds with the hundred for less than this penalty, he is to be
imprisoned for five years; and any other person may prosecute. These
regulations take place through the whole kingdom.

But in the particular counties of Kent and Sussex, the restrictions are
still more troublesome. Every owner of wool within ten miles of the sea
coast must give an account in writing, three days after shearing, to the
next officer of the customs, of the number of his fleeces, and of the
places where they are lodged. And before he removes any part of them, he
must give the like notice of the number and weight of the fleeces, and
of the name and abode of the person to whom they are sold, and of the
place to which it is intended they should be carried. No person within
fifteen miles of the sea, in the said counties, can buy any wool, before
he enters into bond to the king, that no part of the wool which he shall
so buy shall be sold by him to any other person within fifteen miles of
the sea. If any wool is found carrying towards the sea side in the said
counties, unless it has been entered and security given as aforesaid, it
is forfeited, and the offender also forfeits 3s. for every pound weight,
if any person lay any wool, not entered as aforesaid, within fifteen
miles of the sea, it must be seized and forfeited; and if, after such
seizure, any person shall claim the same, he must give security to the
exchequer, that if he is cast upon trial he shall pay treble costs,
besides all other penalties.

When such restrictions are imposed upon the inland trade, the coasting
trade, we may believe, cannot be left very free. Every owner of wool,
who carrieth, or causeth to be carried, any wool to any port or place
on the sea coast, in order to be from thence transported by sea to any
other place or port on the coast, must first cause an entry thereof
to be made at the port from whence it is intended to be conveyed,
containing the weight, marks, and number, of the packages, before he
brings the same within five miles of that port, on pain of forfeiting
the same, and also the horses, carts, and other carriages; and also
of suffering and forfeiting, as by the other laws in force against the
exportation of wool. This law, however (1st of William III. chap. 32),
is so very indulgent as to declare, that this shall not hinder any
person from carrying his wool home from the place of shearing, though
it be within five miles of the sea, provided that in ten days after
shearing, and before he remove the wool, he do under his hand certify to
the next officer of the customs the true number of fleeces, and where
it is housed; and do not remove the same, without certifying to such
officer, under his hand, his intention so to do, three days before. Bond
must be given that the wool to be carried coast-ways is to be landed at
the particular port for which it is entered outwards; and if my part of
it is landed without the presence of an officer, not only the forfeiture
of the wool is incurred, as in other goods, but the usual additional
penalty of 3s. for every pound weight is likewise incurred.

Our woollen manufacturers, in order to justify their demand of such
extraordinary restrictions and regulations, confidently asserted, that
English wool was of a peculiar quality, superior to that of any other
country; that the wool of other countries could not, without some
mixture of it, be wrought up into any tolerable manufacture; that fine
cloth could not be made without it; that England, therefore, if the
exportation of it could be totally prevented, could monopolize to
herself almost the whole woollen trade of the world; and thus, having
no rivals, could sell at what price she pleased, and in a short time
acquire the most incredible degree of wealth by the most advantageous
balance of trade. This doctrine, like most other doctrines which are
confidently asserted by any considerable number of people, was, and
still continues to be, most implicitly believed by a much greater
number: by almost all those who are either unacquainted with the woollen
trade, or who have not made particular inquiries. It is, however, so
perfectly false, that English wool is in any respect necessary for the
making of fine cloth, that it is altogether unfit for it. Fine cloth is
made altogether of Spanish wool. English wool, cannot be even so mixed
with Spanish wool, as to enter into the composition without spoiling and
degrading, in some degree, the fabric of the cloth.

It has been shown in the foregoing part of this work, that the effect
of these regulations has been to depress the price of English wool, not
only below what it naturally would be in the present times, but very
much below what it actually was in the time of Edward III. The price of
Scotch wool, when, in consequence of the Union, it became subject to the
same regulations, is said to have fallen about one half. It is observed
by the very accurate and intelligent author of the Memoirs of Wool,
the Reverend Mr. John Smith, that the price of the best English wool
in England, is generally below what wool of a very inferior quality
commonly sells for in the market of Amsterdam. To depress the price of
this commodity below what may be called its natural and proper price,
was the avowed purpose of those regulations; and there seems to be no
doubt of their having produced the effect that was expected from them.

This reduction of price, it may perhaps be thought, by discouraging the
growing of wool, must have reduced very much the annual produce of that
commodity, though not below what it formerly was, yet below what, in
the present state of things, it would probably have been, had it, in
consequence of an open and free market, been allowed to rise to the
natural and proper price. I am, however, disposed to believe, that the
quantity of the annual produce cannot have been much, though it may,
perhaps, have been a little affected by these regulations. The growing
of wool is not the chief purpose for which the sheep farmer employs his
industry and stock. He expects his profit, not so much from the price
of the fleece, as from that of the carcase; and the average or ordinary
price of the latter must even, in many cases, make up to him whatever
deficiency there may be in the average or ordinary price of the former.
It has been observed, in the foregoing part of this work, that 'whatever
regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of raw hides,
below what it naturally would be, must, in an improved and cultivated
country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher's meat. The
price, both of the great and small cattle which are fed on improved and
cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which the landlord,
and the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect from improved
and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed them.
Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid by the wool and the
hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one,
the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to
be divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent to the
landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved
and cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords and
farmers cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their
interest as consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions.'
According to this reasoning, therefore, this degradation in the price of
wool is not likely, in an improved and cultivated country, to occasion
any diminution in the annual produce of that commodity; except so far
as, by raising the price of mutton, it may somewhat diminish the demand
for, and consequently the production of, that particular species of
butcher's meat, Its effect, however, even in this way, it is probable,
is not very considerable.

But though its effect upon the quantity of the annual produce may not
have been very considerable, its effect upon the quality, it may perhaps
be thought, must necessarily have been very great. The degradation in
the quality of English wool, if not below what it was in former times,
yet below what it naturally would have been in the present state of
improvement and cultivation, must have been, it may perhaps be supposed,
very nearly in proportion to the degradation of price. As the quality
depends upon the breed, upon the pasture, and upon the management and
cleanliness of the sheep, during the whole progress of the growth of the
fleece, the attention to these circumstances, it may naturally enough
be imagined, can never be greater than in proportion to the recompence
which the price of the fleece is likely to make for the labour and
expense which that attention requires. It happens, however, that the
goodness of the fleece depends, in a great measure, upon the health,
growth, and bulk of the animal: the same attention which is necessary
for the improvement of the carcase is, in some respect, sufficient for
that of the fleece. Notwithstanding the degradation of price, English
wool is said to have been improved considerably during the course even
of the present century. The improvement, might, perhaps, have been
greater if the price had been better; but the lowness of price, though
it may have obstructed, yet certainly it has not altogether prevented
that improvement.

The violence of these regulations, therefore, seems to have affected
neither the quantity nor the quality of the annual produce of wool, so
much as it might have been expected to do (though I think it probable
that it may have affected the latter a good deal more than the former);
and the interest of the growers of wool, though it must have been hurt
in some degree, seems upon the whole, to have been much less hurt than
could well have been imagined.

These considerations, however, will not justify the absolute prohibition
of the exportation of wool; but they will fully justify the imposition
of a considerable tax upon that exportation.

To hurt, in any degree, the interest of any one order of citizens,
for no other purpose but to promote that of some other, is evidently
contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign
owes to all the different orders of his subjects. But the prohibition
certainly hurts, in some degree, the interest of the growers of wool,
for no other purpose but to promote that of the manufacturers.

Every different order of citizens is bound to contribute to the
support of the sovereign or commonwealth. A tax of five, or even of ten
shillings, upon the exportation of every tod of wool, would produce a
very considerable revenue to the sovereign. It would hurt the interest
of the growers somewhat less than the prohibition, because it would
not probably lower the price of wool quite so much. It would afford a
sufficient advantage to the manufacturer, because, though he might not
buy his wool altogether so cheap as under the prohibition, he would
still buy it at least five or ten shillings cheaper than any foreign
manufacturer could buy it, besides saving the freight and insurance
which the other would be obliged to pay. It is scarce possible to devise
a tax which could produce any considerable revenue to the sovereign, and
at the same time occasion so little inconveniency to anybody.


The prohibition, notwithstanding all the penalties which guard it, does
not prevent the exportation of wool. It is exported, it is well known,
in great quantities. The great difference between the price in the home
and that in the foreign market, presents such a temptation to smuggling,
that all the rigour of the law cannot prevent it. This illegal
exportation is advantageous to nobody but the smuggler. A legal
exportation, subject to a tax, by affording a revenue to the sovereign,
and thereby saving the imposition of some other, perhaps more burdensome
and inconvenient taxes, might prove advantageous to all the different
subjects of the state.

The exportation of fuller's earth, or fuller's clay, supposed to be
necessary for preparing and cleansing the woollen manufactures, has been
subjected to nearly the same penalties as the exportation of wool. Even
tobacco-pipe clay, though acknowledged to be different from fuller's
clay, yet, on account of their resemblance, and because fuller's clay
might sometimes be exported as tobacco-pipe clay, has been laid under
the same prohibitions and penalties.

By the 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap, 7, the exportation, not only
of raw hides, but of tanned leather, except in the shape of boots,
shoes, or slippers, was prohibited; and the law gave a monopoly to our
boot-makers and shoe-makers, not only against our graziers, but against
our tanners. By subsequent statutes, our tanners have got themselves
exempted from this monopoly, upon paying a small tax of only one
shilling on the hundred weight of tanned leather, weighing one
hundred and twelve pounds. They have obtained likewise the drawback of
two-thirds of the excise duties imposed upon their commodity, even when
exported without further manufacture. All manufactures of leather may be
exported duty free; and the exporter is besides entitled to the drawback
of the whole duties of excise. Our graziers still continue subject to
the old monopoly. Graziers, separated from one another, and dispersed
through all the different corners of the country, cannot, without
great difficulty, combine together for the purpose either of imposing
monopolies upon their fellow-citizens, or of exempting themselves from
such as may have been imposed upon them by other people. Manufacturers
of all kinds, collected together in numerous bodies in all great cities,
easily can. Even the horns of cattle are prohibited to be exported; and
the two insignificant trades of the horner and comb-maker enjoy, in this
respect, a monopoly against the graziers.

Restraints, either by prohibitions, or by taxes, upon the exportation
of goods which are partially, but not completely manufactured, are not
peculiar to the manufacture of leather. As long as anything remains
to be done, in order to fit any commodity for immediate use and
consumption, our manufacturers think that they themselves ought to have
the doing of it. Woollen yarn and worsted are prohibited to be exported,
under the same penalties as wool even white cloths we subject to a duty
upon exportation; and our dyers have so far obtained a monopoly against
our clothiers. Our clothiers would probably have been able to defend
themselves against it; but it happens that the greater part of our
principal clothiers are themselves likewise dyers. Watch-cases,
clock-cases, and dial-plates for clocks and watches, have been
prohibited to be exported. Our clock-makers and watch-makers are, it
seems, unwilling that the price of this sort of workmanship should be
raised upon them by the competition of foreigners.

By some old statutes of Edward III, Henry VIII. and Edward VI. the
exportation of all metals was prohibited. Lead and tin were alone
excepted, probably on account of the great abundance of those metals; in
the exportation of which a considerable part of the trade of the kingdom
in those days consisted. For the encouragement of the mining trade, the
5th of William and Mary, chap.17, exempted from this prohibition iron,
copper, and mundic metal made from British ore. The exportation of
all sorts of copper bars, foreign as well as British, was afterwards
permitted by the 9th and 10th of William III. chap 26. The exportation
of unmanufactured brass, of what is called gun-metal, bell-metal, and
shroff metal, still continues to be prohibited. Brass manufactures of
all sorts may be exported duty free.

The exportation of the materials of manufacture, where it is not
altogether prohibited, is, in many cases, subjected to considerable
duties.

By the 8th Geo. I. chap.15, the exportation of all goods, the produce of
manufacture of Great Britain, upon which any duties had been imposed by
former statutes, was rendered duty free. The following goods, however,
were excepted: alum, lead, lead-ore, tin, tanned leather, copperas,
coals, wool, cards, white woollen cloths, lapis calaminaris, skins of
all sorts, glue, coney hair or wool, hares wool, hair of all sorts,
horses, and litharge of lead. If you except horses, all these are either
materials of manufacture, or incomplete manufactures (which may be
considered as materials for still further manufacture), or instruments
of trade. This statute leaves them subject to all the old duties which
had ever been imposed upon them, the old subsidy, and one per cent.
outwards.

By the same statute, a great number of foreign drugs for dyers use are
exempted from all duties upon importation. Each of them, however, is
afterwards subjected to a certain duty, not indeed a very heavy one,
upon exportation. Our dyers, it seems, while they thought it for their
interest to encourage the importation of those drugs, by an exemption
from all duties, thought it likewise for their own interest to throw
some small discouragement upon their exportation. The avidity, however,
which suggested this notable piece of mercantile ingenuity, most
probably disappointed itself of its object. It necessarily taught the
importers to be more careful than they might otherwise have been, that
their importation should not exceed what was necessary for the supply
of the home market. The home market was at all times likely to be
more scantily supplied; the commodities were at all times likely to be
somewhat dearer there than they would have been, had the exportation
been rendered as free as the importation.

By the above-mentioned statute, gum senega, or gum arabic, being among
the enumerated dyeing drugs, might be imported duty free. They
were subjected, indeed, to a small poundage duty, amounting only to
threepence in the hundred weight, upon their re-exportation. France
enjoyed, at that time, an exclusive trade to the country most productive
of those drugs, that which lies in the neighbourhood of the Senegal;
and the British market could not be easily supplied by the immediate
importation of them from the place of growth. By the 25th Geo. II.
therefore, gum senega was allowed to be imported (contrary to the
general dispositions of the act of navigation) from any part of Europe.
As the law, however, did not mean to encourage this species of trade, so
contrary to the general principles of the mercantile policy of England,
it imposed a duty of ten shillings the hundred weight upon such
importation, and no part of this duty was to be afterwards drawn back
upon its exportation. The successful war which began in 1755 gave Great
Britain the same exclusive trade to those countries which France
had enjoyed before. Our manufactures, as soon as the peace was made,
endeavoured to avail themselves of this advantage, and to establish a
monopoly in their own favour both against the growers and against the
importers of this commodity. By the 5th of Geo. III. therefore, chap.
37, the exportation of gum senega, from his majesty's dominions in
Africa, was confined to Great Britain, and was subjected to all the same
restrictions, regulations, forfeitures, and penalties, as that of the
enumerated commodities of the British colonies in America and the
West Indies. Its importation, indeed, was subjected to a small duty of
sixpence the hundred weight; but its re-exportation was subjected to the
enormous duty of one pound ten shillings the hundred weight. It was
the intention of our manufacturers, that the whole produce of those
countries should be imported into Great Britain; and in order that they
themselves might be enabled to buy it at their own price, that no
part of it should be exported again, but at such an expense as would
sufficiently discourage that exportation. Their avidity, however, upon
this, as well as upon many other occasions, disappointed itself of its
object. This enormous duty presented such a temptation to smuggling,
that great quantities of this commodity were clandestinely exported,
probably to all the manufacturing countries of Europe, but particularly
to Holland, not only from Great Britain, but from Africa. Upon this
account, by the 14th Geo. III. chap.10, this duty upon exportation was
reduced to five shillings the hundred weight.

In the book of rates, according to which the old subsidy was levied,
beaver skins were estimated at six shillings and eight pence a piece;
and the different subsidies and imposts which, before the year 1722,
had been laid upon their importation, amounted to one-fifth part of the
rate, or to sixteen pence upon each skin; all of which, except half
the old subsidy, amounting only to twopence, was drawn back upon
exportation. This duty, upon the importation of so important a material
of manufacture, had been thought too high; and, in the year 1722, the
rate was reduced to two shillings and sixpence, which reduced the duty
upon importation to sixpence, and of this only one-half was to be drawn
back upon exportation. The same successful war put the country most
productive of beaver under the dominion of Great Britain; and beaver
skins being among the enumerated commodities, the exportation from
America was consequently confined to the market of Great Britain. Our
manufacturers soon bethought themselves of the advantage which they
might make of this circumstance; and in the year 1764, the duty upon the
importation of beaver skin was reduced to one penny, but the duty upon
exportation was raised to sevenpence each skin, without any drawback of
the duty upon importation. By the same law, a duty of eighteen pence the
pound was imposed upon the exportation of beaver wool or woumbs,
without making any alteration in the duty upon the importation of that
commodity, which, when imported by British, and in British shipping,
amounted at that time to between fourpence and fivepence the piece.

Coals may be considered both as a material of manufacture, and as an
instrument of trade. Heavy duties, accordingly, have been imposed
upon their exportation, amounting at present (1783) to more than
five shillings the ton, or more than fifteen shillings the chaldron,
Newcastle measure; which is, in most cases, more than the original
value of the commodity at the coal-pit, or even at the shipping port for
exportation.

The exportation, however, of the instruments of trade, properly so
called, is commonly restrained, not by high duties, but by absolute
prohibitions. Thus, by the 7th and 8th of William III chap.20, sect.8,
the exportation of frames or engines for knitting gloves or stockings,
is prohibited, under the penalty, not only of the forfeiture of such
frames or engines, so exported, or attempted to be exported, but of
forty pounds, one half to the king, the other to the person who shall
inform or sue for the same. In the same manner, by the 14th Geo. III.
chap. 71, the exportation to foreign parts, of any utensils made use
of in the cotton, linen, woollen, and silk manufactures, is prohibited
under the penalty, not only of the forfeiture of such utensils, but of
two hundred pounds, to be paid by the person who shall offend in this
manner; and likewise of two hundred pounds, to be paid by the master of
the ship, who shall knowingly suffer such utensils to be loaded on board
his ship.

When such heavy penalties were imposed upon the exportation of the dead
instruments of trade, it could not well be expected that the living
instrument, the artificer, should be allowed to go free. Accordingly, by
the 5th Geo. I. chap. 27, the person who shall be convicted of enticing
any artificer, of or in any of the manufactures of Great Britain, to
go into any foreign parts, in order to practise or teach his trade, is
liable, for the first offence, to be fined in any sum not exceeding one
hundred pounds, and to three months imprisonment, and until the fine
shall be paid; and for the second offence, to be fined in any sum, at
the discretion of the court, and to imprisonment for twelve months, and
until the fine shall be paid. By the 23d Geo. II. chap. 13, this penalty
is increased, for the first offence, to five hundred pounds for every
artificer so enticed, and to twelve months imprisonment, and until the
fine shall be paid; and for the second offence, to one thousand pounds,
and to two years imprisonment, and until the fine shall be paid.

By the former of these two statutes, upon proof that any person has been
enticing any artificer, or that any artificer has promised or contracted
to go into foreign parts, for the purposes aforesaid, such artificer
may be obliged to give security, at the discretion of the court, that
he shall not go beyond the seas, and may be committed to prison until he
give such security.

If any artificer has gone beyond the seas, and is exercising or teaching
his trade in any foreign country, upon warning being given to him by any
of his majesty's ministers or consuls abroad, or by one of his majesty's
secretaries of state, for the time being, if he does not, within six
months after such warning, return into this realm, and from henceforth
abide and inhabit continually within the same, he is from thenceforth
declared incapable of taking any legacy devised to him within this
kingdom, or of being executor or administrator to any person, or of
taking any lands within this kingdom, by descent, devise, or purchase.
He likewise forfeits to the king all his lands, goods, and chattels;
is declared an alien in every respect; and is put out of the king's
protection.

It is unnecessary, I imagine, to observe how contrary such regulations
are to the boasted liberty of the subject, of which we affect to be so
very jealous; but which, in this case, is so plainly sacrificed to the
futile interests of our merchants and manufacturers.

The laudable motive of all these regulations, is to extend our own
manufactures, not by their own improvement, but by the depression of
those of all our neighbours, and by putting an end, as much as possible,
to the troublesome competition of such odious and disagreeable rivals.
Our master manufacturers think it reasonable that they themselves should
have the monopoly of the ingenuity of all their countrymen. Though by
restraining, in some trades, the number of apprentices which can
be employed at one time, and by imposing the necessity of a long
apprenticeship in all trades, they endeavour, all of them, to confine
the knowledge of their respective employments to as small a number
as possible; they are unwilling, however, that any part of this small
number should go abroad to instruct foreigners.

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the
interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may
be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to
attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system, the interest of the
consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it
seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end
and object of all industry and commerce.

In the restraints upon the importation of all foreign commodities which
can come into competition with those of our own growth or manufacture,
the interest of the home consumer is evidently sacrificed to that of
the producer. It is altogether for the benefit of the latter, that the
former is obliged to pay that enhancement of price which this monopoly
almost always occasions.

It is altogether for the benefit of the producer, that bounties are
granted upon the exportation of some of his productions. The home
consumer is obliged to pay, first the tax which is necessary for paying
the bounty; and, secondly, the still greater tax which necessarily
arises from the enhancement of the price of the commodity in the home
market.

By the famous treaty of commerce with Portugal, the consumer is
prevented by duties from purchasing of a neighbouring country, a
commodity which our own climate does not produce; but is obliged to
purchase it of a distant country, though it is acknowledged, that the
commodity of the distant country is of a worse quality than that of the
near one. The home consumer is obliged to submit to this inconvenience,
in order that the producer may import into the distant country some of
his productions, upon more advantageous terms than he otherwise would
have been allowed to do. The consumer, too, is obliged to pay whatever
enhancement in the price of those very productions this forced
exportation may occasion in the home market.

But in the system of laws which has been established for the management
of our American and West Indian colonies, the interest of the home
consumer has been sacrificed to that of the producer, with a more
extravagant profusion than in all our other commercial regulations. A
great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a
nation of customers, who should be obliged to buy, from the shops of our
different producers, all the goods with which these could supply them.
For the sake of that little enhancement of price which this monopoly
might afford our producers, the home consumers have been burdened with
the whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this
purpose, and for this purpose only, in the two last wars, more than two
hundred millions have been spent, and a new debt of more than a hundred
and seventy millions has been contracted, over and above all that had
been expended for the same purpose in former wars. The interest of
this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit
which, it never could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the
colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade, or than the whole
value of the goods which, at an average, have been annually exported to
the colonies.

It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of
this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose
interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest
has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class, our
merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.
In the mercantile regulations which have been taken notice of in this
chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly
attended to; and the interest, not so much of the consumers, as that of
some other sets of producers, has been sacrificed to it.



CHAPTER IX. OF THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS, OR OF THOSE SYSTEMS OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY WHICH REPRESENT THE PRODUCE OF LAND, AS EITHER THE
SOLE OR THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF THE REVENUE AND WEALTH OF EVERY COUNTRY.

The agricultural systems of political economy will not require so long
an explanation as that which I have thought it necessary to bestow upon
the mercantile or commercial system.

That system which represents the produce of land as the sole source of
the revenue and wealth of every country, has so far as I know, never
been adopted by any nation, and it at present exists only in the
speculations of a few men of great learning and ingenuity in France. It
would not, surely, be worth while to examine at great length the errors
of a system which never has done, and probably never will do, any harm
in any part of the world. I shall endeavour to explain, however, as
distinctly as I can, the great outlines of this very ingenious system.

Mr. Colbert, the famous minister of Lewis XIV. was a man of probity,
of great industry, and knowledge of detail; of great experience and
acuteness in the examination of public accounts; and of abilities, in
short, every way fitted for introducing method and good order into the
collection and expenditure of the public revenue. That minister had
unfortunately embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system, in
its nature and essence a system of restraint and regulation, and such
as could scarce fail to be agreeable to a laborious and plodding man of
business, who had been accustomed to regulate the different departments
of public offices, and to establish the necessary checks and controls
for confining each to its proper sphere. The industry and commerce of
a great country, he endeavoured to regulate upon the same model as the
departments of a public office; and instead of allowing every man to
pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality,
liberty, and justice, he bestowed upon certain branches of industry
extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary
restraints. He was not only disposed, like other European ministers, to
encourage more the industry of the towns than that of the country; but,
in order to support the industry of the towns, he was willing even to
depress and keep down that of the country. In order to render provisions
cheap to the inhabitants of the towns, and thereby to encourage
manufactures and foreign commerce, he prohibited altogether the
exportation of corn, and thus excluded the inhabitants of the country
from every foreign market, for by far the most important part of the
produce of their industry. This prohibition, joined to the restraints
imposed by the ancient provincial laws of France upon the transportation
of corn from one province to another, and to the arbitrary and degrading
taxes which are levied upon the cultivators in almost all the provinces,
discouraged and kept down the agriculture of that country very much
below the state to which it would naturally have risen in so
very fertile a soil, and so very happy a climate. This state of
discouragement and depression was felt more or less in every different
part of the country, and many different inquiries were set on foot
concerning the causes of it. One of those causes appeared to be the
preference given, by the institutions of Mr. Colbert, to the industry of
the towns above that of the country.

If the rod be bent too much one way, says the proverb, in order to
make it straight, you must bend it as much the other. The French
philosophers, who have proposed the system which represents agriculture
as the sole source of the revenue and wealth of every country, seem to
have adopted this proverbial maxim; and, as in the plan of Mr. Colbert,
the industry of the towns was certainly overvalued in comparison with
that of the country, so in their system it seems to be as certainly
under-valued.

The different orders of people, who have ever been supposed to
contribute in any respect towards the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country, they divide into three classes. The first is
the class of the proprietors of land. The second is the class of the
cultivators, of farmers and country labourers, whom they honour with the
peculiar appellation of the productive class. The third is the class of
artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, whom they endeavour to degrade
by the humiliating appellation of the barren or unproductive class.

The class of proprietors contributes to the annual produce, by the
expense which they may occasionally lay out upon the improvement of the
land, upon the buildings, drains, inclosures, and other ameliorations,
which they may either make or maintain upon it, and by means of which
the cultivators are enabled, with the same capital, to raise a greater
produce, and consequently to pay a greater rent. This advanced rent may
be considered as the interest or profit due to the proprietor, upon the
expense or capital which he thus employs in the improvement of his
land. Such expenses are in this system called ground expenses (depenses
foncieres).

The cultivators or farmers contribute to the annual produce, by what
are in this system called the original and annual expenses (depenses
primitives, et depenses annuelles), which they lay out upon the
cultivation of the land. The original expenses consist in the
instruments of husbandry, in the stock of cattle, in the seed, and in
the maintenance of the farmer's family, servants, and cattle, during at
least a great part of the first year of his occupancy, or till he can
receive some return from the land. The annual expenses consist in the
seed, in the wear and tear of instruments of husbandry, and in the
annual maintenance of the farmer's servants and cattle, and of his
family too, so far as any part of them can be considered as servants
employed in cultivation. That part of the produce of the land which
remains to him after paying the rent, ought to be sufficient, first, to
replace to him, within a reasonable time, at least during the term of
his occupancy, the whole of his original expenses, together with the
ordinary profits of stock; and, secondly, to replace to him annually
the whole of his annual expenses, together likewise with the ordinary
profits of stock. Those two sorts of expenses are two capitals which the
farmer employs in cultivation; and unless they are regularly restored
to him, together with a reasonable profit, he cannot carry on his
employment upon a level with other employments; but, from a regard to
his own interest, must desert it as soon as possible, and seek some
other. That part of the produce of the land which is thus necessary for
enabling the farmer to continue his business, ought to be considered
as a fund sacred to cultivation, which, if the landlord violates, he
necessarily reduces the produce of his own land, and, in a few years,
not only disables the farmer from paying this racked rent, but from
paying the reasonable rent which he might otherwise have got for his
land. The rent which properly belongs to the landlord, is no more than
the neat produce which remains after paying, in the completest manner,
all the necessary expenses which must be previously laid out, in order
to raise the gross or the whole produce. It is because the labour of
the cultivators, over and above paying completely all those necessary
expenses, affords a neat produce of this kind, that this class of
people are in this system peculiarly distinguished by the honourable
appellation of the productive class. Their original and annual expenses
are for the same reason called, In this system, productive expenses,
because, over and above replacing their own value, they occasion the
annual reproduction of this neat produce.

The ground expenses, as they are called, or what the landlord lays out
upon the improvement of his land, are, in this system, too, honoured
with the appellation of productive expenses. Till the whole of those
expenses, together with the ordinary profits of stock, have been
completely repaid to him by the advanced rent which he gets from his
land, that advanced rent ought to be regarded as sacred and inviolable,
both by the church and by the king; ought to be subject neither to tithe
nor to taxation. If it is otherwise, by discouraging the improvement of
land, the church discourages the future increase of her own tithes,
and the king the future increase of his own taxes. As in a well ordered
state of things, therefore, those ground expenses, over and above
reproducing in the completest manner their own value, occasion likewise,
after a certain time, a reproduction of a neat produce, they are in this
system considered as productive expenses.

The ground expenses of the landlord, however, together with the original
and the annual expenses of the farmer, are the only three sorts of
expenses which in this system are considered as productive. All other
expenses, and all other orders of people, even those who, in the common
apprehensions of men, are regarded as the most productive, are, in this
account of things, represented as altogether barren and unproductive.

Artificers and manufacturers, in particular, whose industry, in the
common apprehensions of men, increases so much the value of the rude
produce of land, are in this system represented as a class of people
altogether barren and unproductive. Their labour, it is said, replaces
only the stock which employs them, together with its ordinary profits.
That stock consists in the materials, tools, and wages, advanced to them
by their employer; and is the fund destined for their employment and
maintenance. Its profits are the fund destined for the maintenance of
their employer. Their employer, as he advances to them the stock of
materials, tools, and wages, necessary for their employment, so he
advances to himself what is necessary for his own maintenance; and this
maintenance he generally proportions to the profit which he expects
to make by the price of their work. Unless its price repays to him the
maintenance which he advances to himself, as well as the materials,
tools, and wages, which he advances to his workmen, it evidently does
not repay to him the whole expense which he lays out upon it. The
profits of manufacturing stock, therefore, are not, like the rent of
land, a neat produce which remains after completely repaying the whole
expense which must be laid out in order to obtain them. The stock of the
farmer yields him a profit, as well as that of the master manufacturer;
and it yields a rent likewise to another person, which that of the
master manufacturer does not. The expense, therefore, laid out in
employing and maintaining artificers and manufacturers, does no more
than continue, if one may say so, the existence of its own value, and
does not produce any new value. It is, therefore, altogether a barren
and unproductive expense. The expense, on the contrary, laid out in
employing farmers and country labourers, over and above continuing
the existence of its own value, produces a new value the rent of the
landlord. It is, therefore, a productive expense.

Mercantile stock is equally barren and unproductive with manufacturing
stock. It only continues the existence of its own value, without
producing any new value. Its profits are only the repayment of the
maintenance which its employer advances to himself during the time that
he employs it, or till he receives the returns of it. They are only the
repayment of a part of the expense which must be laid out in employing
it.

The labour of artificers and manufacturers never adds any thing to the
value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce of the land. It
adds, indeed, greatly to the value of some particular parts of it. But
the consumption which, in the mean time, it occasions of other parts, is
precisely equal to the value which it adds to those parts; so that the
value of the whole amount is not, at any one moment of time, in the
least augmented by it. The person who works the lace of a pair of fine
ruffles for example, will sometimes raise the value of, perhaps, a
pennyworth of flax to £30 sterling. But though, at first sight, he
appears thereby to multiply the value of a part of the rude produce
about seven thousand and two hundred times, he in reality adds nothing
to the value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce. The working
of that lace costs him, perhaps, two years labour. The £30 which he
gets for it when it is finished, is no more than the repayment of the
subsistence which he advances to himself during the two years that he is
employed about it. The value which, by every day's, month's, or year's
labour, he adds to the flax, does no more than replace the value of his
own consumption during that day, month, or year. At no moment of time,
therefore, does he add any thing to the value of the whole annual amount
of the rude produce of the land: the portion of that produce which he
is continually consuming, being always equal to the value which he is
continually producing. The extreme poverty of the greater part of the
persons employed in this expensive, though trifling manufacture, may
satisfy us that the price of their work does not, in ordinary cases,
exceed the value of their subsistence. It is otherwise with the work
of farmers and country labourers. The rent of the landlord is a value
which, in ordinary cases, it is continually producing over and above
replacing, in the most complete manner, the whole consumption, the whole
expense laid out upon the employment and maintenance both of the workmen
and of their employer.

Artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, can augment the revenue and
wealth of their society by parsimony only; or, as it is expressed in
this system, by privation, that is, by depriving themselves of a part
of the funds destined for their own subsistence. They annually reproduce
nothing but those funds. Unless, therefore, they annually save some part
of them, unless they annually deprive themselves of the enjoyment of
some part of them, the revenue and wealth of their society can never be,
in the smallest degree, augmented by means of their industry. Farmers
and country labourers, on the contrary, may enjoy completely the whole
funds destined for their own subsistence, and yet augment, at the same
time, the revenue and wealth of their society. Over and above what is
destined for their own subsistence, their industry annually affords a
neat produce, of which the augmentation necessarily augments the revenue
and wealth of their society. Nations, therefore, which, like France or
England, consist in a great measure, of proprietors and cultivators, can
be enriched by industry and enjoyment. Nations, on the contrary,
which, like Holland and Hamburgh, are composed chiefly of merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers, can grow rich only through parsimony and
privation. As the interest of nations so differently circumstanced is
very different, so is likewise the common character of the people. In
those of the former kind, liberality, frankness, and good fellowship,
naturally make a part of their common character; in the latter,
narrowness, meanness, and a selfish disposition, averse to all social
pleasure and enjoyment.

The unproductive class, that of merchants, artificers, and
manufacturers, is maintained and employed altogether at the expense
of the two other classes, of that of proprietors, and of that of
cultivators. They furnish it both with the materials of its work, and
with the fund of its subsistence, with the corn and cattle which it
consumes while it is employed about that work. The proprietors and
cultivators finally pay both the wages of all the workmen of the
unproductive class, and the profits of all their employers. Those
workmen and their employers are properly the servants of the proprietors
and cultivators. They are only servants who work without doors, as
menial servants work within. Both the one and the other, however, are
equally maintained at the expense of the same masters. The labour of
both is equally unproductive. It adds nothing to the value of the sum
total of the rude produce of the land. Instead of increasing the value
of that sum total, it is a charge and expense which must be paid out of
it.

The unproductive class, however, is not only useful, but greatly
useful, to the other two classes. By means of the industry of merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can
purchase both the foreign goods and the manufactured produce of their
own country, which they have occasion for, with the produce of a much
smaller quantity of their own labour, than what they would be obliged
to employ, if they were to attempt, in an awkward and unskilful manner,
either to import the one, or to make the other, for their own use. By
means of the unproductive class, the cultivators are delivered from
many cares, which would otherwise distract their attention from the
cultivation of land. The superiority of produce, which in consequence of
this undivided attention, they are enabled to raise, is fully sufficient
to pay the whole expense which the maintenance and employment of the
unproductive class costs either the proprietors or themselves. The
industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, though in its
own nature altogether unproductive, yet contributes in this manner
indirectly to increase the produce of the land. It increases the
productive powers of productive labour, by leaving it at liberty to
confine itself to its proper employment, the cultivation of land; and
the plough goes frequently the easier and the better, by means of the
labour of the man whose business is most remote from the plough.

It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators, to
restrain or to discourage, in any respect, the industry of merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers. The greater the liberty which this
unproductive class enjoys, the greater will be the competition in all
the different trades which compose it, and the cheaper will the
other two classes be supplied, both with foreign goods and with the
manufactured produce of their own country.

It can never be the interest of the unproductive class to oppress
the other two classes. It is the surplus produce of the land, or what
remains after deducting the maintenance, first of the cultivators,
and afterwards of the proprietors, that maintains and employs the
unproductive class. The greater this surplus, the greater must likewise
be the maintenance and employment of that class. The establishment of
perfect justice, of perfect liberty, and of perfect equality, is the
very simple secret which most effectually secures the highest degree of
prosperity to all the three classes.

The merchants, artificers, and manufacturers of those mercantile states,
which, like Holland and Hamburgh, consist chiefly of this unproductive
class, are in the same manner maintained and employed altogether at the
expense of the proprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference
is, that those proprietors and cultivators are, the greater part
of them, placed at a most inconvenient distance from the merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers, whom they supply with the materials of
their work and the fund of their subsistence; are the inhabitants of
other countries, and the subjects of other governments.

Such mercantile states, however, are not only useful, but greatly
useful, to the inhabitants of those other countries. They fill up,
in some measure, a very important void; and supply the place of the
merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, whom the inhabitants of those
countries ought to find at home, but whom, from some defect in their
policy, they do not find at home.

It can never be the interest of those landed nations, if I may call them
so, to discourage or distress the industry of such mercantile states,
by imposing high duties upon their trade, or upon the commodities which
they furnish. Such duties, by rendering those commodities dearer, could
serve only to sink the real value of the surplus produce of their own
land, with which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of
which those commodities are purchased. Such duties could only serve to
discourage the increase of that surplus produce, and consequently
the improvement and cultivation of their own land. The most effectual
expedient, on the contrary, for raising the value of that surplus
produce, for encouraging its increase, and consequently the improvement
and cultivation of their own land, would be to allow the most perfect
freedom to the trade of all such mercantile nations.

This perfect freedom of trade would even be the most effectual expedient
for supplying them, in due time, with all the artificers, manufacturers,
and merchants, whom they wanted at home; and for filling up, in the
properest and most advantageous manner, that very important void which
they felt there.

The continual increase of the surplus produce of their land would, in
due time, create a greater capital than what would be employed with the
ordinary rate of profit in the improvement and cultivation of land; and
the surplus part of it would naturally turn itself to the employment
of artificers and manufacturers, at home. But these artificers and
manufacturers, finding at home both the materials of their work and the
fund of their subsistence, might immediately, even with much less
art and skill be able to work as cheap as the little artificers and
manufacturers of such mercantile states, who had both to bring from a
greater distance. Even though, from want of art and skill, they might
not for some time be able to work as cheap, yet, finding a market at
home, they might be able to sell their work there as cheap as that of
the artificers and manufacturers of such mercantile states, which could
not be brought to that market but from so great a distance; and as their
art and skill improved, they would soon be able to sell it cheaper. The
artificers and manufacturers of such mercantile states, therefore, would
immediately be rivalled in the market of those landed nations, and soon
after undersold and justled out of it altogether. The cheapness of the
manufactures of those landed nations, in consequence of the gradual
improvements of art and skill, would, in due time, extend their sale
beyond the home market, and carry them to many foreign markets, from
which they would, in the same manner, gradually justle out many of the
manufacturers of such mercantile nations.

This continual increase, both of the rude and manufactured produce of
those landed nations, would, in due time, create a greater capital
than could, with the ordinary rate of profit, be employed either in
agriculture or in manufactures. The surplus of this capital would
naturally turn itself to foreign trade and be employed in exporting, to
foreign countries, such parts of the rude and manufactured produce
of its own country, as exceeded the demand of the home market. In the
exportation of the produce of their own country, the merchants of a
landed nation would have an advantage of the same kind over those of
mercantile nations, which its artificers and manufacturers had over the
artificers and manufacturers of such nations; the advantage of finding
at home that cargo, and those stores and provisions, which the others
were obliged to seek for at a distance. With inferior art and skill in
navigation, therefore, they would be able to sell that cargo as cheap
in foreign markets as the merchants of such mercantile nations; and with
equal art and skill they would be able to sell it cheaper. They would
soon, therefore, rival those mercantile nations in this branch of
foreign trade, and, in due time, would justle them out of it altogether.

According to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most
advantageous method in which a landed nation can raise up artificers,
manufacturers, and merchants of its own, is to grant the most perfect
freedom of trade to the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of all
other nations. It thereby raises the value of the surplus produce of its
own land, of which the continual increase gradually establishes a
fund, which, in due time, necessarily raises up all the artificers,
manufacturers, and merchants, whom it has occasion for.

When a landed nation on the contrary, oppresses, either by high duties
or by prohibitions, the trade of foreign nations, it necessarily hurts
its own interest in two different ways. First, by raising the price
of all foreign goods, and of all sorts of manufactures, it necessarily
sinks the real value of the surplus produce of its own land, with which,
or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of which, it purchases
those foreign goods and manufactures. Secondly, by giving a sort of
monopoly of the home market to its own merchants, artificers, and
manufacturers, it raises the rate of mercantile and manufacturing
profit, in proportion to that of agricultural profit; and, consequently,
either draws from agriculture a part of the capital which had before
been employed in it, or hinders from going to it a part of what
would otherwise have gone to it. This policy, therefore, discourages
agriculture in two different ways; first, by sinking the real value
of its produce, and thereby lowering the rate of its profits; and,
secondly, by raising the rate of profit in all other employments.
Agriculture is rendered less advantageous, and trade and manufactures
more advantageous, than they otherwise would be; and every man is
tempted by his own interest to turn, as much as he can, both his capital
and his industry from the former to the latter employments.

Though, by this oppressive policy, a landed nation should be able to
raise up artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of its own, somewhat
sooner than it could do by the freedom of trade; a matter, however,
which is not a little doubtful; yet it would raise them up, if one
may say so, prematurely, and before it was perfectly ripe for them. By
raising up too hastily one species of industry, it would depress another
more valuable species of industry. By raising up too hastily a species
of industry which duly replaces the stock which employs it, together
with the ordinary profit, it would depress a species of industry which,
over and above replacing that stock, with its profit, affords likewise
a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord. It would depress productive
labour, by encouraging too hastily that labour which is altogether
barren and unproductive.

In what manner, according to this system, the sum total of the annual
produce of the land is distributed among the three classes above
mentioned, and in what manner the labour of the unproductive class
does no more than replace the value of its own consumption, without
increasing in any respect the value of that sum total, is represented
by Mr Quesnai, the very ingenious and profound author of this system, in
some arithmetical formularies. The first of these formularies, which,
by way of eminence, he peculiarly distinguishes by the name of the
Economical Table, represents the manner in which he supposes this
distribution takes place, in a state of the most perfect liberty,
and, therefore, of the highest prosperity; in a state where the annual
produce is such as to afford the greatest possible neat produce, and
where each class enjoys its proper share of the whole annual produce.
Some subsequent formularies represent the manner in which he supposes
this distribution is made in different states of restraint and
regulation; in which, either the class of proprietors, or the barren and
unproductive class, is more favoured than the class of cultivators; and
in which either the one or the other encroaches, more or less, upon the
share which ought properly to belong to this productive class. Every
such encroachment, every violation of that natural distribution, which
the most perfect liberty would establish, must, according to this
system, necessarily degrade, more or less, from one year to another, the
value and sum total of the annual produce, and must necessarily occasion
a gradual declension in the real wealth and revenue of the society; a
declension, of which the progress must be quicker or slower, according
to the degree of this encroachment, according as that natural
distribution, which the most perfect liberty would establish, is more
or less violated. Those subsequent formularies represent the different
degrees of declension which, according to this system, correspond to
the different degrees in which this natural distribution of things is
violated.

Some speculative physicians seem to have imagined that the health of the
human body could be preserved only by a certain precise regimen of
diet and exercise, of which every, the smallest violation, necessarily
occasioned some degree of disease or disorder proportionate to the
degree of the violation. Experience, however, would seem to shew, that
the human body frequently preserves, to all appearance at least, the
most perfect state of health under a vast variety of different regimens;
even under some which are generally believed to be very far from being
perfectly wholesome. But the healthful state of the human body, it would
seem, contains in itself some unknown principle of preservation, capable
either of preventing or of correcting, in many respects, the bad effects
even of a very faulty regimen. Mr Quesnai, who was himself a physician,
and a very speculative physician, seems to have entertained a notion of
the same kind concerning the political body, and to have imagined that
it would thrive and prosper only under a certain precise regimen, the
exact regimen of perfect liberty and perfect justice. He seems not to
have considered, that in the political body, the natural effort which
every man is continually making to better his own condition, is a
principle of preservation capable of preventing and correcting, in many
respects, the bad effects of a political economy, in some degree both
partial and oppressive. Such a political economy, though it no doubt
retards more or less, is not always capable of stopping altogether, the
natural progress of a nation towards wealth and prosperity, and still
less of making it go backwards. If a nation could not prosper without
the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in
the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political
body, however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision
for remedying many of the bad effects of the folly and injustice of man;
it the same manner as it has done in the natural body, for remedying
those of his sloth and intemperance.

The capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its
representing the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, as
altogether barren and unproductive. The following observations may serve
to shew the impropriety of this representation:--

First, this class, it is acknowledged, reproduces annually the value of
its own annual consmnption, and continues, at least, the existence of
the stock or capital which maintains and employs it. But, upon this
account alone, the denomination of barren or unproductive should seem to
be very improperly applied to it. We should not call a marriage barren
or unproductive, though it produced only a son and a daughter, to
replace the father and mother, and though it did not increase the number
of the human species, but only continued it as it was before. Farmers
and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains
and employs them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the
landlord. As a marriage which affords three children is certainly more
productive than one which affords only two, so the labour of farmers and
country labourers is certainly more productive than that of merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the one class,
however, does not, render the other barren or unproductive.

Secondly, it seems, on this account, altogether improper to consider
artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, in the same light as menial
servants. The labour of menial servants does not continue the existence
of the fund which maintains and employs them. Their maintenance and
employment is altogether at the expense of their masters, and the work
which they perform is not of a nature to repay that expense. That work
consists in services which perish generally in the very instant of
their performance, and does not fix or realize itself in any vendible
commodity, which can replace the value of their wages and maintenance.
The labour, on the contrary, of artificers, manufacturers, and
merchants, naturally does fix and realize itself in some such vendible
commodity. It is upon this account that, in the chapter in which I
treat of productive and unproductive labour, I have classed artificers,
manufacturers, and merchants among the productive labourers, and menial
servants among the barren or unproductive.

Thirdly, it seems, upon every supposition, improper to say, that the
labour of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, does not increase
the real revenue of the society. Though we should suppose, for example,
as it seems to be supposed in this system, that the value of the daily,
monthly, and yearly consumption of this class was exactly equal to that
of its daily, monthly, and yearly production; yet it would not from
thence follow, that its labour added nothing to the real revenue, to the
real value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the society.
An artificer, for example, who, in the first six months after harvest,
executes ten pounds worth of work, though he should, in the same time,
consume ten pounds worth of corn and other necessaries, yet really adds
the value of ten pounds to the annual produce of the land and labour of
the society. While he has been consuming a half-yearly revenue of ten
pounds worth of corn and other necessaries, he has produced an equal
value of work, capable of purchasing, either to himself, or to some
other person, an equal half-yearly revenue. The value, therefore, of
what has been consumed and produced during these six months, is equal,
not to ten, but to twenty pounds. It is possible, indeed, that no more
than ten pounds worth of this value may ever have existed at any
one moment of time. But if the ten pounds worth of corn and other
necessaries which were consumed by the artificer, had been consumed by
a soldier, or by a menial servant, the value of that part of the annual
produce which existed at the end of the six months, would have been
ten pounds less than it actually is in consequence of the labour of the
artificer. Though the value of what the artificer produces, therefore,
should not, at any one moment of time, be supposed greater than the
value he consumes, yet, at every moment of time, the actually existing
value of goods in the market is, in consequence of what he produces,
greater than it otherwise would be.

When the patrons of this system assert, that the consumption of
artificers, manufacturer's, and merchants, is equal to the value of what
they produce, they probably mean no more than that their revenue, or
the fund destined for their consumption, is equal to it. But if they
had expressed themselves more accurately, and only asserted, that the
revenue of this class was equal to the value of what they produced, it
might readily have occurred to the reader, that what would naturally be
saved out of this revenue, must necessarily increase more or less the
real wealth of the society. In order, therefore, to make out something
like an argument, it was necessary that they should express themselves
as they have done; and this argument, even supposing things actually
were as it seems to presume them to be, turns out to be a very
inconclusive one.

Fourthly, farmers and country labourers can no more augment, without
parsimony, the real revenue, the annual produce of the land and labour
of their society, than artificers, manufacturers, and merchants. The
annual produce of the land and labour of any society can be augmented
only in two ways; either, first, by some improvement in the productive
powers of the useful labour actually maintained within it; or, secondly,
by some increase in the quantity of that labour.

The improvement in the productive powers of useful labour depends,
first, upon the improvement in the ability of the workman; and,
secondly, upon that of the machinery with which he works. But the
labour of artificers and manufacturers, as it is capable of being
more subdivided, and the labour of each workman reduced to a greater
simplicity of operation, than that of farmers and country labourers;
so it is likewise capable of both these sorts of improvement in a much
higher degree {See book i chap. 1.} In this respect, therefore,
the class of cultivators can have no sort of advantage over that of
artificers and manufacturers.

The increase in the quantity of useful labour actually employed within
any society must depend altogether upon the increase of the capital
which employs it; and the increase of that capital, again, must be
exactly equal to the amount of the savings from the revenue, either
of the particular persons who manage and direct the employment of that
capital, or of some other persons, who lend it to them. If merchants,
artificers, and manufacturers are, as this system seems to suppose,
naturally more inclined to parsimony and saving than proprietors and
cultivators, they are, so far, more likely to augment the quantity
of useful labour employed within their society, and consequently to
increase its real revenue, the annual produce of its land and labour.

Fifthly and lastly, though the revenue of the inhabitants of every
country was supposed to consist altogether, as this system seems to
suppose, in the quantity of subsistence which their industry could
procure to them; yet, even upon this supposition, the revenue of a
trading and manufacturing country must, other things being equal, always
be much greater than that of one without trade or manufactures. By means
of trade and manufactures, a greater quantity of subsistence can be
annually imported into a particular country, than what its own lands, in
the actual state of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of
a town, though they frequently possess no lands of their own, yet draw
to themselves, by their industry, such a quantity of the rude produce of
the lands of other people, as supplies them, not only with the materials
of their work, but with the fund of their subsistence. What a town
always is with regard to the country in its neighbourhood, one
independent state or country may frequently be with regard to other
independent states or countries. It is thus that Holland draws a great
part of its subsistence from other countries; live cattle from Holstein
and Jutland, and corn from almost all the different countries of Europe.
A small quantity of manufactured produce, purchases a great quantity of
rude produce. A trading and manufacturing country, therefore, naturally
purchases, with a small part of its manufactured produce, a great
part of the rude produce of other countries; while, on the contrary, a
country without trade and manufactures is generally obliged to purchase,
at the expense of a great part of its rude produce, a very small part
of the manufactured produce of other countries. The one exports what can
subsist and accommodate but a very few, and imports the subsistence and
accommodation of a great number. The other exports the accommodation and
subsistence of a great number, and imports that of a very few only.
The inhabitants of the one must always enjoy a much greater quantity
of subsistence than what their own lands, in the actual state of their
cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of the other must always
enjoy a much smaller quantity.

This system, however, with all its imperfections, is perhaps the nearest
approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the
subject of political economy; and is upon that account, well worth the
consideration of every man who wishes to examine with attention the
principles of that very important science. Though in representing the
labour which is employed upon land as the only productive labour, the
notions which it inculcates are, perhaps, too narrow and confined;
yet in representing the wealth of nations as consisting, not in the
unconsumable riches of money, but in the consumable goods annually
reproduced by the labour of the society, and in representing perfect
liberty as the only effectual expedient for rendering this annual
reproduction the greatest possible, its doctrine seems to be in every
respect as just as it is generous and liberal. Its followers are
very numerous; and as men are fond of paradoxes, and of appearing to
understand what surpasses the comprehensions of ordinary people, the
paradox which it maintains, concerning the unproductive nature of
manufacturing labour, has not, perhaps, contributed a little to increase
the number of its admirers. They have for some years past made a pretty
considerable sect, distinguished in the French republic of letters by
the name of the Economists. Their works have certainly been of some
service to their country; not only by bringing into general discussion,
many subjects which had never been well examined before, but by
influencing, in some measure, the public administration in favour
of agriculture. It has been in consequence of their representations,
accordingly, that the agriculture of France has been delivered from
several of the oppressions which it before laboured under. The term,
during which such a lease can be granted, as will be valid against every
future purchaser or proprietor of the land, has been prolonged from
nine to twenty-seven years. The ancient provincial restraints upon the
transportation of corn from one province of the kingdom to another, have
been entirely taken away; and the liberty of exporting it to all foreign
countries, has been established as the common law of the kingdom in all
ordinary cases. This sect, in their works, which are very numerous, and
which treat not only of what is properly called Political Economy, or
of the nature and causes or the wealth of nations, but of every other
branch of the system of civil government, all follow implicitly, and
without any sensible variation, the doctrine of Mr. Qttesnai. There is,
upon this account, little variety in the greater part of their works.
The most distinct and best connected account of this doctrine is to be
found in a little book written by Mr. Mercier de la Riviere, some time
intendant of Martinico, entitled, The natural and essential Order of
Political Societies. The admiration of this whole sect for their master,
who was himself a man of the greatest modesty and simplicity, is not
inferior to that of any of the ancient philosophers for the founders of
their respective systems. 'There have been since the world began,' says
a very diligent and respectable author, the Marquis de Mirabeau, 'three
great inventions which have principally given stability to political
societies, independent of many other inventions which have enriched and
adorned them. The first is the invention of writing, which alone gives
human nature the power of transmitting, without alteration, its laws,
its contracts, its annals, and its discoveries. The second is the
invention of money, which binds together all the relations between
civilized societies. The third is the economical table, the result of
the other two, which completes them both by perfecting their object;
the great discovery of our age, but of which our posterity will reap the
benefit.'

As the political economy of the nations of modern Europe has been more
favourable to manufactures and foreign trade, the industry of the towns,
than to agriculture, the industry of the country; so that of other
nations has followed a different plan, and has been more favourable to
agriculture than to manufactures and foreign trade.

The policy of China favours agriculture more than all other employments.
In China, the condition of a labourer is said to be as much superior to
that of an artificer, as in most parts of Europe that of an artificer is
to that of a labourer. In China, the great ambition of every man is to
get possession of a little bit of land, either in property or in lease;
and leases are there said to be granted upon very moderate terms, and to
be sufficiently secured to the lessees. The Chinese have little respect
for foreign trade. Your beggarly commerce! was the language in which
the mandarins of Pekin used to talk to Mr. De Lange, the Russian envoy,
concerning it {See the Journal of Mr. De Lange, in Bell's Travels,
vol. ii. p. 258, 276, 293.}. Except with Japan, the Chinese carry on,
themselves, and in their own bottoms, little or no foreign trade; and it
is only into one or two ports of their kingdom that they even admit the
ships of foreign nations. Foreign trade, therefore, is, in China, every
way confined within a much narrower circle than that to which it would
naturally extend itself, if more freedom was allowed to it, either in
their own ships, or in those of foreign nations.

Manufactures, as in a small bulk they frequently contain a great value,
and can upon that account be transported at less expense from one
country to another than most parts of rude produce, are, in almost
all countries, the principal support of foreign trade. In countries,
besides, less extensive, and less favourably circumstanced for inferior
commerce than China, they generally require the support of foreign
trade. Without an extensive foreign market, they could not well
flourish, either in countries so moderately extensive as to afford but a
narrow home market, or in countries where the communication between one
province and another was so difficult, as to render it impossible for
the goods of any particular place to enjoy the whole of that home
market which the country could afford. The perfection of manufacturing
industry, it must be remembered, depends altogether upon the division of
labour; and the degree to which the division of labour can be introduced
into any manufacture, is necessarily regulated, it has already been
shewn, by the extent of the market. But the great extent of the empire
of China, the vast multitude of its inhabitants, the variety of climate,
and consequently of productions in its different provinces, and the easy
communication by means of water-carriage between the greater part of
them, render the home market of that country of so great extent, as to
be alone sufficient to support very great manufactures, and to admit of
very considerable subdivisions of labour. The home market of China is,
perhaps, in extent, not much inferior to the market of all the different
countries of Europe put together. A more extensive foreign trade,
however, which to this great home market added the foreign market of all
the rest of the world, especially if any considerable part of this trade
was carried on in Chinese ships, could scarce fail to increase very
much the manufactures of China, and to improve very much the productive
powers of its manufacturing industry. By a more extensive navigation,
the Chinese would naturally learn the art of using and constructing,
themselves, all the different machines made use of in other countries,
as well as the other improvements of art and industry which are
practised in all the different parts of the world. Upon their present
plan, they have little opportunity of improving themselves by the
example of any other nation, except that of the Japanese.

The policy of ancient Egypt, too, and that of the Gentoo government
of Indostan, seem to have favoured agriculture more than all other
employments.

Both in ancient Egypt and Indostan, the whole body of the people was
divided into different casts or tribes each of which was confined, from
father to son, to a particular employment, or class of employments.
The son of a priest was necessarily a priest; the son of a soldier,
a soldier; the son of a labourer, a labourer; the son of a weaver, a
weaver; the son of a tailor, a tailor, etc. In both countries, the cast
of the priests holds the highest rank, and that of the soldiers the
next; and in both countries the cast of the farmers and labourers was
superior to the casts of merchants and manufacturers.

The government of both countries was particularly attentive to the
interest of agriculture. The works constructed by the ancient sovereigns
of Egypt, for the proper distribution of the waters of the Nile, were
famous in antiquity, and the ruined remains of some of them are
still the admiration of travellers. Those of the same kind which were
constructed by the ancient sovereigns of Indostan, for the proper
distribution of the waters of the Ganges, as well as of many other
rivers, though they have been less celebrated, seem to have been equally
great. Both countries, accordingly, though subject occasionally to
dearths, have been famous for their great fertility. Though both were
extremely populous, yet, in years of moderate plenty, they were both
able to export great quantities of grain to their neighbours.

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious aversion to the sea; and as
the Gentoo religion does not permit its followers to light a fire,
nor consequently to dress any victuals, upon the water, it, in effect,
prohibits them from all distant sea voyages. Both the Egyptians and
Indians must have depended almost altogether upon the navigation of
other nations for the exportation of their surplus produce; and this
dependency, as it must have confined the market, so it must have
discouraged the increase of this surplus produce. It must have
discouraged, too, the increase of the manufactured produce, more than
that of the rude produce. Manufactures require a much more extensive
market than the most important parts of the rude produce of the land. A
single shoemaker will make more than 300 pairs of shoes in the year; and
his own family will not, perhaps, wear out six pairs. Unless, therefore,
he has the custom of, at least, 50 such families as his own, he cannot
dispose of the whole product of his own labour. The most numerous class
of artificers will seldom, in a large country, make more than one in 50,
or one in a 100, of the whole number of families contained in it. But
in such large countries, as France and England, the number of people
employed in agriculture has, by some authors been computed at a half, by
others at a third and by no author that I know of, at less that a fifth
of the whole inhabitants of the country. But as the produce of the
agriculture of both France and England is, the far greater part of it,
consumed at home, each person employed in it must, according to these
computations, require little more than the custom of one, two, or, at
most, of four such families as his own, in order to dispose of the whole
produce of his own labour. Agriculture, therefore, can support
itself under the discouragement of a confined market much better
than manufactures. In both ancient Egypt and Indostan, indeed, the
confinement of the foreign market was in some measure compensated by
the conveniency of many inland navigations, which opened, in the most
advantageous manner, the whole extent of the home market to every part
of the produce of every different district of those countries. The great
extent of Indostan, too, rendered the home market of that country very
great, and sufficient to support a great variety of manufactures. But
the small extent of ancient Egypt, which was never equal to England,
must at all times, have rendered the home market of that country
too narrow for supporting any great variety of manufactures. Bengal
accordingly, the province of Indostan which commonly exports the
greatest quantity of rice, has always been more remarkable for the
exportation of a great variety of manufactures, than for that of
its grain. Ancient Egypt, on the contrary, though it exported some
manufactures, fine linen in particular, as well as some other goods,
was always most distinguished for its great exportation of grain. It was
long the granary of the Roman empire.

The sovereigns of China, of ancient Egypt, and of the different kingdoms
into which Indostan has, at different times, been divided, have always
derived the whole, or by far the most considerable part, of their
revenue, from some sort of land tax or land rent. This land tax, or land
rent, like the tithe in Europe, consisted in a certain proportion,
a fifth, it is said, of the produce of the land, which was either
delivered in kind, or paid in money, according to a certain valuation,
and which, therefore, varied from year to year, according to all
the variations of the produce. It was natural, therefore, that the
sovereigns of those countries should be particularly attentive to the
interests of agriculture, upon the prosperity or declension of which
immediately depended the yearly increase or diminution of their own
revenue.

The policy of the ancient republics of Greece, and that of Rome, though
it honoured agriculture more than manufactures or foreign trade, yet
seems rather to have discouraged the latter employments, than to have
given any direct or intentional encouragement to the former. In
several of the ancient states of Greece, foreign trade was prohibited
altogether; and in several others, the employments of artificers and
manufacturers were considered as hurtful to the strength and agility of
the human body, as rendering it incapable of those habits which their
military and gymnastic exercises endeavoured to form in it, and as
thereby disqualifying it, more or less, for undergoing the fatigues and
encountering the dangers of war. Such occupations were considered as
fit only for slaves, and the free citizens of the states were prohibited
from exercising them. Even in those states where no such prohibition
took place, as in Rome and Athens, the great body of the people were in
effect excluded from all the trades which are now commonly exercised by
the lower sort of the inhabitants of towns. Such trades were, at Athens
and Rome, all occupied by the slaves of the rich, who exercised them for
the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, power, and protection, made
it almost impossible for a poor freeman to find a market for his work,
when it came into competition with that of the slaves of the rich.
Slaves, however, are very seldom inventive; and all the most
important improvements, either in machinery, or in the arrangement and
distribution of work, which facilitate and abridge labour have been the
discoveries of freemen. Should a slave propose any improvement of this
kind, his master would be very apt to consider the proposal as the
suggestion of laziness, and of a desire to save his own labour at the
master's expense. The poor slave, instead of reward would probably
meet with much abuse, perhaps with some punishment. In the manufactures
carried on by slaves, therefore, more labour must generally have been
employed to execute the same quantity of work, than in those carried on
by freemen. The work of the farmer must, upon that account, generally
have been dearer than that of the latter. The Hungarian mines, it is
remarked by Mr. Montesquieu, though not richer, have always been wrought
with less expense, and therefore with more profit, than the Turkish
mines in their neighbourhood. The Turkish mines are wrought by slaves;
and the arms of those slaves are the only machines which the Turks have
ever thought of employing. The Hungarian mines are wrought by freemen,
who employ a great deal of machinery, by which they facilitate and
abridge their own labour. From the very little that is known about the
price of manufactures in the times of the Greeks and Romans, it would
appear that those of the finer sort were excessively dear. Silk sold
for its weight in gold. It was not, indeed, in those times an European
manufacture; and as it was all brought from the East Indies, the
distance of the carriage may in some measure account for the greatness
of the price. The price, however, which a lady, it is said, would
sometimes pay for a piece of very fine linen, seems to have been equally
extravagant; and as linen was always either an European, or at farthest,
an Egyptian manufacture, this high price can be accounted for only by
the great expense of the labour which must have been employed about It,
and the expense of this labour again could arise from nothing but the
awkwardness of the machinery which is made use of. The price of fine
woollens, too, though not quite so extravagant, seems, however, to have
been much above that of the present times. Some cloths, we are told by
Pliny {Plin. 1. ix.c.39.}, dyed in a particular manner, cost a hundred
denarii, or £3:6s:8d. the pound weight. Others, dyed in another manner,
cost a thousand denarii the pound weight, or £33:6s:8d. The Roman pound,
it must be remembered, contained only twelve of our avoirdupois ounces.
This high price, indeed, seems to have been principally owing to the
dye. But had not the cloths themselves been much dearer than any
which are made in the present times, so very expensive a dye would not
probably have been bestowed upon them. The disproportion would have been
too great between the value of the accessory and that of the principal.
The price mentioned by the same author {Plin. 1. viii.c.48.}, of some
triclinaria, a sort of woollen pillows or cushions made use of to
lean upon as they reclined upon their couches at table, passes all
credibility; some of them being said to have cost more than £30,000,
others more than £300,000. This high price, too, is not said to have
arisen from the dye. In the dress of the people of fashion of both
sexes, there seems to have been much less variety, it is observed by Dr.
Arbuthnot, in ancient than in modern times; and the very little variety
which we find in that of the ancient statues, confirms his observation.
He infers from this, that their dress must, upon the whole, have been
cheaper than ours; but the conclusion does not seem to follow. When the
expense of fashionable dress is very great, the variety must be very
small. But when, by the improvements in the productive powers of
manufacturing art and industry, the expense of any one dress comes to be
very moderate, the variety will naturally be very great. The rich, not
being able to distinguish themselves by the expense of any one dress,
will naturally endeavour to do so by the multitude and variety of their
dresses.

The greatest and most important branch of the commerce of every nation,
it has already been observed, is that which is carried on between the
inhabitants of the town and those of the country. The inhabitants of the
town draw from the country the rude produce, which constitutes both the
materials of their work and the fund of their subsistence; and they pay
for this rude produce, by sending back to the country a certain portion
of it manufactured and prepared for immediate use. The trade which
is carried on between these two different sets of people, consists
ultimately in a certain quantity of rude produce exchanged for a certain
quantity of manufactured produce. The dearer the latter, therefore, the
cheaper the former; and whatever tends in any country to raise the price
of manufactured produce, tends to lower that of the rude produce of the
land, and thereby to discourage agriculture. The smaller the quantity of
manufactured produce, which any given quantity of rude produce, or, what
comes to the same thing, which the price of any given quantity of rude
produce, is capable of purchasing, the smaller the exchangeable value of
that given quantity of rude produce; the smaller the encouragement which
either the landlord has to increase its quantity by improving, or the
farmer by cultivating the land. Whatever, besides, tends to diminish
in any country the number of artificers and manufacturers, tends to
diminish the home market, the most important of all markets, for the
rude produce of the land, and thereby still further to discourage
agriculture.

Those systems, therefore, which preferring agriculture to all other
employments, in order to promote it, impose restraints upon manufactures
and foreign trade, act contrary to the very end which they propose, and
indirectly discourage that very species of industry which they mean
to promote. They are so far, perhaps, more inconsistent than even the
mercantile system. That system, by encouraging manufactures and foreign
trade more than agriculture, turns a certain portion of the capital
of the society, from supporting a more advantageous, to support a less
advantageous species of industry. But still it really, and in the end,
encourages that species of industry which it means to promote.
Those agricultural systems, on the contrary, really, and in the end,
discourage their own favourite species of industry.

It is thus that every system which endeavours, either, by extraordinary
encouragements to draw towards a particular species of industry a
greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally
go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular
species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be
employed in it, is, in reality, subversive of the great purpose which
it means to promote. It retards, instead of accelerating the progress of
the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes, instead
of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its land and
labour.

All systems, either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus
completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty
establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not
violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own
interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into
competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign
is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which
he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper
performance of which, no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be
sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people,
and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the
interests of the society. According to the system of natural liberty,
the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great
importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings:
first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion
of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as
far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or
oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an
exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and
maintaining certain public works, and certain public institutions, which
it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of
individuals to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay
the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals, though it
may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.

The proper performance of those several duties of the sovereign
necessarily supposes a certain expense; and this expense again
necessarily requires a certain revenue to support it. In the following
book, therefore, I shall endeavour to explain, first, what are the
necessary expenses of the sovereign or commonwealth; and which of those
expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole
society; and which of them, by that of some particular part only, or of
some particular members of the society: secondly, what are the different
methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards
defraying the expenses incumbent on the whole society; and what are the
principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of those methods: and
thirdly, what are the reasons and causes which have induced almost all
modern governments to mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract
debts; and what have been the effects of those debts upon the real
wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the society.
The following book, therefore, will naturally be divided into three
chapters.



APPENDIX TO BOOK IV

The two following accounts are subjoined, in order to illustrate and
confirm what is said in the fifth chapter of the fourth book, concerning
the Tonnage Bounty to the Whit-herring Fishery. The reader, I believe,
may depend upon the accuracy of both accounts.


An account of Busses fitted out in Scotland for eleven Years, with
the Number of empty Barrels carried out, and the Number of Barrels
of Herrings caught; also the Bounty, at a Medium, on each Barrel of
Sea-sricks, and on each Barrel when fully packed.

  Years   Number of  Empty Barrels  Barrels of Her-  Bounty paid on
           Busses     carried out    rings caught      the Busses
                                                          £.  s.  d.
  1771          29        5,948        2,832          2,885   0   0
  1772         168       41,316       22,237         11,055   7   6
  1773         190       42,333       42,055         12,510   8   6
  1774         240       59,303       56,365         26,932   2   6
  1775         275       69,144       52,879         19,315  15   0
  1776         294       76,329       51,863         21,290   7   6
  1777         240       62,679       43,313         17,592   2   6
  1778         220       56,390       40,958         16,316   2   6
  1779         206       55,194       29,367         15,287   0   0
  1780         181       48,315       19,885         13,445  12   6
  1781         135       33,992       16,593          9,613  15   6

      Totals 2,186      550,943      378,347       £165,463  14   0

  Sea-sticks     378,347  Bounty, at a medium, for each
                          barrel of sea-sticks,         £ 0   8   2¼
                          But a barrel of sea-sticks
                          being only reckoned two thirds
                          of a barrel fully packed, one
                          third to be deducted, which
  ¹/³deducted    126,115  brings the bounty to          £ 0  12   3¾
  Barrels fully
  packed         252,231

  And if the herrings are exported, there is besides a
                                           premium of   £ 0   2   8
  So the bounty paid by government in money for each
                                           barrel is    £ 0  14  11¾

  But if to this, the duty of the salt usually taken
  credit for as expended in curing each barrel, which
  at a medium, is, of foreign, one bushel and one-
  fourth of a bushel, at 10s. a-bushel, be added, viz     0  12   6
  the bounty on each barrel would amount to             £ 1   7   5¾

  If the herrings are cured with British salt, it will
  stand thus, viz.
  Bounty as before                                      £ 0  14  11¾
  But if to this bounty, the duty on two bushels of
  Scotch salt, at 1s.6d. per bushel, supposed to be
  the quantity, at a medium, used in curing each
  barrel is added, viz.                                   0   3   0
  The bounty on each barrel will amount to              £ 0  17  11¾

  And when buss herrings are entered for home
  consumption in Scotland, and pay the shilling a
  barrel of duty, the bounty stands thus, to wit,
                                           as before    £ 0  12   3¾
  From which the shilling a barrel is to be deducted      0   1   0
                                                        £ 0  11   3¾

  But to that there is to be added again, the duty of
  the foreign salt used curing a barrel of herring viz    0  12   6
  So that the premium allowed for each barrel of her-
  rings entered for home consumption is                 £ 1   3   9¾


  If the herrings are cured in British salt, it will
  stand as follows viz.
  Bounty on each barrel brought in by the busses, as
  above                                                 £ 0  12   3¾
  From which deduct 1s. a-barrel, paid at the time
  they are entered for home consumption                   0   1   0
                                                        £ 0  11   3¾

  But if to the bounty, the the duty on two bushel
  of Scotch salt, at 1s.6d. per bushel supposed to
  be the quantity, at a medium, used in curing each
  barrel, is added, viz                                   0   3   0
  the premium for each barrel entered for home
  consumption will be                                   £ 1  14   3¾

Though the loss of duties upon herrings exported cannot, perhaps,
properly be considered as bounty, that upon herrings entered for home
consumption certainly may.



An account of the Quantity of Foreign Salt imported into Scotland,
and of Scotch Salt delivered Duty-free from the Works there, for the
Fishery, from the 5th. of April 1771 to the 5th. of April 1782 with the
Medium of both for one Year.


                                Foreign Salt      Scotch Salt delivered
           PERIOD                 imported        from the Works
                                  Bushels              Bushels

  From 5th. April 1771 to
      5th. April 1782             936,974              168,226
  Medium for one year              85,159½              15,293¼

It is to be observed, that the bushel of foreign salt weighs 48lbs.,
that of British weighs 56lbs. only.



BOOK V.

OF THE REVENUE OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH



CHAPTER I. OF THE EXPENSES OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.


PART I. Of the Expense of Defence.

The first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the
violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed
only by means of a military force. But the expense both of preparing
this military force in time of peace, and of employing it in time
of war, is very different in the different states of society, in the
different periods of improvement.

Among nations of hunters, the lowest and rudest state of society, such
as we find it among the native tribes of North America, every man is a
warrior, as well as a hunter. When he goes to war, either to defend his
society, or to revenge the injuries which have been done to it by other
societies, he maintains himself by his own labour, in the same manner as
when he lives at home. His society (for in this state of things there is
properly neither sovereign nor commonwealth) is at no sort of expense,
either to prepare him for the field, or to maintain him while he is in
it.

Among nations of shepherds, a more advanced state of society, such as we
find it among the Tartars and Arabs, every man is, in the same manner, a
warrior. Such nations have commonly no fixed habitation, but live either
in tents, or in a sort of covered waggons, which are easily transported
from place to place. The whole tribe, or nation, changes its situation
according to the different seasons of the year, as well as according to
other accidents. When its herds and flocks have consumed the forage
of one part of the country, it removes to another, and from that to a
third. In the dry season, it comes down to the banks of the rivers; in
the wet season, it retires to the upper country. When such a nation goes
to war, the warriors will not trust their herds and flocks to the feeble
defence of their old men, their women and children; and their old men,
their women and children, will not be left behind without defence, and
without subsistence. The whole nation, besides, being accustomed to a
wandering life, even in time of peace, easily takes the field in time
of war. Whether it marches as an army, or moves about as a company of
herdsmen, the way of life is nearly the same, though the object proposed
by it be very different. They all go to war together, therefore, and
everyone does as well as he can. Among the Tartars, even the women have
been frequently known to engage in battle. If they conquer, whatever
belongs to the hostile tribe is the recompence of the victory; but if
they are vanquished, all is lost; and not only their herds and flocks,
but their women and children become the booty of the conqueror. Even the
greater part of those who survive the action are obliged to submit
to him for the sake of immediate subsistence. The rest are commonly
dissipated and dispersed in the desert.

The ordinary life, the ordinary exercise of a Tartar or Arab, prepares
him sufficiently for war. Running, wrestling, cudgel-playing, throwing
the javelin, drawing the bow, etc. are the common pastimes of those
who live in the open air, and are all of them the images of war. When a
Tartar or Arab actually goes to war, he is maintained by his own herds
and flocks, which he carries with him, in the same manner as in peace.
His chief or sovereign (for those nations have all chiefs or sovereigns)
is at no sort of expense in preparing him for the field; and when he is
in it, the chance of plunder is the only pay which he either expects or
requires.

An army of hunters can seldom exceed two or three hundred men. The
precarious subsistence which the chace affords, could seldom allow a
greater number to keep together for any considerable time. An army of
shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount to two or three hundred
thousand. As long as nothing stops their progress, as long as they can
go on from one district, of which they have consumed the forage, to
another, which is yet entire; there seems to be scarce any limit to
the number who can march on together. A nation of hunters can never be
formidable to the civilized nations in their neighbourhood; a nation of
shepherds may. Nothing can be more contemptible than an Indian war in
North America; nothing, on the contrary, can be more dreadful than a
Tartar invasion has frequently been in Asia. The judgment of Thucydides,
that both Europe and Asia could not resist the Scythians united, has
been verified by the experience of all ages. The inhabitants of the
extensive, but defenceless plains of Scythia or Tartary, have been
frequently united under the dominion of the chief of some conquering
horde or clan; and the havock and devastation of Asia have always
signalized their union. The inhabitants of the inhospitable deserts of
Arabia, the other great nation of shepherds, have never been united but
once, under Mahomet and his immediate successors. Their union, which was
more the effect of religious enthusiasm than of conquest, was signalized
in the same manner. If the hunting nations of America should ever become
shepherds, their neighbourhood would be much more dangerous to the
European colonies than it is at present.

In a yet more advanced state of society, among those nations of
husbandmen who have little foreign commerce, and no other manufactures
but those coarse and household ones, which almost every private family
prepares for its own use, every man, in the same manner, either is a
warrior, or easily becomes such. Those who live by agriculture generally
pass the whole day in the open air, exposed to all the inclemencies of
the seasons. The hardiness of their ordinary life prepares them for the
fatigues of war, to some of which their necessary occupations bear a
great analogy. The necessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to
work in the trenches, and to fortify a camp, as well as to inclose a
field. The ordinary pastimes of such husbandmen are the same as those
of shepherds, and are in the same manner the images of war. But as
husbandmen have less leisure than shepherds, they are not so frequently
employed in those pastimes. They are soldiers but soldiers not quite
so much masters of their exercise. Such as they are, however, it seldom
costs the sovereign or commonwealth any expense to prepare them for the
field.

Agriculture, even in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement,
some sort of fixed habitation, which cannot be abandoned without great
loss. When a nation of mere husbandmen, therefore, goes to war, the
whole people cannot take the field together. The old men, the women and
children, at least, must remain at home, to take care of the habitation.
All the men of the military age, however, may take the field, and in
small nations of this kind, have frequently done so. In every nation,
the men of the military age are supposed to amount to about a fourth
or a fifth part of the whole body of the people. If the campaign, too,
should begin after seedtime, and end before harvest, both the husbandman
and his principal labourers can be spared from the farm without much
loss. He trusts that the work which must be done in the mean time, can
be well enough executed by the old men, the women, and the children.
He is not unwilling, therefore, to serve without pay during a short
campaign; and it frequently costs the sovereign or commonwealth as
little to maintain him in the field as to prepare him for it. The
citizens of all the different states of ancient Greece seem to have
served in this manner till after the second Persian war; and the people
of Peloponnesus till after the Peloponnesian war. The Peloponnesians,
Thucydides observes, generally left the field in the summer, and
returned home to reap the harvest. The Roman people, under their kings,
and during the first ages of the republic, served in the same manner.
It was not till the seige of Veii, that they who staid at home began to
contribute something towards maintaining those who went to war. In the
European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman
empire, both before, and for some time after, the establishment of
what is properly called the feudal law, the great lords, with all their
immediate dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense. In
the field, in the same manner as at home, they maintained themselves
by their own revenue, and not by any stipend or pay which they received
from the king upon that particular occasion.

In a more advanced state of society, two different causes contribute
to render it altogether impossible that they who take the field should
maintain themselves at their own expense. Those two causes are, the
progress of manufactures, and the improvement in the art of war.

Though a husbandman should be employed in an expedition, provided it
begins after seedtime, and ends before harvest, the interruption of his
business will not always occasion any considerable diminution of his
revenue. Without the intervention of his labour, Nature does herself the
greater part of the work which remains to be done. But the moment that
an artificer, a smith, a carpenter, or a weaver, for example, quits his
workhouse, the sole source of his revenue is completely dried up. Nature
does nothing for him; he does all for himself. When he takes the field,
therefore, in defence of the public, as he has no revenue to maintain
himself, he must necessarily be maintained by the public. But in a
country, of which a great part of the inhabitants are artificers and
manufacturers, a great part of the people who go to war must be drawn
from those classes, and must, therefore, be maintained by the public as
long as they are employed in its service.

When the art of war, too, has gradually grown up to be a very intricate
and complicated science; when the event of war ceases to be determined,
as in the first ages of society, by a single irregular skirmish or
battle; but when the contest is generally spun out through several
different campaigns, each of which lasts during the greater part of the
year; it becomes universally necessary that the public should maintain
those who serve the public in war, at least while they are employed
in that service. Whatever, in time of peace, might be the ordinary
occupation of those who go to war, so very tedious and expensive a
service would otherwise be by far too heavy a burden upon them. After
the second Persian war, accordingly, the armies of Athens seem to have
been generally composed of mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly
of citizens, but partly, too, of foreigners; and all of them equally
hired and paid at the expense of the state. From the time of the siege
of Veii, the armies of Rome received pay for their service during the
time which they remained in the field. Under the feudal governments,
the military service, both of the great lords, and of their immediate
dependents, was, after a certain period, universally exchanged for a
payment in money, which was employed to maintain those who served in
their stead.

The number of those who can go to war, in proportion to the whole number
of the people, is necessarily much smaller in a civilized than in a rude
state of society. In a civilized society, as the soldiers are maintained
altogether by the labour of those who are not soldiers, the number of
the former can never exceed what the latter can maintain, over and above
maintaining, in a manner suitable to their respective stations, both
themselves and the other officers of government and law, whom they are
obliged to maintain. In the little agrarian states of ancient Greece,
a fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people considered the
themselves as soldiers, and would sometimes, it is said, take the field.
Among the civilized nations of modern Europe, it is commonly computed,
that not more than the one hundredth part of the inhabitants of any
country can be employed as soldiers, without ruin to the country which
pays the expense of their service.

The expense of preparing the army for the field seems not to have become
considerable in any nation, till long after that of maintaining it in
the field had devolved entirely upon the sovereign or commonwealth. In
all the different republics of ancient Greece, to learn his military
exercises, was a necessary part of education imposed by the state upon
every free citizen. In every city there seems to have been a public
field, in which, under the protection of the public magistrate, the
young people were taught their different exercises by different masters.
In this very simple institution consisted the whole expense which any
Grecian state seems ever to have been at, in preparing its citizens for
war. In ancient Rome, the exercises of the Campus Martius answered the
same purpose with those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece. Under the
feudal governments, the many public ordinances, that the citizens
of every district should practise archery, as well as several other
military exercises, were intended for promoting the same purpose, but
do not seem to have promoted it so well. Either from want of interest in
the officers entrusted with the execution of those ordinances, or from
some other cause, they appear to have been universally neglected; and in
the progress of all those governments, military exercises seem to have
gone gradually into disuse among the great body of the people.

In the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, during the whole period of
their existence, and under the feudal governments, for a considerable
time after their first establishment, the trade of a soldier was not
a separate, distinct trade, which constituted the sole or principal
occupation of a particular class of citizens; every subject of the
state, whatever might be the ordinary trade or occupation by which he
gained his livelihood, considered himself, upon all ordinary occasions,
as fit likewise to exercise the trade of a soldier, and, upon many
extraordinary occasions, as bound to exercise it.

The art of war, however, as it is certainly the noblest of all arts, so,
in the progress of improvement, it necessarily becomes one of the most
complicated among them. The state of the mechanical, as well as some
other arts, with which it is necessarily connected, determines the
degree of perfection to which it is capable of being carried at any
particular time. But in order to carry it to this degree of perfection,
it is necessary that it should become the sole or principal occupation
of a particular class of citizens; and the division of labour is as
necessary for the improvement of this, as of every other art. Into other
arts, the division of labour is naturally introduced by the prudence of
individuals, who find that they promote their private interest better by
confining themselves to a particular trade, than by exercising a great
number. But it is the wisdom of the state only, which can render the
trade of a soldier a particular trade, separate and distinct from all
others. A private citizen, who, in time of profound peace, and without
any particular encouragement from the public, should spend the greater
part of his time in military exercises, might, no doubt, both improve
himself very much in them, and amuse himself very well; but he certainly
would not promote his own interest. It is the wisdom of the state only,
which can render it for his interest to give up the greater part of his
time to this peculiar occupation; and states have not always had
this wisdom, even when their circumstances had become such, that the
preservation of their existence required that they should have it.

A shepherd has a great deal of leisure; a husbandman, in the rude state
of husbandry, has some; an artificer or manufacturer has none at all.
The first may, without any loss, employ a great deal of his time in
martial exercises; the second may employ some part of it; but the last
cannot employ a single hour in them without some loss, and his attention
to his own interest naturally leads him to neglect them altogether.
Those improvements in husbandry, too, which the progress of arts and
manufactures necessarily introduces, leave the husbandman as little
leisure as the artificer. Military exercises come to be as much
neglected by the inhabitants of the country as by those of the town, and
the great body of the people becomes altogether unwarlike. That wealth,
at the same time, which always follows the improvements of agriculture
and manufactures, and which, in reality, is no more than the accumulated
produce of those improvements, provokes the invasion of all their
neighbours. An industrious, and, upon that account, a wealthy nation,
is of all nations the most likely to be attacked; and unless the state
takes some new measure for the public defence, the natural habits of the
people render them altogether incapable of defending themselves.

In these circumstances, there seem to be but two methods by which the
state can make any tolerable provision for the public defence.

It may either, first, by means of a very rigorous police, and in spite
of the whole bent of the interest, genius, and inclinations of the
people, enforce the practice of military exercises, and oblige either
all the citizens of the military age, or a certain number of them, to
join in some measure the trade of a soldier to whatever other trade or
profession they may happen to carry on.

Or, secondly, by maintaining and employing a certain number of citizens
in the constant practice of military exercises, it may render the trade
of a soldier a particular trade, separate and distinct from all others.

If the state has recourse to the first of those two expedients, its
military force is said to consist in a militia; if to the second, it is
said to consist in a standing army. The practice of military exercises
is the sole or principal occupation of the soldiers of a standing army,
and the maintenance or pay which the state affords them is the principal
and ordinary fund of their subsistence. The practice of military
exercises is only the occasional occupation of the soldiers of a
militia, and they derive the principal and ordinary fund of their
subsistence from some other occupation. In a militia, the character of
the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the
soldier; in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every
other character; and in this distinction seems to consist the essential
difference between those two different species of military force.

Militias have been of several different kinds. In some countries, the
citizens destined for defending the state seem to have been exercised
only, without being, if I may say so, regimented; that is, without
being divided into separate and distinct bodies of troops, each of which
performed its exercises under its own proper and permanent officers. In
the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, each citizen, as long as
he remained at home, seems to have practised his exercises, either
separately and independently, or with such of his equals as he liked
best; and not to have been attached to any particular body of troops,
till he was actually called upon to take the field. In other countries,
the militia has not only been exercised, but regimented. In England, in
Switzerland, and, I believe, in every other country of modern Europe,
where any imperfect military force of this kind has been established,
every militiaman is, even in time of peace, attached to a particular
body of troops, which performs its exercises under its own proper and
permanent officers.

Before the invention of fire-arms, that army was superior in which the
soldiers had, each individually, the greatest skill and dexterity in
the use of their arms. Strength and agility of body were of the highest
consequence, and commonly determined the fate of battles. But this skill
and dexterity in the use of their arms could be acquired only, in
the same manner as fencing is at present, by practising, not in great
bodies, but each man separately, in a particular school, under a
particular master, or with his own particular equals and companions.
Since the invention of fire-arms, strength and agility of body, or even
extraordinary dexterity and skill in the use of arms, though they are
far from being of no consequence, are, however, of less consequence.
The nature of the weapon, though it by no means puts the awkward upon a
level with the skilful, puts him more nearly so than he ever was before.
All the dexterity and skill, it is supposed, which are necessary for
using it, can be well enough acquired by practising in great bodies.

Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command, are qualities which,
in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate
of battles, than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of
their arms. But the noise of fire-arms, the smoke, and the invisible
death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed, as soon
as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the
battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to
maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt
obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient
battle, there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there
was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. Every
man, till some mortal weapon actually did approach him, saw clearly that
no such weapon was near him. In these circumstances, and among troops
who had some confidence in their own skill and dexterity in the use of
their arms, it must have been a good deal less difficult to preserve
some degree of regularity and order, not only in the beginning, but
through the whole progress of an ancient battle, and till one of the
two armies was fairly defeated. But the habits of regularity, order, and
prompt obedience to command, can be acquired only by troops which are
exercised in great bodies.

A militia, however, in whatever manner it may be either disciplined or
exercised, must always be much inferior to a well disciplined and well
exercised standing army.

The soldiers who are exercised only once a week, or once a-month, can
never be so expert in the use of their arms, as those who are exercised
every day, or every other day; and though this circumstance may not be
of so much consequence in modern, as it was in ancient times, yet the
acknowledged superiority of the Prussian troops, owing, it is said, very
much to their superior expertness in their exercise, may satisfy us that
it is, even at this day, of very considerable consequence.

The soldiers, who are bound to obey their officer only once a-week, or
once a-month, and who are at all other times at liberty to manage their
own affairs their own way, without being, in any respect, accountable to
him, can never be under the same awe in his presence, can never have
the same disposition to ready obedience, with those whose whole life and
conduct are every day directed by him, and who every day even rise
and go to bed, or at least retire to their quarters, according to
his orders. In what is called discipline, or in the habit of ready
obedience, a militia must always be still more inferior to a standing
army, than it may sometimes be in what is called the manual exercise, or
in the management and use of its arms. But, in modern war, the habit
of ready and instant obedience is of much greater consequence than a
considerable superiority in the management of arms.

Those militias which, like the Tartar or Arab militia, go to war under
the same chieftains whom they are accustomed to obey in peace, are
by far the best. In respect for their officers, in the habit of ready
obedience, they approach nearest to standing armies. The Highland
militia, when it served under its own chieftains, had some advantage
of the same kind. As the Highlanders, however, were not wandering, but
stationary shepherds, as they had all a fixed habitation, and were not,
in peaceable times, accustomed to follow their chieftain from place to
place; so, in time of war, they were less willing to follow him to any
considerable distance, or to continue for any long time in the field.
When they had acquired any booty, they were eager to return home,
and his authority was seldom sufficient to detain them. In point of
obedience, they were always much inferior to what is reported of the
Tartars and Arabs. As the Highlanders, too, from their stationary
life, spend less of their time in the open air, they were always less
accustomed to military exercises, and were less expert in the use of
their arms than the Tartars and Arabs are said to be.

A militia of any kind, it must be observed, however, which has served
for several successive campaigns in the field, becomes in every respect
a standing army. The soldiers are every day exercised in the use of
their arms, and, being constantly under the command of their officers,
are habituated to the same prompt obedience which takes place in
standing armies. What they were before they took the field, is of little
importance. They necessarily become in every respect a standing army,
after they have passed a few campaigns in it. Should the war in America
drag out through another campaign, the American militia may become,
in every respect, a match for that standing army, of which the valour
appeared, in the last war at least, not inferior to that of the hardiest
veterans of France and Spain.

This distinction being well understood, the history of all ages, it will
be found, hears testimony to the irresistible superiority which a well
regulated standing army has over a militia.

One of the first standing armies, of which we have any distinct account
in any well authenticated history, is that of Philip of Macedon. His
frequent wars with the Thracians, Illyrians, Thessalians, and some of
the Greek cities in the neighbourhood of Macedon, gradually formed
his troops, which in the beginning were probably militia, to the exact
discipline of a standing army. When he was at peace, which he was very
seldom, and never for any long time together, he was careful not to
disband that army. It vanquished and subdued, after a long and violent
struggle, indeed, the gallant and well exercised militias of the
principal republics of ancient Greece; and afterwards, with very little
struggle, the effeminate and ill exercised militia of the great Persian
empire. The fall of the Greek republics, and of the Persian empire was
the effect of the irresistible superiority which a standing arm has over
every other sort of militia. It is the first great revolution in the
affairs of mankind of which history has preserved any distinct and
circumstantial account.

The fall of Carthage, and the consequent elevation of Rome, is the
second. All the varieties in the fortune of those two famous republics
may very well be accounted for from the same cause.

From the end of the first to the beginning of the second Carthaginian
war, the armies of Carthage were continually in the field, and employed
under three great generals, who succeeded one another in the command;
Amilcar, his son-in-law Asdrubal, and his son Annibal: first in
chastising their own rebellious slaves, afterwards in subduing the
revolted nations of Africa; and lastly, in conquering the great
kingdom of Spain. The army which Annibal led from Spain into Italy must
necessarily, in those different wars, have been gradually formed to the
exact discipline of a standing army. The Romans, in the meantime, though
they had not been altogether at peace, yet they had not, during this
period, been engaged in any war of very great consequence; and their
military discipline, it is generally said, was a good deal relaxed.
The Roman armies which Annibal encountered at Trebi, Thrasymenus, and
Cannae, were militia opposed to a standing army. This circumstance, it
is probable, contributed more than any other to determine the fate of
those battles.

The standing army which Annibal left behind him in Spain had the like
superiority over the militia which the Romans sent to oppose it; and,
in a few years, under the command of his brother, the younger Asdrubal,
expelled them almost entirely from that country.

Annibal was ill supplied from home. The Roman militia, being continually
in the field, became, in the progress of the war, a well disciplined and
well exercised standing army; and the superiority of Annibal grew every
day less and less. Asdrubal judged it necessary to lead the whole, or
almost the whole, of the standing army which he commanded in Spain, to
the assistance of his brother in Italy. In this march, he is said to
have been misled by his guides; and in a country which he did not know,
was surprised and attacked, by another standing army, in every respect
equal or superior to his own, and was entirely defeated.

When Asdrubal had left Spain, the great Scipio found nothing to oppose
him but a militia inferior to his own. He conquered and subdued that
militia, and, in the course of the war, his own militia necessarily
became a well disciplined and well exercised standing army. That
standing army was afterwards carried to Africa, where it found nothing
but a militia to oppose it. In order to defend Carthage, it became
necessary to recal the standing army of Annibal. The disheartened and
frequently defeated African militia joined it, and, at the battle of
Zama, composed the greater part of the troops of Annibal. The event of
that day determined the fate of the two rival republics.

From the end of the second Carthaginian war till the fall of the Roman
republic, the armies of Rome were in every respect standing armies.
The standing army of Macedon made some resistance to their arms. In the
height of their grandeur, it cost them two great wars, and three great
battles, to subdue that little kingdom, of which the conquest would
probably have been still more difficult, had it not been for the
cowardice of its last king. The militias of all the civilized nations of
the ancient world, of Greece, of Syria, and of Egypt, made but a
feeble resistance to the standing armies of Rome. The militias of some
barbarous nations defended themselves much better. The Scythian or
Tartar militia, which Mithridates drew from the countries north of
the Euxine and Caspian seas, were the most formidable enemies whom the
Romans had to encounter after the second Carthaginian war. The Parthian
and German militias, too, were always respectable, and upon several
occasions, gained very considerable advantages over the Roman armies.
In general, however, and when the Roman armies were well commanded, they
appear to have been very much superior; and if the Romans did not pursue
the final conquest either of Parthia or Germany, it was probably because
they judged that it was not worth while to add those two barbarous
countries to an empire which was already too large. The ancient
Parthians appear to have been a nation of Scythian or Tartar extraction,
and to have always retained a good deal of the manners of their
ancestors. The ancient Germans were, like the Scythians or Tartars, a
nation of wandering shepherds, who went to war under the same chiefs
whom they were accustomed to follow in peace. 'Their militia was exactly
of the same kind with that of the Scythians or Tartars, from whom, too,
they were probably descended.

Many different causes contributed to relax the discipline of the Roman
armies. Its extreme severity was, perhaps, one of those causes. In the
days of their grandeur, when no enemy appeared capable of opposing them,
their heavy armour was laid aside as unnecessarily burdensome, their
laborious exercises were neglected, as unnecessarily toilsome. Under the
Roman emperors, besides, the standing armies of Rome, those particularly
which guarded the German and Pannonian frontiers, became dangerous to
their masters, against whom they used frequently to set up their own
generals. In order to render them less formidable, according to some
authors, Dioclesian, according to others, Constantine, first withdrew
them from the frontier, where they had always before been encamped in
great bodies, generally of two or three legions each, and dispersed them
in small bodies through the different provincial towns, from whence
they were scarce ever removed, but when it became necessary to repel
an invasion. Small bodies of soldiers, quartered in trading and
manufacturing towns, and seldom removed from those quarters, became
themselves trades men, artificers, and manufacturers. The civil came to
predominate over the military character; and the standing armies of
Rome gradually degenerated into a corrupt, neglected, and undisciplined
militia, incapable of resisting the attack of the German and Scythian
militias, which soon afterwards invaded the western empire. It was only
by hiring the militia of some of those nations to oppose to that of
others, that the emperors were for some time able to defend themselves.
The fall of the western empire is the third great revolution in the
affairs of mankind, of which ancient history has preserved any distinct
or circumstantial account. It was brought about by the irresistible
superiority which the militia of a barbarous has over that of a
civilized nation; which the militia of a nation of shepherds has over
that of a nation of husbandmen, artificers, and manufacturers. The
victories which have been gained by militias have generally been,
not over standing armies, but over other militias, in exercise and
discipline inferior to themselves. Such were the victories which the
Greek militia gained over that of the Persian empire; and such, too,
were those which, in later times, the Swiss militia gained over that of
the Austrians and Burgundians.

The military force of the German and Scythian nations, who established
themselves upon ruins of the western empire, continued for some time to
be of the same kind in their new settlements, as it had been in their
original country. It was a militia of shepherds and husbandmen, which,
in time of war, took the field under the command of the same chieftains
whom it was accustomed to obey in peace. It was, therefore, tolerably
well exercised, and tolerably well disciplined. As arts and industry
advanced, however, the authority of the chieftains gradually decayed,
and the great body of the people had less time to spare for military
exercises. Both the discipline and the exercise of the feudal militia,
therefore, went gradually to ruin, and standing armies were gradually
introduced to supply the place of it. When the expedient of a standing
army, besides, had once been adopted by one civilized nation, it became
necessary that all its neighbours should follow the example. They soon
found that their safety depended upon their doing so, and that their
own militia was altogether incapable of resisting the attack of such an
army.

The soldiers of a standing army, though they may never have seen an
enemy, yet have frequently appeared to possess all the courage of
veteran troops, and, the very moment that they took the field, to have
been fit to face the hardiest and most experienced veterans. In 1756,
when the Russian army marched into Poland, the valour of the Russian
soldiers did not appear inferior to that of the Prussians, at that time
supposed to be the hardiest and most experienced veterans in Europe. The
Russian empire, however, had enjoyed a profound peace for near twenty
years before, and could at that time have very few soldiers who had
ever seen an enemy. When the Spanish war broke out in 1739, England had
enjoyed a profound peace for about eight-and-twenty years. The valour of
her soldiers, however, far from being corrupted by that long peace, was
never more distinguished than in the attempt upon Carthagena, the
first unfortunate exploit of that unfortunate war. In a long peace, the
generals, perhaps, may sometimes forget their skill; but where a well
regulated standing army has been kept up, the soldiers seem never to
forget their valour.

When a civilized nation depends for its defence upon a militia, it is at
all times exposed to be conquered by any barbarous nation which happens
to be in its neighbourhood. The frequent conquests of all the civilized
countries in Asia by the Tartars, sufficiently demonstrates the
natural superiority which the militia of a barbarous has over that of
a civilized nation. A well regulated standing army is superior to every
militia. Such an army, as it can best be maintained by an opulent and
civilized nation, so it can alone defend such a nation against the
invasion of a poor and barbarous neighbour. It is only by means of a
standing army, therefore, that the civilization of any country can be
perpetuated, or even preserved, for any considerable time.

As it is only by means of a well regulated standing army, that a
civilized country can be defended, so it is only by means of it that a
barbarous country can be suddenly and tolerably civilized. A standing
army establishes, with an irresistible force, the law of the sovereign
through the remotest provinces of the empire, and maintains some degree
of regular government in countries which could not otherwise admit of
any. Whoever examines with attention, the improvements which Peter the
Great introduced into the Russian empire, will find that they almost all
resolve themselves into the establishment of a well regulated standing
army. It is the instrument which executes and maintains all his other
regulations. That degree of order and internal peace, which that empire
has ever since enjoyed, is altogether owing to the influence of that
army.

Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army, as
dangerous to liberty. It certainly is so, wherever the interest of
the general, and that of the principal officers, are not necessarily
connected with the support of the constitution of the state. The
standing army of Caesar destroyed the Roman republic. The standing
army of Cromwell turned the long parliament out of doors. But where the
sovereign is himself the general, and the principal nobility and gentry
of the country the chief officers of the army; where the military force
is placed under the command of those who have the greatest interest in
the support of the civil authority, because they have themselves the
greatest share of that authority, a standing army can never be dangerous
to liberty. On the contrary, it may, in some cases, be favourable
to liberty. The security which it gives to the sovereign renders
unnecessary that troublesome jealousy, which, in some modern republics,
seems to watch over the minutest actions, and to be at all times
ready to disturb the peace of every citizen. Where the security of the
magistrate, though supported by the principal people of the country, is
endangered by every popular discontent; where a small tumult is capable
of bringing about in a few hours a great revolution, the whole authority
of government must be employed to suppress and punish every murmur and
complaint against it. To a sovereign, on the contrary, who feels himself
supported, not only by the natural aristocracy of the country, but by a
well regulated standing army, the rudest, the most groundless, and
the most licentious remonstrances, can give little disturbance. He
can safely pardon or neglect them, and his consciousness of his own
superiority naturally disposes him to do so. That degree of liberty
which approaches to licentiousness, can be tolerated only in countries
where the sovereign is secured by a well regulated standing army. It is
in such countries only, that the public safety does not require that
the sovereign should be trusted with any discretionary power, for
suppressing even the impertinent wantonness of this licentious liberty.

The first duty of the sovereign, therefore, that of defending the
society from the violence and injustice of other independent societies,
grows gradually more and more expensive, as the society advances in
civilization. The military force of the society, which originally cost
the sovereign no expense, either in time of peace, or in time of war,
must, in the progress of improvement, first be maintained by him in time
of war, and afterwards even in time of peace.

The great change introduced into the art of war by the invention of
fire-arms, has enhanced still further both the expense of exercising
and disciplining any particular number of soldiers in time of peace,
and that of employing them in time of war. Both their arms and their
ammunition are become more expensive. A musket is a more expensive
machine than a javelin or a bow and arrows; a cannon or a mortar, than a
balista or a catapulta. The powder which is spent in a modern review
is lost irrecoverably, and occasions a very considerable expense. The
javelins and arrows which were thrown or shot in an ancient one, could
easily be picked up again, and were, besides, of very little value.
The cannon and the mortar are not only much dearer, but much heavier
machines than the balista or catapulta; and require a greater expense,
not only to prepare them for the field, but to carry them to it. As the
superiority of the modern artillery, too, over that of the ancients,
is very great; it has become much more difficult, and consequently
much more expensive, to fortify a town, so as to resist, even for a
few weeks, the attack of that superior artillery. In modern times, many
different causes contribute to render the defence of the society
more expensive. The unavoidable effects of the natural progress of
improvement have, in this respect, been a good deal enhanced by a great
revolution in the art of war, to which a mere accident, the invention of
gunpowder, seems to have given occasion.

In modern war, the great expense of firearms gives an evident advantage
to the nation which can best afford that expense; and, consequently, to
an opulent and civilized, over a poor and barbarous nation. In ancient
times, the opulent and civilized found it difficult to defend themselves
against the poor and barbarous nations. In modern times, the poor and
barbarous find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and
civilized. The invention of fire-arms, an invention which at first
sight appears to be so pernicious, is certainly favourable, both to the
permanency and to the extension of civilization.


PART II. Of the Expense of Justice

The second duty of the sovereign, that of protecting, as far as
possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression
of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact
administration of justice, requires two very different degrees of
expense in the different periods of society.

Among nations of hunters, as there is scarce any property, or at least
none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour; so there is
seldom any established magistrate, or any regular administration of
justice. Men who have no property, can injure one another only in
their persons or reputations. But when one man kills, wounds, beats, or
defames another, though he to whom the injury is done suffers, he
who does it receives no benefit. It is otherwise with the injuries to
property. The benefit of the person who does the injury is often equal
to the loss of him who suffers it. Envy, malice, or resentment, are the
only passions which can prompt one man to injure another in his person
or reputation. But the greater part of men are not very frequently under
the influence of those passions; and the very worst men are so only
occasionally. As their gratification, too, how agreeable soever it may
be to certain characters, is not attended with any real or permanent
advantage, it is, in the greater part of men, commonly restrained by
prudential considerations. Men may live together in society with some
tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to
protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and
ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love
of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade
property; passions much more steady in their operation, and much more
universal in their influence. Wherever there is a great property, there
is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five
hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the
many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor,
who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his
possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that
the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour
of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep
a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown
enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from
whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the
civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition
of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the
establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at
least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil
government is not so necessary.

Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity
of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of
valuable property; so the principal causes, which naturally introduce
subordination, gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable
property.

The causes or circumstances which naturally introduce subordination, or
which naturally and antecedent to any civil institution, give some men
some superiority over the greater part of their brethren, seem to be
four in number.

The first of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of
personal qualifications, of strength, beauty, and agility of body; of
wisdom and virtue; of prudence, justice, fortitude, and moderation of
mind. The qualifications of the body, unless supported by those of the
mind, can give little authority in any period of society. He is a very
strong man, who, by mere strength of body, can force two weak ones
to obey him. The qualifications of the mind can alone give very great
authority. They are however, invisible qualities; always disputable, and
generally disputed. No society, whether barbarous or civilized, has
ever found it convenient to settle the rules of precedency of rank and
subordination, according to those invisible qualities; but according to
something that is more plain and palpable.

The second of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of age.
An old man, provided his age is not so far advanced as to give suspicion
of dotage, is everywhere more respected than a young man of equal rank,
fortune, and abilities. Among nations of hunters, such as the native
tribes of North America, age is the sole foundation of rank and
precedency. Among them, father is the appellation of a superior;
brother, of an equal; and son, of an inferior. In the most opulent and
civilized nations, age regulates rank among those who are in every
other respect equal; and among whom, therefore, there is nothing else to
regulate it. Among brothers and among sisters, the eldest always takes
place; and in the succession of the paternal estate, every thing which
cannot be divided, but must go entire to one person, such as a title
of honour, is in most cases given to the eldest. Age is a plain and
palpable quality, which admits of no dispute.

The third of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of
fortune. The authority of riches, however, though great in every age
of society, is, perhaps, greatest in the rudest ages of society, which
admits of any considerable inequality of fortune. A Tartar chief, the
increase of whose flocks and herds is sufficient to maintain a
thousand men, cannot well employ that increase in any other way than
in maintaining a thousand men. The rude state of his society does not
afford him any manufactured produce any trinkets or baubles of any kind,
for which he can exchange that part of his rude produce which is over
and above his own consumption. The thousand men whom he thus maintains,
depending entirely upon him for their subsistence, must both obey
his orders in war, and submit to his jurisdiction in peace. He is
necessarily both their general and their judge, and his chieftainship
is the necessary effect of the superiority of his fortune. In an opulent
and civilized society, a man may possess a much greater fortune, and
yet not be able to command a dozen of people. Though the produce of
his estate may be sufficient to maintain, and may, perhaps, actually
maintain, more than a thousand people, yet, as those people pay for
every thing which they get from him, as he gives scarce any thing to
any body but in exchange for an equivalent, there is scarce anybody
who considers himself as entirely dependent upon him, and his authority
extends only over a few menial servants. The authority of fortune,
however, is very great, even in an opulent and civilized society. That
it is much greater than that either of age or of personal qualities, has
been the constant complaint of every period of society which admitted
of any considerable inequality of fortune. The first period of society,
that of hunters, admits of no such inequality. Universal poverty
establishes their universal equality; and the superiority, either of age
or of personal qualities, are the feeble, but the sole foundations of
authority and subordination. There is, therefore, little or no authority
or subordination in this period of society. The second period of
society, that of shepherds, admits of very great inequalities of
fortune, and there is no period in which the superiority of fortune
gives so great authority to those who possess it. There is no period,
accordingly, in which authority and subordination are more perfectly
established. The authority of an Arabian scherif is very great; that of
a Tartar khan altogether despotical.

The fourth of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of
birth. Superiority of birth supposes an ancient superiority of fortune
in the family of the person who claims it. All families are equally
ancient; and the ancestors of the prince, though they may be better
known, cannot well be more numerous than those of the beggar. Antiquity
of family means everywhere the antiquity either of wealth, or of that
greatness which is commonly either founded upon wealth, or accompanied
with it. Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient
greatness. The hatred of usurpers, the love of the family of an ancient
monarch, are in a great measure founded upon the contempt which men
naturally have for the former, and upon their veneration for the latter.
As a military officer submits, without reluctance, to the authority of a
superior by whom he has always been commanded, but cannot bear that his
inferior should be set over his head; so men easily submit to a family
to whom they and their ancestors have always submitted; but are
fired with indignation when another family, in whom they had never
acknowledged any such superiority, assumes a dominion over them.

The distinction of birth, being subsequent to the inequality of fortune,
can have no place in nations of hunters, among whom all men, being equal
in fortune, must likewise be very nearly equal in birth. The son of
a wise and brave man may, indeed, even among them, be somewhat more
respected than a man of equal merit, who has the misfortune to be the
son of a fool or a coward. The difference, however will not be very
great; and there never was, I believe, a great family in the world,
whose illustration was entirely derived from the inheritance of wisdom
and virtue.

The distinction of birth not only may, but always does, take place among
nations of shepherds. Such nations are always strangers to every sort
of luxury, and great wealth can scarce ever be dissipated among them
by improvident profusion. There are no nations, accordingly, who abound
more in families revered and honoured on account of their descent from
a long race of great and illustrious ancestors; because there are no
nations among whom wealth is likely to continue longer in the same
families.

Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances which principally
set one man above another. They are the two great sources of personal
distinction, and are, therefore, the principal causes which naturally
establish authority and subordination among men. Among nations of
shepherds, both those causes operate with their full force. The great
shepherd or herdsman, respected on account of his great wealth, and
of the great number of those who depend upon him for subsistence, and
revered on account of the nobleness of his birth, and of the immemorial
antiquity or his illustrious family, has a natural authority over all
the inferior shepherds or herdsmen of his horde or clan. He can command
the united force of a greater number of people than any of them. His
military power is greater than that of any of them. In time of war,
they are all of them naturally disposed to muster themselves under his
banner, rather than under that of any other person; and his birth and
fortune thus naturally procure to him some sort of executive power. By
commanding, too, the united force of a greater number of people than any
of them, he is best able to compel any one of them, who may have injured
another, to compensate the wrong. He is the person, therefore, to whom
all those who are too weak to defend themselves naturally look up for
protection. It is to him that they naturally complain of the injuries
which they imagine have been done to them; and his interposition, in
such cases, is more easily submitted to, even by the person complained
of, than that of any other person would be. His birth and fortune thus
naturally procure him some sort of judicial authority.

It is in the age of shepherds, in the second period of society, that the
inequality of fortune first begins to take place, and introduces among
men a degree of authority and subordination, which could not possibly
exist before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government
which is indispensably necessary for its own preservation; and it seems
to do this naturally, and even independent of the consideration of
that necessity. The consideration of that necessity comes, no doubt,
afterwards, to contribute very much to maintain and secure that
authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily
interested to support that order of things, which can alone secure
them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth
combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their
property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend
them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and
herdsmen feel, that the security of their own herds and flocks depends
upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the
maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater
authority; and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of
keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a
sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the
property, and to support the authority, of their own little sovereign,
in order that he may be able to defend their property, and to support
their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the
security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defence of the
rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those
who have none at all.

The judicial authority of such a sovereign, however, far from being a
cause of expense, was, for a long time, a source of revenue to him. The
persons who applied to him for justice were always willing to pay
for it, and a present never failed to accompany a petition. After the
authority of the sovereign, too, was thoroughly established, the person
found guilty, over and above the satisfaction which he was obliged to
make to the party, was like-wise forced to pay an amercement to the
sovereign. He had given trouble, he had disturbed, he had broke the
peace of his lord the king, and for those offences an amercement was
thought due. In the Tartar governments of Asia, in the governments
of Europe which were founded by the German and Scythian nations who
overturned the Roman empire, the administration of justice was a
considerable source of revenue, both to the sovereign, and to all
the lesser chiefs or lords who exercised under him any particular
jurisdiction, either over some particular tribe or clan, or over some
particular territory or district. Originally, both the sovereign and the
inferior chiefs used to exercise this jurisdiction in their own persons.
Afterwards, they universally found it convenient to delegate it to
some substitute, bailiff, or judge. This substitute, however, was still
obliged to account to his principal or constituent for the profits of
the jurisdiction. Whoever reads the instructions (They are to be found
in Tyrol's History of England) which were given to the judges of the
circuit in the time of Henry II will see clearly that those judges were
a sort of itinerant factors, sent round the country for the purpose
of levying certain branches of the king's revenue. In those days, the
administration of justice not only afforded a certain revenue to the
sovereign, but, to procure this revenue, seems to have been one of the
principal advantages which he proposed to obtain by the administration
of justice.

This scheme of making the administration of justice subservient to the
purposes of revenue, could scarce fail to be productive of several very
gross abuses. The person who applied for justice with a large present
in his hand, was likely to get something more than justice; while he
who applied for it with a small one was likely to get something less.
Justice, too, might frequently be delayed, in order that this present
might be repeated. The amercement, besides, of the person complained
of, might frequently suggest a very strong reason for finding him in the
wrong, even when he had not really been so. That such abuses were far
from being uncommon, the ancient history of every country in Europe
bears witness.

When the sovereign or chief exercises his judicial authority in his
own person, how much soever he might abuse it, it must have been scarce
possible to get any redress; because there could seldom be any body
powerful enough to call him to account. When he exercised it by a
bailiff, indeed, redress might sometimes be had. If it was for his own
benefit only, that the bailiff had been guilty of an act of injustice,
the sovereign himself might not always be unwilling to punish him, or
to oblige him to repair the wrong. But if it was for the benefit of his
sovereign; if it was in order to make court to the person who appointed
him, and who might prefer him, that he had committed any act of
oppression; redress would, upon most occasions, be as impossible as if
the sovereign had committed it himself. In all barbarous governments,
accordingly, in all those ancient governments of Europe in
particular, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the
administration of justice appears for a long time to have been extremely
corrupt; far from being quite equal and impartial, even under the best
monarchs, and altogether profligate under the worst.

Among nations of shepherds, where the sovereign or chief is only the
greatest shepherd or herdsman of the horde or clan, he is maintained in
the same manner as any of his vassals or subjects, by the increase of
his own herds or flocks. Among those nations of husbandmen, who are
but just come out of the shepherd state, and who are not much advanced
beyond that state, such as the Greek tribes appear to have been about
the time of the Trojan war, and our German and Scythian ancestors, when
they first settled upon the ruins of the western empire; the sovereign
or chief is, in the same manner, only the greatest landlord of the
country, and is maintained in the same manner as any other landlord, by
a revenue derived from his own private estate, or from what, in modern
Europe, was called the demesne of the crown. His subjects, upon ordinary
occasions, contribute nothing to his support, except when, in order to
protect them from the oppression of some of their fellow-subjects, they
stand in need of his authority. The presents which they make him upon
such occasions constitute the whole ordinary revenue, the whole of
the emoluments which, except, perhaps, upon some very extraordinary
emergencies, he derives from his dominion over them. When Agamemnon, in
Homer, offers to Achilles, for his friendship, the sovereignty of seven
Greek cities, the sole advantage which he mentions as likely to be
derived from it was, that the people would honour him with presents. As
long as such presents, as long as the emoluments of justice, or what
may be called the fees of court, constituted, in this manner, the whole
ordinary revenue which the sovereign derived from his sovereignty, it
could not well be expected, it could not even decently be proposed,
that he should give them up altogether. It might, and it frequently was
proposed, that he should regulate and ascertain them. But after they
had been so regulated and ascertained, how to hinder a person who was
all-powerful from extending them beyond those regulations, was still
very difficult, not to say impossible. During the continuance of
this state of things, therefore, the corruption of justice, naturally
resulting from the arbitrary and uncertain nature of those presents,
scarce admitted of any effectual remedy.

But when, from different causes, chiefly from the continually increasing
expense of defending the nation against the invasion of other nations,
the private estate of the sovereign had become altogether insufficient
for defraying the expense of the sovereignty; and when it had become
necessary that the people should, for their own security, contribute
towards this expense by taxes of different kinds; it seems to have been
very commonly stipulated, that no present for the administration of
justice should, under any pretence, be accepted either by the sovereign,
or by his bailiffs and substitutes, the judges. Those presents, it seems
to have been supposed, could more easily be abolished altogether, than
effectually regulated and ascertained. Fixed salaries were appointed
to the judges, which were supposed to compensate to them the loss
of whatever might have been their share of the ancient emoluments of
justice; as the taxes more than compensated to the sovereign the loss of
his. Justice was then said to be administered gratis.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any
country. Lawyers and attorneys, at least, must always be paid by the
parties; and if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse
than they actually perform it. The fees annually paid to lawyers and
attorneys, amount, in every court, to a much greater sum than the
salaries of the judges. The circumstance of those salaries being paid
by the crown, can nowhere much diminish the necessary expense of a
law-suit. But it was not so much to diminish the expense, as to
prevent the corruption of justice, that the judges were prohibited from
receiving my present or fee from the parties.

The office of judge is in itself so very honourable, that men are
willing to accept of it, though accompanied with very small emoluments.
The inferior office of justice of peace, though attended with a good
deal of trouble, and in most cases with no emoluments at all, is an
object of ambition to the greater part of our country gentlemen. The
salaries of all the different judges, high and low, together with the
whole expense of the administration and execution of justice, even
where it is not managed with very good economy, makes, in any civilized
country, but a very inconsiderable part of the whole expense of
government.

The whole expense of justice, too, might easily be defrayed by the fees
of court; and, without exposing the administration of justice to any
real hazard of corruption, the public revenue might thus be entirely
discharged from a certain, though perhaps but a small incumbrance. It is
difficult to regulate the fees of court effectually, where a person
so powerful as the sovereign is to share in them and to derive any
considerable part of his revenue from them. It is very easy, where the
judge is the principal person who can reap any benefit from them. The
law can very easily oblige the judge to respect the regulation though
it might not always be able to make the sovereign respect it. Where the
fees of court are precisely regulated and ascertained where they are
paid all at once, at a certain period of every process, into the hands
of a cashier or receiver, to be by him distributed in certain known
proportions among the different judges after the process is decided and
not till it is decided; there seems to be no more danger of corruption
than when such fees are prohibited altogether. Those fees, without
occasioning any considerable increase in the expense of a law-suit,
might be rendered fully sufficient for defraying the whole expense
of justice. But not being paid to the judges till the process was
determined, they might be some incitement to the diligence of the
court in examining and deciding it. In courts which consisted of a
considerable number of judges, by proportioning the share of each judge
to the number of hours and days which he had employed in examining the
process, either in the court, or in a committee, by order of the court,
those fees might give some encouragement to the diligence of each
particular judge. Public services are never better performed, than when
their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and
is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them. In the
different parliaments of France, the fees of court (called epices and
vacations) constitute the far greater part of the emoluments of the
judges. After all deductions are made, the neat salary paid by the crown
to a counsellor or judge in the parliament of Thoulouse, in rank and
dignity the second parliament of the kingdom, amounts only to 150
livres, about £6:11s. sterling a-year. About seven years ago, that sum
was in the same place the ordinary yearly wages of a common footman. The
distribution of these epices, too, is according to the diligence of the
judges. A diligent judge gains a comfortable, though moderate revenue,
by his office; an idle one gets little more than his salary. Those
parliaments are, perhaps, in many respects, not very convenient courts
of justice; but they have never been accused; they seem never even to
have been suspected of corruption.

The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of
the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to
draw to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account,
willing to take cognizance of many suits which were not originally
intended to fall under its jurisdiction. The court of king's bench,
instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognizance of
civil suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing
him justice, had been guilty of some trespass or misdemeanour. The court
of exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king's revenue, and for
enforcing the payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took
cognizance of all other contract debts; the planitiff alleging that
he could not pay the king, because the defendant would not pay him.
In consequence of such fictions, it came, in many cases, to depend
altogether upon the parties, before what court they would choose to have
their cause tried, and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and
impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could. The present
admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was,
perhaps, originally, in a great measure, formed by this emulation,
which anciently took place between their respective judges: each judge
endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most
effectual remedy which the law would admit, for every sort of injustice.
Originally, the courts of law gave damages only for breach of contract.
The court of chancery, as a court of conscience, first took upon it
to enforce the specific performance of agreements. When the breach of
contract consisted in the non-payment of money, the damage sustained
could be compensated in no other way than by ordering payment, which was
equivalent to a specific performance of the agreement. In such cases,
therefore, the remedy of the courts of law was sufficient. It was not so
in others. When the tenant sued his lord for having unjustly outed him
of his lease, the damages which he recovered were by no means equivalent
to the possession of the land. Such causes, therefore, for some time,
went all to the court of chancery, to the no small loss of the courts of
law. It was to draw back such causes to themselves, that the courts
of law are said to have invented the artificial and fictitious writ
of ejectment, the most effectual remedy for an unjust outer or
dispossession of land.

A stamp-duty upon the law proceedings of each particular court, to be
levied by that court, and applied towards the maintenance of the judges,
and other officers belonging to it, might in the same manner, afford a
revenue sufficient for defraying the expense of the administration of
justice, without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of the
society. The judges, indeed, might in this case, be under the temptation
of multiplying unnecessarily the proceedings upon every cause, in order
to increase, as much as possible, the produce of such a stamp-duty. It
has been the custom in modern Europe to regulate, upon most occasions,
the payment of the attorneys and clerks of court according to the number
of pages which they had occasion to write; the court, however, requiring
that each page should contain so many lines, and each line so many
words. In order to increase their payment, the attorneys and clerks have
contrived to multiply words beyond all necessity, to the corruption of
the law language of, I believe, every court of justice in Europe. A like
temptation might, perhaps, occasion a like corruption in the form of law
proceedings.

But whether the administration of justice be so contrived as to defray
its own expense, or whether the judges be maintained by fixed salaries
paid to them from some other fund, it does not seen necessary that the
person or persons entrusted with the executive power should be charged
with the management of that fund, or with the payment of those salaries.
That fund might arise from the rent of landed estates, the management
of each estate being entrusted to the particular court which was to be
maintained by it. That fund might arise even from the interest of a
sum of money, the lending out of which might, in the same manner, be
entrusted to the court which was to be maintained by it. A part, though
indeed but a small part of the salary of the judges of the court of
session in Scotland, arises from the interest of a sum of money. The
necessary instability of such a fund seems, however, to render it an
improper one for the maintenance of an institution which ought to last
for ever.

The separation of the judicial from the executive power, seems
originally to have arisen from the increasing business of the society,
in consequence of its increasing improvement. The administration of
justice became so laborious and so complicated a duty, as to require the
undivided attention of the person to whom it was entrusted. The person
entrusted with the executive power, not having leisure to attend to the
decision of private causes himself, a deputy was appointed to decide
them in his stead. In the progress of the Roman greatness, the consul
was too much occupied with the political affairs of the state, to attend
to the administration of justice. A praetor, therefore, was appointed to
administer it in his stead. In the progress of the European monarchies,
which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the sovereigns
and the great lords came universally to consider the administration
of justice as an office both too laborious and too ignoble for them to
execute in their own persons. They universally, therefore, discharged
themselves of it, by appointing a deputy, bailiff or judge.

When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce
possible that justice should not frequently be sacrificed to what is
vulgarly called politics. The persons entrusted with the great interests
of the state may even without any corrupt views, sometimes imagine it
necessary to sacrifice to those interests the rights of a private man.
But upon the impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of
every individual, the sense which he has of his own security. In order
to make every individual feel himself perfectly secure in the possession
of every right which belongs to him, it is not only necessary that
the judicial should be separated from the executive power, but that it
should be rendered as much as possible independent of that power. The
judge should not be liable to be removed from his office according to
the caprice of that power. The regular payment of his salary should not
depend upon the good will, or even upon the good economy of that power.


PART III. Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions.

The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth, is that of
erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public
works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to
a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit
could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of
individuals; and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any
individual, or small number of individuals, should erect or maintain.
The performance of this duty requires, too, very different degrees of
expense in the different periods of society.

After the public institutions and public works necessary for the defence
of the society, and for the administration of justice, both of which
have already been mentioned, the other works and institutions of this
kind are chiefly for facilitating the commerce of the society, and
those for promoting the instruction of the people. The institutions for
instruction are of two kinds: those for the education of the youth, and
those for the instruction of people of all ages. The consideration of
the manner in which the expense of those different sorts of public works
and institutions may be most properly defrayed will divide this third
part of the present chapter into three different articles.

ARTICLE I.--Of the public Works and Institutions for facilitating the
Commerce of the Society.

And, first, of those which are necessary for facilitating Commerce in
general.

That the erection and maintenance of the public works which facilitate
the commerce of any country, such as good roads, bridges, navigable
canals, harbours, etc. must require very different degrees of expense
in the different periods of society, is evident without any proof. The
expense of making and maintaining the public roads of any country must
evidently increase with the annual produce of the land and labour of
that country, or with the quantity and weight of the goods which it
becomes necessary to fetch and carry upon those roads. The strength of
a bridge must be suited to the number and weight of the carriages which
are likely to pass over it. The depth and the supply of water for a
navigable canal must be proportioned to the number and tonnage of
the lighters which are likely to carry goods upon it; the extent of a
harbour, to the number of the shipping which are likely to take shelter
in it.

It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should
be defrayed from that public revenue, as it is commonly called, of which
the collection and application are in most countries, assigned to the
executive power. The greater part of such public works may easily be
so managed, as to afford a particular revenue, sufficient for defraying
their own expense without bringing any burden upon the general revenue
of the society.

A highway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may, in most cases,
be both made add maintained by a small toll upon the carriages which
make use of them; a harbour, by a moderate port-duty upon the tonnage
of the shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another
institution for facilitating commerce, in many countries, not only
defrays its own expense, but affords a small revenue or a seignorage
to the sovereign. The post-office, another institution for the same
purpose, over and above defraying its own expense, affords, in almost
all countries, a very considerable revenue to the sovereign.

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the
lighters which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in proportion to
their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those
public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they
occasion of them. It seems scarce possible to invent a more equitable
way of maintaining such works. This tax or toll, too, though it is
advanced by the carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it
must always be charged in the price of the goods. As the expense of
carriage, however, is very much reduced by means of such public works,
the goods, notwithstanding the toll, come cheaper to the consumer than
they could otherwise have done, their price not being so much raised by
the toll, as it is lowered by the cheapness of the carriage. The person
who finally pays this tax, therefore, gains by the application more than
he loses by the payment of it. His payment is exactly in proportion to
his gain. It is, in reality, no more than a part of that gain which he
is obliged to give up, in order to get the rest. It seems impossible
to imagine a more equitable method of raising a tax. When the toll upon
carriages of luxury, upon coaches, post-chaises, etc. is made somewhat
higher in proportion to their weight, than upon carriages of necessary
use, such as carts, waggons, etc. the indolence and vanity of the rich
is made to contribute, in a very easy manner, to the relief of the
poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the
different parts of the country.

When high-roads, bridges, canals, etc. are in this manner made and
supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can
be made only where that commerce requires them, and, consequently,
where it is proper to make them. Their expense, too, their grandeur and
magnificence, must be suited to what that commerce can afford to
pay. They must be made, consequently, as it is proper to make them. A
magnificent high-road cannot be made through a desert country, where
there is little or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to
the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some
great lord, to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court.
A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river at a place where
nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a
neighbouring palace; things which sometimes happen in countries, where
works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue than that which
they themselves are capable of affording.

In several different parts of Europe, the toll or lock-duty upon a canal
is the property of private persons, whose private interest obliges
them to keep up the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable order, the
navigation necessarily ceases altogether, and, along with it, the whole
profit which they can make by the tolls. If those tolls were put under
the management of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in
them, they might be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which
produced them. The canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the
province upwards of thirteen millions of livres, which (at twenty-eight
livres the mark of silver, the value of French money in the end of
the last century) amounted to upwards of nine hundred thousand pounds
sterling. When that great work was finished, the most likely method, it
was found, of keeping it in constant repair, was to make a present of
the tolls to Riquet, the engineer who planned and conducted the work.
Those tolls constitute, at present, a very large estate to the different
branches of the family of that gentleman, who have, therefore, a great
interest to keep the work in constant repair. But had those tolls been
put under the management of commissioners, who had no such interest,
they might perhaps, have been dissipated in ornamental and unnecessary
expenses, while the most essential parts of the works were allowed to go
to ruin.

The tolls for the maintenance of a highroad cannot, with any safety,
be made the property of private persons. A high-road, though entirely
neglected, does not become altogether impassable, though a canal does.
The proprietors of the tolls upon a high-road, therefore, might neglect
altogether the repair of the road, and yet continue to levy very
nearly the same tolls. It is proper, therefore, that the tolls for
the maintenance of such a work should be put under the management of
commissioners or trustees.

In Great Britain, the abuses which the trustees have committed in
the management of those tolls, have, in many cases, been very justly
complained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money levied is
more than double of what is necessary for executing, in the completest
manner, the work, which is often executed in a very slovenly manner, and
sometimes not executed at all. The system of repairing the high-roads by
tolls of this kind, it must be observed, is not of very long standing.
We should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been brought to that
degree of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and improper
persons are frequently appointed trustees; and if proper courts of
inspection and account have not yet been established for controlling
their conduct, and for reducing the tolls to what is barely sufficient
for executing the work to be done by them; the recency of the
institution both accounts and apologizes for those defects, of which,
by the wisdom of parliament, the greater part may, in due time, be
gradually remedied.

The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain, is
supposed to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the roads,
that the savings which, with proper economy, might be made from it, have
been considered, even by some ministers, as a very great resource, which
might, at some time or another, be applied to the exigencies of the
state. Government, it has been said, by taking the management of the
turnpikes into its own hands, and by employing the soldiers, who would
work for a very small addition to their pay, could keep the roads in
good order, at a much less expense than it can be done by trustees,
who have no other workmen to employ, but such as derive their whole
subsistence from their wages. A great revenue, half a million, perhaps
{Since publishing the two first editions of this book, I have got good
reasons to believe that all the turnpike tolls levied in Great Britain
do not produce a neat revenue that amounts to half a million; a sum
which, under the management of government, would not be sufficient to
keep, in repair five of the principal roads in the kingdom}, it has been
pretended, might in this manner be gained, without laying any new burden
upon the people; and the turnpike roads might be made to contribute to
the general expense of the state, in the same manner as the post-office
does at present.

That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner, I have no
doubt, though probably not near so much as the projectors of this plan
have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems liable to several very
important objections.

First, If the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever be
considered as one of the resources for supplying the exigencies of
the state, they would certainly be augmented as those exigencies
were supposed to require. According to the policy of Great Britain,
therefore, they would probably he augmented very fast. The facility with
which a great revenue could be drawn from them, would probably encourage
administration to recur very frequently te this resource. Though it
may, perhaps, be more than doubtful whether half a million could by any
economy be saved out of the present tolls, it can scarcely be doubted,
but that a million might be saved out of them, if they were doubled; and
perhaps two millions, if they were tripled {I have now good reason to
believe that all these conjectural sums are by much too large.}. This
great revenue, too, might be levied without the appointment of a single
new officer to collect and receive it. But the turnpike tolls, being
continually augmented in this manner, instead of facilitating the inland
commerce of the country, as at present, would soon become a very great
incumbrance upon it. The expense of transporting all heavy goods from
one part of the country to another, would soon be so much increased, the
market for all such goods, consequently, would soon be so much narrowed,
that their production would be in a great measure discouraged, and
the most important branches of the domestic industry of the country
annihilated altogether.

Secondly, A tax upon carriages, in proportion to their weight, though a
very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of repairing the roads,
is a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, or to supply
the common exigencies of the state. When it is applied to the sole
purpose above mentioned, each carriage is supposed to pay exactly for
the wear and tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when
it is applied to any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay
for more than that wear and tear, and contributes to the supply of some
other exigency of the state. But as the turnpike toll raises the price
of goods in proportion to their weight and not to their value, it is
chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse and bulky, not by those
of precious and light commodities. Whatever exigency of the state,
therefore, this tax might be intended to supply, that exigency would
be chiefly supplied at the expense of the poor, not of the rich; at the
expense of those who are least able to supply it, not of those who are
most able.

Thirdly, If government should at any time neglect the reparation of the
high-roads, it would be still more difficult, than it is at present, to
compel the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. A large
revenue might thus be levied upon the people, without any part of it
being applied to the only purpose to which a revenue levied in this
manner ought ever to be applied. If the meanness and poverty of the
trustees of turnpike roads render it sometimes difficult, at present,
to oblige them to repair their wrong; their wealth and greatness would
render it ten times more so in the case which is here supposed.

In France, the funds destined for the reparation of the high-roads
are under the immediate direction of the executive power. Those funds
consist, partly in a certain number of days labour, which the country
people are in most parts of Europe obliged to give to the reparation of
the highways; and partly in such a portion of the general revenue of the
state as the king chooses to spare from his other expenses.

By the ancient law of France, as well as by that of most other parts of
Europe, the labour of the country people was under the direction of a
local or provincial magistracy, which had no immediate dependency upon
the king's council. But, by the present practice, both the labour of the
country people, and whatever other fund the king may choose to assign
for the reparation of the high-roads in any particular province or
generality, are entirely under the management of the intendant; an
officer who is appointed and removed by the king's council who receives
his orders from it, and is in constant correspondence with it. In the
progress of despotism, the authority of the executive power gradually
absorbs that of every other power in the state, and assumes to itself
the management of every branch of revenue which is destined for any
public purpose. In France, however, the great post-roads, the roads
which make the communication between the principal towns of the kingdom,
are in general kept in good order; and, in some provinces, are even a
good deal superior to the greater part of the turnpike roads of England.
But what we call the cross roads, that is, the far greater part of the
roads in the country, are entirely neglected, and are in many places
absolutely impassable for any heavy carriage. In some places it is even
dangerous to travel on horseback, and mules are the only conveyance
which can safely be trusted. The proud minister of an ostentatious
court, may frequently take pleasure in executing a work of splendour and
magnificence, such as a great highway, which is frequently seen by the
principal nobility, whose applauses not only flatter his vanity, but
even contribute to support his interest at court. But to execute a great
number of little works, in which nothing that can be done can make any
great appearance, or excite the smallest degree of admiration in any
traveller, and which, in short, have nothing to recommend them but their
extreme utility, is a business which appears, in every respect, too mean
and paltry to merit the attention of so great a magistrate. Under such
an administration therefore, such works are almost always entirely
neglected.

In China, and in several other governments of Asia, the executive power
charges itself both with the reparation of the high-roads, and with the
maintenance of the navigable canals. In the instructions which are
given to the governor of each province, those objects, it is said, are
constantly recommended to him, and the judgment which the court forms of
his conduct is very much regulated by the attention which he appears
to have paid to this part of his instructions. This branch of public
police, accordingly, is said to be very much attended to in all those
countries, but particularly in China, where the high-roads, and still
more the navigable canals, it is pretended, exceed very much every thing
of the same kind which is known in Europe. The accounts of those works,
however, which have been transmitted to Europe, have generally been
drawn up by weak and wondering travellers; frequently by stupid and
lying missionaries. If they had been examined by more intelligent
eyes, and if the accounts of them had been reported by more faithful
witnesses, they would not, perhaps, appear to be so wonderful. The
account which Bernier gives of some works of this kind in Indostan,
falls very short of what had been reported of them by other travellers,
more disposed to the marvellous than he was. It may too, perhaps, be in
those countries, as it is in France, where the great roads, the great
communications, which are likely to be the subjects of conversation
at the court and in the capital, are attended to, and all the rest
neglected. In China, besides, in Indostan, and in several other
governments of Asia, the revenue of the sovereign arises almost
altogether from a land tax or land rent, which rises or falls with the
rise and fall of the annual produce of the land. The great interest of
the sovereign, therefore, his revenue, is in such countries necessarily
and immediately connected with the cultivation of the land, with the
greatness of its produce, and with the value of its produce. But in
order to render that produce both as great and as valuable as possible,
it is necessary to procure to it as extensive a market as possible,
and consequently to establish the freest, the easiest, and the least
expensive communication between all the different parts of the country;
which can be done only by means of the best roads and the best navigable
canals. But the revenue of the sovereign does not, in any part of
Europe, arise chiefly from a land tax or land rent. In all the great
kingdoms of Europe, perhaps, the greater part of it may ultimately
depend upon the produce of the land: but that dependency is neither so
immediate nor so evident. In Europe, therefore, the sovereign does not
feel himself so directly called upon to promote the increase, both in
quantity and value of the produce of the land, or, by maintaining good
roads and canals, to provide the most extensive market for that produce.
Though it should be true, therefore, what I apprehend is not a little
doubtful, that in some parts of Asia this department of the public
police is very properly managed by the executive power, there is not the
least probability that, during the present state of things, it could be
tolerably managed by that power in any part of Europe.

Even those public works, which are of such a nature that they cannot
afford any revenue for maintaining themselves, but of which the
conveniency is nearly confined to some particular place or district,
are always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the
management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general
revenue of the state, of which the executive power must always have the
management. Were the streets of London to be lighted and paved at the
expense of the treasury, is there any probability that they would be so
well lighted and paved as they are at present, or even at so small an
expense? The expense, besides, instead of being raised by a local tax
upon the inhabitants of each particular street, parish, or district in
London, would, in this case, be defrayed out of the general revenue
of the state, and would consequently be raised by a tax upon all the
inhabitants of the kingdom, of whom the greater part derive no sort of
benefit from the lighting and paving of the streets of London.

The abuses which sometimes creep into the local and provincial
administration of a local and provincial revenue, how enormous soever
they may appear, are in reality, however, almost always very trifling in
comparison of those which commonly take place in the administration and
expenditure of the revenue of a great empire. They are, besides, much
more easily corrected. Under the local or provincial administration of
the justices of the peace in Great Britain, the six days labour
which the country people are obliged to give to the reparation of the
highways, is not always, perhaps, very judiciously applied, but it is
scarce ever exacted with any circumstance of cruelty or oppression. In
France, under the administration of the intendants, the application is
not always more judicious, and the exaction is frequently the most
cruel and oppressive. Such corvees, as they are called, make one of the
principal instruments of tyranny by which those officers chastise any
parish or communeaute, which has had the misfortune to fall under their
displeasure.


Of the public Works and Institution which are necessary for facilitating
particular Branches of Commerce.

The object of the public works and institutions above mentioned, is
to facilitate commerce in general. But in order to facilitate some
particular branches of it, particular institutions are necessary, which
again require a particular and extraordinary expense.

Some particular branches of commerce which are carried on with barbarous
and uncivilized nations, require extraordinary protection. An ordinary
store or counting-house could give little security to the goods of the
merchants who trade to the western coast of Africa. To defend them from
the barbarous natives, it is necessary that the place where they are
deposited should be in some measure fortified. The disorders in the
government of Indostan have been supposed to render a like precaution
necessary, even among that mild and gentle people; and it was under
pretence of securing their persons and property from violence, that both
the English and French East India companies were allowed to erect the
first forts which they possessed in that country. Among other nations,
whose vigorous government will suffer no strangers to possess any
fortified place within their territory, it may be necessary to maintain
some ambassador, minister, or consul, who may both decide, according
to their own customs, the differences arising among his own countrymen,
and, in their disputes with the natives, may by means of his public
character, interfere with more authority and afford them a more powerful
protection than they could expect from any private man. The interests
of commerce have frequently made it necessary to maintain ministers in
foreign countries, where the purposes either of war or alliance
would not have required any. The commerce of the Turkey company
first occasioned the establishment of an ordinary ambassador at
Constantinople. The first English embassies to Russia arose altogether
from commercial interests. The constant interference with those
interests, necessarily occasioned between the subjects of the different
states of Europe, has probably introduced the custom of keeping, in all
neighbouring countries, ambassadors or ministers constantly resident,
even in the time of peace. This custom, unknown to ancient times, seems
not to be older than the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the
sixteenth century; that is, than the time when commerce first began to
extend itself to the greater part of the nations of Europe, and when
they first began to attend to its interests.

It seems not unreasonable, that the extraordinary expense which the
protection of any particular branch of commerce may occasion, should be
defrayed by a moderate tax upon that particular branch; by a moderate
fine, for example, to be paid by the traders when they first enter into
it; or, what is more equal, by a particular duty of so much per cent.
upon the goods which they either import into, or export out of, the
particular countries with which it is carried on. The protection of
trade, in general, from pirates and freebooters, is said to have given
occasion to the first institution of the duties of customs. But, if
it was thought reasonable to lay a general tax upon trade, in order
to defray the expense of protecting trade in general, it should seem
equally reasonable to lay a particular tax upon a particular branch of
trade, in order to defray the extraordinary expense of protecting that
branch.

The protection of trade, in general, has always been considered as
essential to the defence of the commonwealth, and, upon that account,
a necessary part of the duty of the executive power. The collection and
application of the general duties of customs, therefore, have always
been left to that power. But the protection of any particular branch of
trade is a part of the general protection of trade; a part, therefore,
of the duty of that power; and if nations always acted consistently, the
particular duties levied for the purposes of such particular protection,
should always have been left equally to its disposal. But in this
respect, as well as in many others, nations have not always acted
consistently; and in the greater part of the commercial states of
Europe, particular companies of merchants have had the address to
persuade the legislature to entrust to them the performance of this part
of the duty of the sovereign, together with all the powers which are
necessarily connected with it.

These companies, though they may, perhaps, have been useful for the
first introduction of some branches of commerce, by making, at their
own expense, an experiment which the state might not think it prudent
to make, have in the long-run proved, universally, either burdensome or
useless, and have either mismanaged or confined the trade.

When those companies do not trade upon a joint stock, but are obliged
to admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine,
and agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member
trading upon his own stock, and at his own risk, they are called
regulated companies. When they trade upon a joint stock, each member
sharing in the common profit or loss, in proportion to his share in this
stock, they are called joint-stock companies. Such companies, whether
regulated or joint-stock, sometimes have, and sometimes have not,
exclusive privileges.

Regulated companies resemble, in every respect, the corporation of
trades, so common in the cities and towns of all the different countries
of Europe; and are a sort of enlarged monopolies of the same kind. As no
inhabitant of a town can exercise an incorporated trade, without first
obtaining his freedom in the incorporation, so, in most cases, no
subject of the state can lawfully carry on any branch of foreign trade,
for which a regulated company is established, without first becoming a
member of that company. The monopoly is more or less strict, according
as the terms of admission are more or less difficult, and according as
the directors of the company have more or less authority, or have it
more or less in their power to manage in such a manner as to confine the
greater part of the trade to themselves and their particular friends. In
the most ancient regulated companies, the privileges of apprenticeship
were the same as in other corporations, and entitled the person who had
served his time to a member of the company, to become himself a member,
either without paying any fine, or upon paying a much smaller one than
what was exacted of other people. The usual corporation spirit, wherever
the law does not restrain it, prevails in all regulated companies. When
they have been allowed to act according to their natural genius, they
have always, in order to confine the competition to as small a number of
persons as possible, endeavoured to subject the trade to many burdensome
regulations. When the law has restrained them from doing this, they have
become altogether useless and insignificant.

The regulated companies for foreign commerce which at present subsist
in Great Britain, are the ancient merchant-adventurers company, now
commonly called the Hamburgh company, the Russia company, the Eastland
company, the Turkey company, and the African company.

The terms of admission into the Hamburgh company are now said to be
quite easy; and the directors either have it not in their power to
subject the trade to any troublesome restraint or regulations, or, at
least, have not of late exercised that power. It has not always been so.
About the middle of the last century, the fine for admission was fifty,
and at one time one hundred pounds, and the conduct of the company was
said to be extremely oppressive. In 1643, in 1645, and in 1661, the
clothiers and free traders of the west of England complained of them to
parliament, as of monopolists, who confined the trade, and oppressed the
manufactures of the country. Though those complaints produced no act
of parliament, they had probably intimidated the company so far, as to
oblige them to reform their conduct. Since that time, at least, there
have been no complaints against them. By the 10th and 11th of William
III. c.6, the fine for admission into the Russia company was reduced to
five pounds; and by the 25th of Charles II. c.7, that for admission
into the Eastland company to forty shillings; while, at the same time,
Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, all the countries on the north side of the
Baltic, were exempted from their exclusive charter. The conduct of those
companies had probably given occasion to those two acts of parliament.
Before that time, Sir Josiah Child had represented both these and the
Hamburgh company as extremely oppressive, and imputed to their bad
management the low state of the trade, which we at that time carried
on to the countries comprehended within their respective charters. But
though such companies may not, in the present times, be very oppressive,
they are certainly altogether useless. To be merely useless, indeed,
is perhaps, the highest eulogy which can ever justly be bestowed upon a
regulated company; and all the three companies above mentioned seem, in
their present state, to deserve this eulogy.

The fine for admission into the Turkey company was formerly twenty-five
pounds for all persons under twenty-six years of age, and fifty pounds
for all persons above that age. Nobody but mere merchants could be
admitted; a restriction which excluded all shop-keepers and retailers.
By a bye-law, no British manufactures could be exported to Turkey but in
the general ships of the company; and as those ships sailed always
from the port of London, this restriction confined the trade to that
expensive port, and the traders to those who lived in London and in its
neighbourhood. By another bye-law, no person living within twenty miles
of London, and not free of the city, could be admitted a member; another
restriction which, joined to the foregoing, necessarily excluded all but
the freemen of London. As the time for the loading and sailing of those
general ships depended altogether upon the directors, they could easily
fill them with their own goods, and those of their particular friends,
to the exclusion of others, who, they might pretend, had made their
proposals too late. In this state of things, therefore, this company
was, in every respect, a strict and oppressive monopoly. Those abuses
gave occasion to the act of the 26th of George II. c. 18, reducing
the fine for admission to twenty pounds for all persons, without any
distinction of ages, or any restriction, either to mere merchants, or to
the freemen of London; and granting to all such persons the liberty of
exporting, from all the ports of Great Britain, to any port in Turkey,
all British goods, of which the exportation was not prohibited, upon
paying both the general duties of customs, and the particular duties
assessed for defraying the necessary expenses of the company; and
submitting, at the same time, to the lawful authority of the British
ambassador and consuls resident in Turkey, and to the bye-laws of the
company duly enacted. To prevent any oppression by those bye-laws, it
was by the same act ordained, that if any seven members of the company
conceived themselves aggrieved by any bye-law which should be enacted
after the passing of this act, they might appeal to the board of trade
and plantations (to the authority of which a committee of the privy
council has now succeeded), provided such appeal was brought within
twelve months after the bye-law was enacted; and that, if any seven
members conceived themselves aggrieved by any bye-law which had been
enacted before the passing of this act, they might bring a like appeal,
provided it was within twelve months after the day on which this act was
to take place. The experience of one year, however, may not always
be sufficient to discover to all the members of a great company the
pernicious tendency of a particular bye-law; and if several of them
should afterwards discover it, neither the board of trade, nor the
committee of council, can afford them any redress. The object, besides,
of the greater part of the bye-laws of all regulated companies, as well
as of all other corporations, is not so much to oppress those who are
already members, as to discourage others from becoming so; which may
be done, not only by a high fine, but by many other contrivances. The
constant view of such companies is always to raise the rate of their own
profit as high as they can; to keep the market, both for the goods which
they export, and for those which they import, as much understocked as
they can; which can be done only by restraining the competition, or by
discouraging new adventurers from entering into the trade. A fine, even
of twenty pounds, besides, though it may not, perhaps, be sufficient
to discourage any man from entering into the Turkey trade, with an
intention to continue in it, may be enough to discourage a speculative
merchant from hazarding a single adventure in it. In all trades, the
regular established traders, even though not incorporated, naturally
combine to raise profits, which are noway so likely to be kept, at all
times, down to their proper level, as by the occasional competition of
speculative adventurers. The Turkey trade, though in some measure laid
open by this act of parliament, is still considered by many people as
very far from being altogether free. The Turkey company contribute to
maintain an ambassador and two or three consuls, who, like other public
ministers, ought to be maintained altogether by the state, and the trade
laid open to all his majesty's subjects. The different taxes levied by
the company, for this and other corporation purposes, might afford a
revenue much more than sufficient to enable a state to maintain such
ministers.

Regulated companies, it was observed by Sir Josiah Child, though they
had frequently supported public ministers, had never maintained any
forts or garrisons in the countries to which they traded; whereas
joint-stock companies frequently had. And, in reality, the former seem
to be much more unfit for this sort of service than the latter. First,
the directors of a regulated company have no particular interest in the
prosperity of the general trade of the company, for the sake of which
such forts and garrisons are maintained. The decay of that general trade
may even frequently contribute to the advantage of their own private
trade; as, by diminishing the number of their competitors, it may
enable them both to buy cheaper, and to sell dearer. The directors of
a joint-stock company, on the contrary, having only their share in
the profits which are made upon the common stock committed to their
management, have no private trade of their own, of which the interest
can be separated from that of the general trade of the company. Their
private interest is connected with the prosperity of the general trade
of the company, and with the maintenance of the forts and garrisons
which are necessary for its defence. They are more likely, therefore,
to have that continual and careful attention which that maintenance
necessarily requires. Secondly, The directors of a joint-stock company
have always the management of a large capital, the joint stock of the
company, a part of which they may frequently employ, with propriety, in
building, repairing, and maintaining such necessary forts and garrisons.
But the directors of a regulated company, having the management of no
common capital, have no other fund to employ in this way, but the casual
revenue arising from the admission fines, and from the corporation
duties imposed upon the trade of the company. Though they had the same
interest, therefore, to attend to the maintenance of such forts
and garrisons, they can seldom have the same ability to render that
attention effectual. The maintenance of a public minister, requiring
scarce any attention, and but a moderate and limited expense, is a
business much more suitable both to the temper and abilities of a
regulated company.

Long after the time of Sir Josiah Child, however, in 1750, a regulated
company was established, the present company of merchants trading to
Africa; which was expressly charged at first with the maintenance of all
the British forts and garrisons that lie between Cape Blanc and the Cape
of Good Hope, and afterwards with that of those only which lie between
Cape Rouge and the Cape of Good Hope. The act which establishes this
company (the 23rd of George II. c.51 ), seems to have had two distinct
objects in view; first, to restrain effectually the oppressive and
monopolizing spirit which is natural to the directors of a regulated
company; and, secondly, to force them, as much as possible, to give
an attention, which is not natural to them, towards the maintenance of
forts and garrisons.

For the first of these purposes, the fine for admission is limited
to forty shillings. The company is prohibited from trading in their
corporate capacity, or upon a joint stock; from borrowing money upon
common seal, or from laying any restraints upon the trade, which may
be carried on freely from all places, and by all persons being British
subjects, and paying the fine. The government is in a committee of nine
persons, who meet at London, but who are chosen annually by the freemen
of the company at London, Bristol, and Liverpool; three from each place.
No committeeman can be continued in office for more than three years
together. Any committee-man might be removed by the board of trade and
plantations, now by a committee of council, after being heard in his own
defence. The committee are forbid to export negroes from Africa, or to
import any African goods into Great Britain. But as they are charged
with the maintenance of forts and garrisons, they may, for that purpose
export from Great Britain to Africa goods and stores of different kinds.
Out of the moneys which they shall receive from the company, they are
allowed a sum, not exceeding eight hundred pounds, for the salaries
of their clerks and agents at London, Bristol, and Liverpool, the
house-rent of their offices at London, and all other expenses of
management, commission, and agency, in England. What remains of this
sum, after defraying these different expenses, they may divide among
themselves, as compensation for their trouble, in what manner they think
proper. By this constitution, it might have been expected, that the
spirit of monopoly would have been effectually restrained, and the first
of these purposes sufficiently answered. It would seem, however, that
it had not. Though by the 4th of George III. c.20, the fort of Senegal,
with all its dependencies, had been invested in the company of merchants
trading to Africa, yet, in the year following (by the 5th of George III.
c.44), not only Senegal and its dependencies, but the whole coast, from
the port of Sallee, in South Barbary, to Cape Rouge, was exempted from
the jurisdiction of that company, was vested in the crown, and the trade
to it declared free to all his majesty's subjects. The company had been
suspected of restraining the trade and of establishing some sort of
improper monopoly. It is not, however, very easy to conceive how, under
the regulations of the 23d George II. they could do so. In the printed
debates of the house of commons, not always the most authentic records
of truth, I observe, however, that they have been accused of this. The
members of the committee of nine being all merchants, and the governors
and factors in their different forts and settlements being all dependent
upon them, it is not unlikely that the latter might have given peculiar
attention to the consignments and commissions of the former, which would
establish a real monopoly.

For the second of these purposes, the maintenance of the forts and
garrisons, an annual sum has been allotted to them by parliament,
generally about £13,000. For the proper application of this sum, the
committee is obliged to account annually to the cursitor baron of
exchequer; which account is afterwards to be laid before parliament.
But parliament, which gives so little attention to the application of
millions, is not likely to give much to that of £13,000 a-year; and the
cursitor baron of exchequer, from his profession and education, is
not likely to be profoundly skilled in the proper expense of forts and
garrisons. The captains of his majesty's navy, indeed, or any other
commissioned officers, appointed by the board of admiralty, may
inquire into the condition of the forts and garrisons, and report their
observations to that board. But that board seems to have no direct
jurisdiction over the committee, nor any authority to correct those
whose conduct it may thus inquire into; and the captains of his
majesty's navy, besides, are not supposed to be always deeply learned
in the science of fortification. Removal from an office, which can
be enjoyed only for the term of three years, and of which the lawful
emoluments, even during that term, are so very small, seems to be the
utmost punishment to which any committee-man is liable, for any fault,
except direct malversation, or embezzlement, either of the public money,
or of that of the company; and the fear of the punishment can never be
a motive of sufficient weight to force a continual and careful attention
to a business to which he has no other interest to attend. The committee
are accused of having sent out bricks and stones from England for the
reparation of Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Guinea; a business
for which parliament had several times granted an extraordinary sum of
money. These bricks and stones, too, which had thus been sent upon so
long a voyage, were said to have been of so bad a quality, that it was
necessary to rebuild, from the foundation, the walls which had been
repaired with them. The forts and garrisons which lie north of Cape
Rouge, are not only maintained at the expense of the state, but are
under the immediate government of the executive power; and why those
which lie south of that cape, and which, too, are, in part at least,
maintained at the expense of the state, should be under a different
government, it seems not very easy even to imagine a good reason.
The protection of the Mediterranean trade was the original purpose or
pretence of the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca; and the maintenance
and government of those garrisons have always been, very properly,
committed, not to the Turkey company, but to the executive power. In
the extent of its dominion consists, in a great measure, the pride and
dignity of that power; and it is not very likely to fail in attention
to what is necessary for the defence of that dominion. The garrisons at
Gibraltar and Minorca, accordingly, have never been neglected. Though
Minorca has been twice taken, and is now probably lost for ever, that
disaster has never been imputed to any neglect in the executive power.
I would not, however, be understood to insinuate, that either of those
expensive garrisons was ever, even in the smallest degree, necessary for
the purpose for which they were originally dismembered from the Spanish
monarchy. That dismemberment, perhaps, never served any other real
purpose than to alienate from England her natural ally the king of
Spain, and to unite the two principal branches of the house of Bourbon
in a much stricter and more permanent alliance than the ties of blood
could ever have united them.

Joint-stock companies, established either by royal charter, or by act of
parliament, are different in several respects, not only from regulated
companies, but from private copartneries.

First, In a private copartnery, no partner without the consent of the
company, can transfer his share to another person, or introduce a new
member into the company. Each member, however, may, upon proper warning,
withdraw from the copartnery, and demand payment from them of his share
of the common stock. In a joint-stock company, on the contrary, no
member can demand payment of his share from the company; but each member
can, without their consent, transfer his share to another person, and
thereby introduce a new member. The value of a share in a joint stock
is always the price which it will bring in the market; and this may be
either greater or less in any proportion, than the sum which its owner
stands credited for in the stock of the company.

Secondly, In a private copartnery, each partner is bound for the debts
contracted by the company, to the whole extent of his fortune. In a
joint-stock company, on the contrary, each partner is bound only to the
extent of his share.

The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of
directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects,
to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part
of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the
business of the company; and when the spirit of faction happens not to
prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive
contentedly such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think
proper to make to them. This total exemption front trouble and front
risk, beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers
in joint-stock companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their
fortunes in any private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly
draw to themselves much greater stocks, than any private copartnery
can boast of. The trading stock of the South Sea company at one time
amounted to upwards of thirty-three millions eight hundred thousand
pounds. The divided capital of the Bank of England amounts, at present,
to ten millions seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors
of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's
money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should
watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in
a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards
of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters
as not for their master's honour, and very easily give themselves a
dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must
always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a
company. It is upon this account, that joint-stock companies for foreign
trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private
adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an
exclusive privilege; and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without
an exclusive privilege, they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an
exclusive privilege, they have both mismanaged and confined it.

The Royal African company, the predecessors of the present African
company, had an exclusive privilege by charter; but as that charter had
not been confirmed by act of parliament, the trade, in consequence of
the declaration of rights, was, soon after the Revolution, laid open to
all his majesty's subjects. The Hudson's Bay company are, as to their
legal rights, in the same situation as the Royal African company. Their
exclusive charter has not been confirmed by act of parliament. The South
Sea company, as long as they continued to be a trading company, had an
exclusive privilege confirmed by act of parliament; as have likewise the
present united company of merchants trading to the East Indies.

The Royal African company soon found that they could not maintain the
competition against private adventurers, whom, notwithstanding the
declaration of rights, they continued for some time to call interlopers,
and to persecute as such. In 1698, however, the private adventurers
were subjected to a duty of ten per cent. upon almost all the
different branches of their trade, to be employed by the company in
the maintenance of their forts and garrisons. But, notwithstanding this
heavy tax, the company were still unable to maintain the competition.
Their stock and credit gradually declined. In 1712, their debts had
become so great, that a particular act of parliament was thought
necessary, both for their security and for that of their creditors. It
was enacted, that the resolution of two-thirds of these creditors in
number and value should bind the rust, both with regard to the time
which should be allowed to the company for the payment of their debts,
and with regard to any other agreement which it might be thought proper
to make with them concerning those debts. In 1730, their affairs were
in so great disorder, that they were altogether incapable of maintaining
their forts and garrisons, the sole purpose and pretext of their
institution. From that year till their final dissolution, the parliament
judged it necessary to allow the annual sum of £10,000 for that purpose.
In 1732, after having been for many years losers by the trade of
carrying negroes to the West Indies, they at last resolved to give it up
altogether; to sell to the private traders to America the negroes which
they purchased upon the coast; awl to employ their servants in a trade
to the inland parts of Africa for gold dust, elephants teeth, dyeing
drugs, etc. But their success in this more confined trade was not
greater than in their former extensive one. Their affairs continued to
go gradually to decline, till at last, being in every respect a bankrupt
company, they were dissolved by act of parliament, and their forts and
garrisons vested in the present regulated company of merchants trading
to Africa. Before the erection of the Royal African company, there had
been three other joint-stock companies successively established,
one after another, for the African trade. They were all equally
unsuccessful. They all, however, had exclusive charters, which, though
not confirmed by act of parliament, were in those days supposed to
convey a real exclusive privilege.

The Hudson's Bay company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had
been much more fortunate than the Royal African company. Their necessary
expense is much smaller. The whole number of people whom they maintain
in their different settlements and habitations, which they have honoured
with the name of forts, is said not to exceed a hundred and twenty
persons. This number, however, is sufficient to prepare beforehand the
cargo of furs and other goods necessary for loading their ships, which,
on account of the ice, can seldom remain above six or eight weeks in
those seas. This advantage of having a cargo ready prepared, could not,
for several years, be acquired by private adventurers; and without
it there seems to be no possibility of trading to Hudson's Bay. The
moderate capital of the company, which, it is said, does not exceed one
hundred and ten thousand pounds, may, besides, be sufficient to enable
them to engross the whole, or almost the whole trade and surplus
produce, of the miserable though extensive country comprehended within
their charter. No private adventurers, accordingly, have ever attempted
to trade to that country in competition with them. This company,
therefore, have always enjoyed an exclusive trade, in fact, though they
may have no right to it in law. Over and above all this, the moderate
capital of this company is said to be divided among a very small number
of proprietors. But a joint-stock company, consisting of a small number
of proprietors, with a moderate capital, approaches very nearly to the
nature of a private copartnery, and may be capable of nearly the
same degree of vigilance and attention. It is not to be wondered
at, therefore, if, in consequence of these different advantages, the
Hudson's Bay company had, before the late war, been able to carry on
their trade with a considerable degree of success. It does not seem
probable, however, that their profits ever approached to what the late
Mr Dobbs imagined them. A much more sober and judicious writer, Mr
Anderson, author of the Historical and Chronological Deduction of
Commerce, very justly observes, that upon examining the accounts which
Mr Dobbs himself has given for several years together, of their exports
and imports, and upon making proper allowances for their extraordinary
risk and expense, it does not appear that their profits deserve to be
envied, or that they can much, if at all, exceed the ordinary profits of
trade.

The South Sea company never had any forts or garrisons to maintain, and
therefore were entirely exempted from one great expense, to which other
joint-stock companies for foreign trade are subject; but they had an
immense capital divided among an immense number of proprietors. It
was naturally to be expected, therefore, that folly, negligence, and
profusion, should prevail in the whole management of their affairs.
The knavery and extravagance of their stock-jobbing projects are
sufficiently known, and the explication of them would be foreign to
the present subject. Their mercantile projects were not much better
conducted. The first trade which they engaged in, was that of supplying
the Spanish West Indies with negroes, of which (in consequence of what
was called the Assiento Contract granted them by the treaty of Utrecht)
they had the exclusive privilege. But as it was not expected that much
profit could be made by this trade, both the Portuguese and French
companies, who had enjoyed it upon the same terms before them, having
been ruined by it, they were allowed, as compensation, to send annually
a ship of a certain burden, to trade directly to the Spanish West
Indies. Of the ten voyages which this annual ship was allowed to make,
they are said to have gained considerably by one, that of the Royal
Caroline, in 1731; and to have been losers, more or less, by almost all
the rest. Their ill success was imputed, by their factors and agents,
to the extortion and oppression of the Spanish government; but was,
perhaps, principally owing to the profusion and depredations of those
very factors and agents; some of whom are said to have acquired great
fortunes, even in one year. In 1734, the company petitioned the king,
that they might be allowed to dispose of the trade and tonnage of their
annual ship, on account of the little profit which they made by it,
and to accept of such equivalent as they could obtain from the king of
Spain.

In 1724, this company had undertaken the whale fishery. Of this, indeed,
they had no monopoly; but as long as they carried it on, no other
British subjects appear to have engaged in it. Of the eight voyages
which their ships made to Greenland, they were gainers by one, and
losers by all the rest. After their eighth and last voyage, when they
had sold their ships, stores, and utensils, they found that their
whole loss upon this branch, capital and interest included, amounted to
upwards of £237,000.

In 1722, this company petitioned the parliament to be allowed to divide
their immense capital of more than thirty-three millions eight hundred
thousand pounds, the whole of which had been lent to government, into
two equal parts; the one half, or upwards of £16,900,000, to be put upon
the same footing with other government annuities, and not to be subject
to the debts contracted, or losses incurred, by the directors of the
company, in the prosecution of their mercantile projects; the other half
to remain as before, a trading stock, and to be subject to those debts
and losses. The petition was too reasonable not to be granted. In
1733, they again petitioned the parliament, that three-fourths of their
trading stock might be turned into annuity stock, and only one-fourth
remain as trading stock, or exposed to the hazards arising from the bad
management of their directors. Both their annuity and trading stocks
had, by this time, been reduced more than two millions each, by several
different payments from government; so that this fourth amounted only to
£3,662,784:8:6. In 1748, all the demands of the company upon the king of
Spain, in consequence of the assiento contract, were, by the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, given up for what was supposed an equivalent. An end
was put to their trade with the Spanish West Indies; the remainder of
their trading stock was turned into an annuity stock; and the company
ceased, in every respect, to be a trading company.

It ought to be observed, that in the trade which the South Sea company
carried on by means of their annual ship, the only trade by which it
ever was expected that they could make any considerable profit, they
were not without competitors, either in the foreign or in the home
market. At Carthagena, Porto Bello, and La Vera Cruz, they had to
encounter the competition of the Spanish merchants, who brought from
Cadiz to those markets European goods, of the same kind with the outward
cargo of their ship; and in England they had to encounter that of the
English merchants, who imported from Cadiz goods of the Spanish West
Indies, of the same kind with the inward cargo. The goods, both of the
Spanish and English merchants, indeed, were, perhaps, subject to higher
duties. But the loss occasioned by the negligence, profusion, and
malversation of the servants of the company, had probably been a tax
much heavier than all those duties. That a joint-stock company should be
able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private
adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with
them, seems contrary to all experience.

The old English East India company was established in 1600, by a charter
from Queen Elizabeth. In the first twelve voyages which they fitted
out for India, they appear to have traded as a regulated company, with
separate stocks, though only in the general ships of the company. In
1612, they united into a joint stock. Their charter was exclusive, and,
though not confirmed by act of parliament, was in those days supposed to
convey a real exclusive privilege. For many years, therefore, they were
not much disturbed by interlopers. Their capital, which never exceeded
£744,000, and of which £50 was a share, was not so exorbitant, nor
their dealings so extensive, as to afford either a pretext for
gross negligence and profusion, or a cover to gross malversation.
Notwithstanding some extraordinary losses, occasioned partly by the
malice of the Dutch East India company, and partly by other accidents,
they carried on for many years a successful trade. But in process of
time, when the principles of liberty were better understood, it became
every day more and more doubtful, how far a royal charter, not confirmed
by act of parliament, could convey an exclusive privilege. Upon this
question the decisions of the courts of justice were not uniform, but
varied with the authority of government, and the humours of the times.
Interlopers multiplied upon them; and towards the end of the reign of
Charles II., through the whole of that of James II., and during a part
of that of William III., reduced them to great distress. In 1698,
a proposal was made to parliament, of advancing two millions to
government, at eight per cent. provided the subscribers were erected
into a new East India company, with exclusive privileges. The old East
India company offered seven hundred thousand pounds, nearly the amount
of their capital, at four per cent. upon the same conditions. But such
was at that time the state of public credit, that it was more convenient
for government to borrow two millions at eight per cent. than seven
hundred thousand pounds at four. The proposal of the new subscribers was
accepted, and a new East India company established in consequence. The
old East India company, however, had a right to continue their trade
till 1701. They had, at the same time, in the name of their treasurer,
subscribed very artfully three hundred and fifteen thousand pounds into
the stock of the new. By a negligence in the expression of the act of
parliament, which vested the East India trade in the subscribers to
this loan of two millions, it did not appear evident that they were
all obliged to unite into a joint stock. A few private traders, whose
subscriptions amounted only to seven thousand two hundred pounds,
insisted upon the privilege of trading separately upon their own stocks,
and at their own risks. The old East India company had a right to a
separate trade upon their own stock till 1701; and they had likewise,
both before and after that period, a right, like that or other
private traders, to a separate trade upon the £315,000, which they had
subscribed into the stock of the new company. The competition of the
two companies with the private traders, and with one another, is said to
have well nigh ruined both. Upon a subsequent occasion, in 1750, when
a proposal was made to parliament for putting the trade under the
management of a regulated company, and thereby laying it in some
measure open, the East India company, in opposition to this proposal,
represented, in very strong terms, what had been, at this time, the
miserable effects, as they thought them, of this competition. In India,
they said, it raised the price of goods so high, that they were not
worth the buying; and in England, by overstocking the market, it sunk
their price so low, that no profit could be made by them. That by a more
plentiful supply, to the great advantage and conveniency of the public,
it must have reduced very much the price of India goods in the English
market, cannot well be doubted; but that it should have raised very much
their price in the Indian market, seems not very probable, as all the
extraordinary demand which that competition could occasion must have
been but as a drop of water in the immense ocean of Indian commerce. The
increase of demand, besides, though in the beginning it may sometimes
raise the price of goods, never fails to lower it in the long-run. It
encourages production, and thereby increases the competition of the
producers, who, in order to undersell one another, have recourse to
new divisions or labour and new improvements of art, which might never
otherwise have been thought of. The miserable effects of which
the company complained, were the cheapness of consumption, and the
encouragement given to production; precisely the two effects which it
is the great business of political economy to promote. The competition,
however, of which they gave this doleful account, had not been allowed
to be of long continuance. In 1702, the two companies were, in some
measure, united by an indenture tripartite, to which the queen was the
third party; and in 1708, they were by act of parliament, perfectly
consolidated into one company, by their present name of the United
Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies. Into this act it was
thought worth while to insert a clause, allowing the separate traders
to continue their trade till Michaelmas 1711; but at the same time
empowering the directors, upon three years notice, to redeem their
little capital of seven thousand two hundred pounds, and thereby to
convert the whole stock of the company into a joint stock. By the
same act, the capital of the company, in consequence of a new loan
to government, was augmented from two millions to three millions two
hundred thousand pounds. In 1743, the company advanced another million
to government. But this million being raised, not by a call upon the
proprietors, but by selling annuities and contracting bond-debts, it did
not augment the stock upon which the proprietors could claim a dividend.
It augmented, however, their trading stock, it being equally liable
with the other three millions two hundred thousand pounds, to the losses
sustained, and debts contracted by the company in prosecution of their
mercantile projects. From 1708, or at least from 1711, this company,
being delivered from all competitors, and fully established in the
monopoly of the English commerce to the East Indies, carried on a
successful trade, and from their profits, made annually a moderate
dividend to their proprietors. During the French war, which began in
1741, the ambition of Mr. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry,
involved them in the wars of the Carnatic, and in the politics of the
Indian princes. After many signal successes, and equally signal losses,
they at last lost Madras, at that time their principal settlement in
India. It was restored to them by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; and,
about this time the spirit of war and conquest seems to have taken
possession of their servants in India, and never since to have left
them. During the French war, which began in 1755, their arms partook
of the general good fortune of those of Great Britain. They defended
Madras, took Pondicherry, recovered Calcutta, and acquired the revenues
of a rich and extensive territory, amounting, it was then said, to
upwards of three millions a-year. They remained for several years in
quiet possession of this revenue; but in 1767, administration laid claim
to their territorial acquisitions, and the revenue arising from them,
as of right belonging to the crown; and the company, in compensation
for this claim, agreed to pay to government £400,000 a-year. They had,
before this, gradually augmented their dividend from about six to ten
per cent.; that is, upon their capital of three millions two hundred
thousand pounds, they had increased it by £128,000, or had raised it
from one hundred and ninety-two thousand to three hundred and twenty
thousand pounds a-year. They were attempting about this time to raise
it still further, to twelve and a-half per cent., which would have made
their annual payments to their proprietors equal to what they had agreed
to pay annually to government, or to £400,000 a-year. But during the two
years in which their agreement with government was to take place, they
were restrained from any further increase of dividend by two successive
acts of parliament, of which the object was to enable them to make a
speedier progress in the payment of their debts, which were at this time
estimated at upwards of six or seven millions sterling. In 1769,
they renewed their agreement with government for five years more,
and stipulated, that during the course of that period, they should be
allowed gradually to increase their dividend to twelve and a-half per
cent; never increasing it, however, more than one per cent. in one year.
This increase of dividend, therefore, when it had risen to its utmost
height, could augment their annual payments, to their proprietors and
government together, but by £680,000, beyond what they had been before
their late territorial acquisitions. What the gross revenue of those
territorial acquisitions was supposed to amount to, has already been
mentioned; and by an account brought by the Cruttenden East Indiaman in
1769, the neat revenue, clear of all deductions and military charges,
was stated at two millions forty-eight thousand seven hundred and
forty-seven pounds. They were said, at the same time, to possess
another revenue, arising partly from lands, but chiefly from the customs
established at their different settlements, amounting to £439,000. The
profits of their trade, too, according to the evidence of their chairman
before the house of commons, amounted, at this time, to at least
£400,000 a-year; according to that of their accountant, to at least
£500,000; according to the lowest account, at least equal to the highest
dividend that was to be paid to their proprietors. So great a revenue
might certainly have afforded an augmentation of £680,000 in their
annual payments; and, at the same time, have left a large sinking fund,
sufficient for the speedy reduction of their debt. In 1773, however,
their debts, instead of being reduced, were augmented by an arrear to
the treasury in the payment of the four hundred thousand pounds; by
another to the custom-house for duties unpaid; by a large debt to the
bank, for money borrowed; and by a fourth, for bills drawn upon them
from India, and wantonly accepted, to the amount of upwards of twelve
hundred thousand pounds. The distress which these accumulated claims
brought upon them, obliged them not only to reduce all at once their
dividend to six per cent. but to throw themselves upon the mercy of
govermnent, and to supplicate, first, a release from the further payment
of the stipulated £400,000 a-year; and, secondly, a loan of fourteen
hundred thousand, to save them from immediate bankruptcy. The great
increase of their fortune had, it seems, only served to furnish their
servants with a pretext for greater profusion, and a cover for greater
malversation, than in proportion even to that increase of fortune.
The conduct of their servants in India, and the general state of
their affairs both in India and in Europe, became the subject of a
parliamentary inquiry: in consequence of which, several very important
alterations were made in the constitution of their government, both
at home and abroad. In India, their principal settlements or Madras,
Bombay, and Calcutta, which had before been altogether independent of
one another, were subjected to a governor-general, assisted by a council
of four assessors, parliament assuming to itself the first nomination
of this governor and council, who were to reside at Calcutta; that city
having now become, what Madras was before, the most important of the
English settlements in India. The court of the Mayor of Calcutta,
originally instituted for the trial of mercantile causes, which arose in
the city and neighbourhood, had gradually extended its jurisdiction
with the extension of the empire. It was now reduced and confined to the
original purpose of its institution. Instead of it, a new supreme court
of judicature was established, consisting of a chief justice and three
judges, to be appointed by the crown. In Europe, the qualification
necessary to entitle a proprietor to vote at their general courts was
raised, from five hundred pounds, the original price of a share in the
stock of the company, to a thousand pounds. In order to vote upon this
qualification, too, it was declared necessary, that he should have
possessed it, if acquired by his own purchase, and not by inheritance,
for at least one year, instead of six months, the term requisite before.
The court of twenty-four directors had before been chosen annually; but
it was now enacted, that each director should, for the future, be chosen
for four years; six of them, however, to go out of office by rotation
every year, and not be capable of being re-chosen at the election of
the six new directors for the ensuing year. In consequence of these
alterations, the courts, both of the proprietors and directors, it was
expected, would be likely to act with more dignity and steadiness
than they had usually done before. But it seems impossible, by any
alterations, to render those courts, in any respect, fit to govern, or
even to share in the government of a great empire; because the greater
part of their members must always have too little interest in the
prosperity of that empire, to give any serious attention to what may
promote it. Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of small
fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds share in India stock,
merely for the influence which he expects to aquire by a vote in the
court of proprietors. It gives him a share, though not in the plunder,
yet in the appointment of the plunderers of India; the court of
directors, though they make that appointment, being necessarily more or
less under the influence of the proprietors, who not only elect those
directors, but sometimes over-rule the appointments of their servants in
India. Provided he can enjoy this influence for a few years, and thereby
provide for a certain number of his friends, he frequently cares little
about the dividend, or even about the value of the stock upon which
his vote is founded. About the prosperity of the great empire, in the
government of which that vote gives him a share, he seldom cares at all.
No other sovereigns ever were, or, from the nature of things, ever could
be, so perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their
subjects, the improvement or waste of their dominions, the glory or
disgrace of their administration, as, from irresistible moral causes,
the greater part of the proprietors of such a mercantile company are,
and necessarily must be. This indifference, too, was more likely to be
increased than diminished by some of the new regulations which were
made in consequence of the parliamentary inquiry. By a resolution of the
house of commons, for example, it was declared, that when the £1,400,000
lent to the company by government, should be paid, and their bond-debts
be reduced to £1,500,000, they might then, and not till then, divide
eight per cent. upon their capital; and that whatever remained of their
revenues and neat profits at home should be divided into four parts;
three of them to be paid into the exchequer for the use of the public,
and the fourth to be reserved as a fund, either for the further
reduction of their bond-debts, or for the discharge of other contingent
exigencies which the company might labour under. But if the company were
bad stewards and bad sovereigns, when the whole of their neat revenue
and profits belonged to themselves, and were at their own disposal, they
were surely not likely to be better when three-fourths of them were to
belong to other people, and the other fourth, though to be laid out for
the benefit of the company, yet to be so under the inspection and with
the approbation of other people.

It might be more agreeable to the company, that their own servants and
dependants should have either the pleasure of wasting, or the profit
of embezzling, whatever surplus might remain, after paying the proposed
dividend of eight per cent. than that it should come into the hands of a
set of people with whom those resolutions could scarce fail to set
them in some measure at variance. The interest of those servants and
dependants might so far predominate in the court of proprietors, as
sometimes to dispose it to support the authors of depredations which
had been committed in direct violation of its own authority. With the
majority of proprietors, the support even of the authority of their own
court might sometimes be a matter of less consequence than the support
of those who had set that authority at defiance.

The regulations of 1773, accordingly, did not put an end to the disorder
of the company's government in India. Notwithstanding that, during a
momentary fit of good conduct, they had at one time collected into the
treasury of Calcutta more than £3,000,000 sterling; notwithstanding that
they had afterwards extended either their dominion or their depredations
over a vast accession of some of the richest and most fertile countries
in India, all was wasted and destroyed. They found themselves altogether
unprepared to stop or resist the incursion of Hyder Ali; and in
consequence of those disorders, the company is now (1784) in greater
distress than ever; and, in order to prevent immediate bankruptcy, is
once more reduced to supplicate the assistance of government. Different
plans have been proposed by the different parties in parliament for the
better management of its affairs; and all those plans seem to agree
in supposing, what was indeed always abundantly evident, that it is
altogether unfit to govern its territorial possessions. Even the company
itself seems to be convinced of its own incapacity so far, and seems,
upon that account willing to give them up to government.

With the right of possessing forts and garrisons in distant and
barbarous countries is necessarily connected the right of making peace
and war in those countries. The joint-stock companies, which have had
the one right, have constantly exercised the other, and have frequently
had it expressly conferred upon them. How unjustly, how capriciously,
how cruelly, they have commonly exercised it, is too well known from
recent experience.

When a company of merchants undertake, at their own risk and expense, to
establish a new trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not
be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint-stock company, and
to grant them, in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a
certain number of years. It is the easiest and most natural way in which
the state can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive
experiment, of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit.
A temporary monopoly of this kind may be vindicated, upon the same
principles upon which a like monopoly of a new machine is granted to its
inventor, and that of a new book to its author. But upon the expiration
of the term, the monopoly ought certainly to determine; the forts and
garrisons, if it was found necessary to establish any, to be taken into
the hands of government, their value to be paid to the company, and the
trade to be laid open to all the subjects of the state. By a perpetual
monopoly, all the other subjects of the state are taxed very absurdly
in two different ways: first, by the high price of goods, which, in the
case of a free trade, they could buy much cheaper; and, secondly, by
their total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be both
convenient and profitable for many of them to carry on. It is for the
most worthless of all purposes, too, that they are taxed in this manner.
It is merely to enable the company to support the negligence, profusion,
and malversation of their own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom
allows the dividend of the company to exceed the ordinary rate of profit
in trades which are altogether free, and very frequently makes a fall
even a good deal short of that rate. Without a monopoly, however, a
joint-stock company, it would appear from experience, cannot long carry
on any branch of foreign trade. To buy in one market, in order to sell
with profit in another, when there are many competitors in both; to
watch over, not only the occasional variations in the demand, but the
much greater and more frequent variations in the competition, or in the
supply which that demand is likely to get from other people; and to
suit with dexterity and judgment both the quantity and quality of each
assortment of goods to all these circumstances, is a species of warfare,
of which the operations are continually changing, and which can scarce
ever be conducted successfully, without such an unremitting exertion of
vigilance and attention as cannot long be expected from the directors
of a joint-stock company. The East India company, upon the redemption
of their funds, and the expiration of their exclusive privilege, have
a right, by act of parliament, to continue a corporation with a joint
stock, and to trade in their corporate capacity to the East Indies, in
common with the rest of their fellow subjects. But in this situation,
the superior vigilance and attention of a private adventurer would, in
all probability, soon make them weary of the trade.

An eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political
economy, the Abbe Morellet, gives a list of fifty-five joint-stock
companies for foreign trade, which have been established in different
parts of Europe since the year 1600, and which, according to him,
have all failed from mismanagement, notwithstanding they had exclusive
privileges. He has been misinformed with regard to the history of two or
three of them, which were not joint-stock companies and have not failed.
But, in compensation, there have been several joint-stock companies
which have failed, and which he has omitted.

The only trades which it seems possible for a joint-stock company to
carry on successfully, without an exclusive privilege, are those, of
which all the operations are capable of being reduced to what is called
a routine, or to such a uniformity of method as admits of little or
no variation. Of this kind is, first, the banking trade; secondly, the
trade of insurance from fire and from sea risk, and capture in time of
war; thirdly, the trade of making and maintaining a navigable cut or
canal; and, fourthly, the similar trade of bringing water for the supply
of a great city.

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse,
the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart
upon any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering
speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous
and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it. But the
constitution of joint-stock companies renders them in general, more
tenacious of established rules than any private copartnery. Such
companies, therefore, seem extremely well fitted for this trade. The
principal banking companies in Europe, accordingly, are joint-stock
companies, many of which manage their trade very successfully without
any exclusive privilege. The bank of England has no other exclusive
privilege, except that no other banking company in England shall consist
of more than six persons. The two banks of Edinburgh are joint-stock
companies, without any exclusive privilege.

The value of the risk, either from fire, or from loss by sea, or by
capture, though it cannot, perhaps, be calculated very exactly, admits,
however, of such a gross estimation, as renders it, in some degree,
reducible to strict rule and method. The trade of insurance, therefore,
may be carried on successfully by a joint-stock company, without
any exclusive privilege. Neither the London Assurance, nor the Royal
Exchange Assurance companies have any such privilege.

When a navigable cut or canal has been once made, the management of it
becomes quite simple and easy, and it is reducible to strict rule and
method. Even the making of it is so, as it may be contracted for with
undertakers, at so much a mile, and so much a lock. The same thing may
be said of a canal, an aqueduct, or a great pipe for bringing water
to supply a great city. Such under-takings, therefore, may be, and
accordingly frequently are, very successfully managed by joint-stock
companies, without any exclusive privilege.

To establish a joint-stock company, however, for any undertaking, merely
because such a company might be capable of managing it successfully;
or, to exempt a particular set of dealers from some of the general laws
which take place with regard to all their neighbours, merely because
they might be capable of thriving, if they had such an exemption, would
certainly not be reasonable. To render such an establishment perfectly
reasonable, with the circumstance of being reducible to strict rule
and method, two other circumstances ought to concur. First, it ought to
appear with the clearest evidence, that the undertaking is of greater
and more general utility than the greater part of common trades;
and, secondly, that it requires a greater capital than can easily
be collected into a private copartnery. If a moderate capital were
sufficient, the great utility of the undertaking would not be a
sufficient reason for establishing a joint-stock company; because, in
this case, the demand for what it was to produce, would readily and
easily be supplied by private adventurers. In the four trades above
mentioned, both those circumstances concur.

The great and general utility of the banking trade, when prudently
managed, has been fully explained in the second book of this Inquiry.
But a public bank, which is to support public credit, and, upon
particular emergencies, to advance to government the whole produce of a
tax, to the amount, perhaps, of several millions, a year or two before
it comes in, requires a greater capital than can easily be collected
into any private copartnery.

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private
people, and, by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin
an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society. In
order to give this security, however, it is necessary that the insurers
should have a very large capital. Before the establishment of the two
joint-stock companies for insurance in London, a list, it is said,
was laid before the attorney-general, of one hundred and fifty private
usurers, who had failed in the course of a few years.

That navigable cuts and canals, and the works which are sometimes
necessary for supplying a great city with water, are of great and
general utility, while, at the same time, they frequently require
a greater expense than suits the fortunes of private people, is
sufficiently obvious.

Except the four trades above mentioned, I have not been able to
recollect any other, in which all the three circumstances requisite for
rendering reasonable the establishment of a joint-stock company concur.
The English copper company of London, the lead-smelting company, the
glass-grinding company, have not even the pretext of any great or
singular utility in the object which they pursue; nor does the pursuit
of that object seem to require any expense unsuitable to the fortunes of
many private men. Whether the trade which those companies carry on, is
reducible to such strict rule and method as to render it fit for the
management of a joint-stock company, or whether they have any reason
to boast of their extraordinary profits, I do not pretend to know. The
mine-adventurers company has been long ago bankrupt. A share in the
stock of the British Linen company of Edinburgh sells, at present,
very much below par, though less so than it did some years ago. The
joint-stock companies, which are established for the public-spirited
purpose of promoting some particular manufacture, over and above
managing their own affairs ill, to the diminution of the general stock
of the society, can, in other respects, scarce ever fail to do more harm
than good. Notwithstanding the most upright intentions, the unavoidable
partiality of their directors to particular branches of the manufacture,
of which the undertakers mislead and impose upon them, is a real
discouragement to the rest, and necessarily breaks, more or less,
that natural proportion which would otherwise establish itself between
judicious industry and profit, and which, to the general industry of the
country, is of all encouragements the greatest and the most effectual.

ART. II.--Of the Expense of the Institution for the Education of Youth.

The institutions for the education of the youth may, in the same manner,
furnish a revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense. The fee or
honorary, which the scholar pays to the master, naturally constitutes a
revenue of this kind.

Even where the reward of the master does not arise altogether from this
natural revenue, it still is not necessary that it should be derived
from that general revenue of the society, of which the collection and
application are, in most countries, assigned to the executive power.
Through the greater part of Europe, accordingly, the endowment of
schools and colleges makes either no charge upon that general revenue,
or but a very small one. It everywhere arises chiefly from some local
or provincial revenue, from the rent of some landed estate, or from the
interest of some sum of money, allotted and put under the management
of trustees for this particular purpose, sometimes by the sovereign
himself, and sometimes by some private donor.

Have those public endowments contributed in general, to promote the end
of their institution? Have they contributed to encourage the diligence,
and to improve the abilities, of the teachers? Have they directed the
course of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual
and to the public, than those to which it would naturally have gone of
its own accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a
probable answer to each of those questions.

In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who
exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of
making that exertion. This necessity is greatest with those to whom
the emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they
expect their fortune, or even their ordinary revenue and subsistence.
In order to acquire this fortune, or even to get this subsistence, they
must, in the course of a year, execute a certain quantity of work of
a known value; and, where the competition is free, the rivalship of
competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of
employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a
certain degree of exactness. The greatness of the objects which are to
be acquired by success in some particular professions may, no doubt,
sometimes animate the exertions of a few men of extraordinary spirit and
ambition. Great objects, however, are evidently not necessary, in order
to occasion the greatest exertions. Rivalship and emulation render
excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and
frequently occasion the very greatest exertions. Great objects, on the
contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of application,
have seldom been sufficient to occasion any considerable exertion. In
England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great
objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have
ever in this country been eminent in that profession?

The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished,
more or less, the necessity of application in the teachers. Their
subsistence, so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently
derived from a fund, altogether independent of their success and
reputation in their particular professions.

In some universities, the salary makes but a part, and frequently but a
small part, of the emoluments of the teacher, of which the greater
part arises from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The necessity
of application, though always more or less diminished, is not, in this
case, entirely taken away. Reputation in his profession is still of some
importance to him, and he still has some dependency upon the affection,
gratitude, and favourable report of those who have attended upon his
instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in
no way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and
diligence with which he discharges every part of his duty.

In other universities, the teacher is prohibited from receiving any
honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of
the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this
case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set
it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he
can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he
does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his
interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect
it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not
suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a
manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a
lover of labour, it is his interest to employ that activity in any way
from which he can derive some advantage, rather than in the performance
of his duty, from which he can derive none.

If the authority to which he is subject resides in the body corporate,
the college, or university, of which he himself is a member, and in
which the greater part of the other members are, like himself, persons
who either are, or ought to be teachers, they are likely to make a
common cause, to be all very indulgent to one another, and every man to
consent that his neighbour may neglect his duty, provided he himself
is allowed to neglect his own. In the university of Oxford, the greater
part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up
altogether even the pretence of teaching.

If the authority to which he is subject resides, not so much in the body
corporate, of which he is a member, as in some other extraneous persons,
in the bishop of the diocese, for example, in the governor of the
province, or, perhaps, in some minister of state, it is not, indeed,
in this case, very likely that he will be suffered to neglect his duty
altogether. All that such superiors, however, can force him to do, is
to attend upon his pupils a certain number of hours, that is, to give
a certain number of lectures in the week, or in the year. What those
lectures shall be, must still depend upon the diligence of the teacher;
and that diligence is likely to be proportioned to the motives which he
has for exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of this kind, besides,
is liable to be exercised both ignorantly and capriciously. In its
nature, it is arbitrary and discretionary; and the persons who exercise
it, neither attending upon the lectures of the teacher themselves, nor
perhaps understanding the sciences which it is his business to teach,
are seldom capable of exercising it with judgment. From the insolence of
office, too, they are frequently indifferent how they exercise it,
and are very apt to censure or deprive him of his office wantonly and
without any just cause. The person subject to such jurisdiction is
necessarily degraded by it, and, instead of being one of the most
respectable, is rendered one of the meanest and most contemptible
persons in the society. It is by powerful protection only, that he can
effectually guard himself against the bad usage to which he is at all
times exposed; and this protection he is most likely to gain, not by
ability or diligence in his profession, but by obsequiousness to the
will of his superiors, and by being ready, at all times, to sacrifice
to that will the rights, the interest, and the honour of the body
corporate, of which he is a member. Whoever has attended for any
considerable time to the administration of a French university, must
have had occasion to remark the effects which naturally result from an
arbitrary and extraneous jurisdiction of this kind.

Whatever forces a certain number of students to any college or
university, independent of the merit or reputation of the teachers,
tends more or less to diminish the necessity of that merit or
reputation.

The privileges of graduates in arts, in law, physic, and divinity,
when they can be obtained only by residing a certain number of years in
certain universities, necessarily force a certain number of students
to such universities, independent of the merit or reputation of
the teachers. The privileges of graduates are a sort of statutes of
apprenticeship, which have contributed to the improvement of education
just as the other statutes of apprenticeship have to that of arts and
manufactures.

The charitable foundations of scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc.
necessarily attach a certain number of students to certain colleges,
independent altogether of the merit of those particular colleges. Were
the students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what
college they liked best, such liberty might perhaps contribute to excite
some emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary,
which prohibited even the independent members of every particular
college from leaving it, and going to any other, without leave first
asked and obtained of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very
much to extinguish that emulation.

If in each college, the tutor or teacher, who was to instruct each
student in all arts and sciences, should not be voluntarily chosen by
the student, but appointed by the head of the college; and if, in case
of neglect, inability, or bad usage, the student should not be allowed
to change him for another, without leave first asked and obtained; such
a regulation would not only tend very much to extinguish all emulation
among the different tutors of the same college, but to diminish very
much, in all of them, the necessity of diligence and of attention to
their respective pupils. Such teachers, though very well paid by their
students, might be as much disposed to neglect them, as those who
are not paid by them at all or who have no other recompense but their
salary.

If the teacher happens to be a man of sense, it must be an unpleasant
thing to him to be conscious, while he is lecturing to his students,
that he is either speaking or reading nonsense, or what is very little
better than nonsense. It must, too, be unpleasant to him to observe,
that the greater part of his students desert his lectures; or perhaps,
attend upon them with plain enough marks of neglect, contempt, and
derision. If he is obliged, therefore, to give a certain number of
lectures, these motives alone, without any other interest, might dispose
him to take some pains to give tolerably good ones. Several different
expedients, however, may be fallen upon, which will effectually blunt
the edge of all those incitements to diligence. The teacher, instead
of explaining to his pupils himself the science in which he proposes to
instruct them, may read some book upon it; and if this book is written
in a foreign and dead language, by interpreting it to them into
their own, or, what would give him still less trouble, by making them
interpret it to him, and by now and then making an occasional remark
upon it, he may flatter himself that he is giving a lecture. The
slightest degree of knowledge and application will enable him to do
this, without exposing himself to contempt or derision, by saying any
thing that is really foolish, absurd, or ridiculous. The discipline of
the college, at the same time, may enable him to force all his pupils to
the most regular attendance upon his sham lecture, and to maintain
the most decent and respectful behaviour during the whole time of the
performance.

The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not
for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or, more properly
speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases,
to maintain the authority of the master, and, whether he neglects or
performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him
as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems
to presume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest
weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really
perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater
part of the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever
requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the
attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force
and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite, in order
to oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of
education, which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during
that early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen years of age,
provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be
necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity
of the greater part of young men, that so far from being disposed to
neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shews
some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally
inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of
his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of
gross negligence.

Those parts of education, it is to be observed, for the teaching of
which there are no public institutions, are generally the best taught.
When a young man goes to a fencing or a dancing school, he does not,
indeed, always learn to fence or to dance very well; but he seldom fails
of learning to fence or to dance. The good effects of the riding school
are not commonly so evident. The expense of a riding school is so great,
that in most places it is a public institution. The three most essential
parts of literary education, to read, write, and account, it still
continues to be more common to acquire in private than in public
schools; and it very seldom happens, that anybody fails of acquiring
them to the degree in which it is necessary to acquire them.

In England, the public schools are much less corrupted than the
universities. In the schools, the youth are taught, or at least may be
taught, Greek and Latin; that is, everything which the masters
pretend to teach, or which it is expected they should teach. In the
universities, the youth neither are taught, nor always can find any
proper means of being taught the sciences, which it is the business of
those incorporated bodies to teach. The reward of the schoolmaster, in
most cases, depends principally, in some cases almost entirely, upon
the fees or honoraries of his scholars. Schools have no exclusive
privileges. In order to obtain the honours of graduation, it is not
necessary that a person should bring a certificate of his having studied
a certain number of years at a public school. If, upon examination, he
appears to understand what is taught there, no questions are asked about
the place where he learnt it.

The parts of education which are commonly taught in universities, it may
perhaps be said, are not very well taught. But had it not been for those
institutions, they would not have been commonly taught at all; and both
the individual and the public would have suffered a good deal from the
want of those important parts of education.

The present universities of Europe were originally, the greater part
of them, ecclesiastical corporations, instituted for the education of
churchmen. They were founded by the authority of the pope; and were so
entirely under his immediate protection, that their members, whether
masters or students, had all of them what was then called the benefit
of clergy, that is, were exempted from the civil jurisdiction of the
countries in which their respective universities were situated, and were
amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals. What was taught in the
greater part of those universities was suitable to the end of their
institution, either theology, or something that was merely preparatory
to theology.

When Christianity was first established by law, a corrupted Latin had
become the common language of all the western parts of Europe. The
service of the church, accordingly, and the translation of the Bible
which were read in churches, were both in that corrupted Latin; that
is, in the common language of the country, After the irruption of the
barbarous nations who overturned the Roman empire, Latin gradually
ceased to be the language of any part of Europe. But the reverence of
the people naturally preserves the established forms and ceremonies
of religion long after the circumstances which first introduced and
rendered them reasonable, are no more. Though Latin, therefore, was no
longer understood anywhere by the great body of the people, the whole
service of the church still continued to be performed in that language.
Two different languages were thus established in Europe, in the same
manner as in ancient Egypt: a language of the priests, and a language of
the people; a sacred and a profane, a learned and an unlearned language.
But it was necessary that the priests should understand something of
that sacred and learned language in which they were to officiate; and
the study of the Latin language therefore made, from the beginning, an
essential part of university education.

It was not so with that either of the Greek or of the Hebrew language.
The infallible decrees of the church had pronounced the Latin
translation of the Bible, commonly called the Latin Vulgate, to have
been equally dictated by divine inspiration, and therefore of equal
authority with the Greek and Hebrew originals. The knowledge of those
two languages, therefore, not being indispensably requisite to a
churchman, the study of them did not for along time make a necessary
part of the common course of university education. There are some
Spanish universities, I am assured, in which the study of the Greek
language has never yet made any part of that course. The first reformers
found the Greek text of the New Testament, and even the Hebrew text of
the Old, more favourable to their opinions than the vulgate translation,
which, as might naturally be supposed, had been gradually accommodated
to support the doctrines of the Catholic Church. They set themselves,
therefore, to expose the many errors of that translation, which the
Roman catholic clergy were thus put under the necessity of defending or
explaining. But this could not well be done without some knowledge
of the original languages, of which the study was therefore gradually
introduced into the greater part of universities; both of those which
embraced, and of those which rejected, the doctrines of the reformation.
The Greek language was connected with every part of that classical
learning, which, though at first principally cultivated by catholics and
Italians, happened to come into fashion much about the same time that
the doctrines of the reformation were set on foot. In the greater part
of universities, therefore, that language was taught previous to the
study of philosophy, and as soon as the student had made some progress
in the Latin. The Hebrew language having no connection with classical
learning, and, except the Holy Scriptures, being the language of not a
single book in any esteem the study of it did not commonly commence
till after that of philosophy, and when the student had entered upon the
study of theology.

Originally, the first rudiments, both of the Greek and Latin languages,
were taught in universities; and in some universities they still
continue to be so. In others, it is expected that the student should
have previously acquired, at least, the rudiments of one or both of
those languages, of which the study continues to make everywhere a very
considerable part of university education.

The ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches;
physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic.
This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things.

The great phenomena of nature, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies,
eclipses, comets; thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary
meteors; the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and
animals; are objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so
they naturally call forth the curiosity of mankind to inquire into
their causes. Superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by
referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the
gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them from more
familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with,
than the agency of the gods. As those great phenomena are the first
objects of human curiosity, so the science which pretends to explain
them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was
cuitivated. The first philosophers, accordingly, of whom history has
preserved any account, appear to have been natural philosophers.

In every age and country of the world, men must have attended to the
characters, designs, and actions of one another; and many reputable
rules and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down
and approved of by common consent. As soon as writing came into
fashion, wise men, or those who fancied themselves such, would naturally
endeavour to increase the number of those established and respected
maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or
improper conduct, sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues,
like what are called the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more
simple one of apophthegms or wise sayings, like the proverbs of Solomon,
the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides, and some part of the works of
Hesiod. They might continue in this manner, for a long time, merely to
multiply the number of those maxims of prudence and morality, without
even attempting to arrange them in any very distinct or methodical
order, much less to connect them together by one or more general
principles, from which they were all deducible, like effects from their
natural causes. The beauty of a systematical arrangement of different
observations, connected by a few common principles, was first seen
in the rude essays of those ancient times towards a system of natural
philosophy. Something of the same kind was afterwards attempted in
morals. The maxims of common life were arranged in some methodical
order, and connected together by a few common principles, in the same
manner as they had attempted to arrange and connect the phenomena of
nature. The science which pretends to investigate and explain those
connecting principles, is what is properly called Moral Philosophy.

Different authors gave different systems, both of natural and moral
philosophy. But the arguments by which they supported those different
systems, far from being always demonstrations, were frequently at best
but very slender probabilities, and sometimes mere sophisms, which had
no other foundation but the inaccuracy and ambiguity of common language.
Speculative systems, have, in all ages of the world, been adopted for
reasons too frivolous to have determined the judgment of any man of
common sense, in a matter of the smallest pecuniary interest. Gross
sophistry has scarce ever had any influence upon the opinions of
mankind, except in matters of philosophy and speculation; and in these
it has frequently had the greatest. The patrons of each system of
natural and moral philosophy, naturally endeavoured to expose the
weakness of the arguments adduced to support the systems which
were opposite to their own. In examining those arguments, they were
necessarily led to consider the difference between a probable and a
demonstrative argument, between a fallacious and a conclusive one;
and logic, or the science of the general principles of good and bad
reasoning, necessarily arose out of the observations which a scrutiny
of this kind gave occasion to; though, in its origin, posterior both to
physics and to ethics, it was commonly taught, not indeed in all, but
in the greater part of the ancient schools of philosophy, previously to
either of those sciences. The student, it seems to have been thought,
ought to understand well the difference between good and bad reasoning,
before he was led to reason upon subjects of so great importance.

This ancient division of philosophy into three parts was, in the greater
part of the universities of Europe, changed for another into five.

In the ancient philosophy, whatever was taught concerning the nature
either of the human mind or of the Deity, made a part of the system of
physics. Those beings, in whatever their essence might be supposed to
consist, were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts, too,
productive of the most important effects. Whatever human reason could
either conclude or conjecture concerning them, made, as it were, two
chapters, though no doubt two very important ones, of the science which
pretended to give an account of the origin and revolutions of the
great system of the universe. But in the universities of Europe, where
philosophy was taught only as subservient to theology, it was natural to
dwell longer upon these two chapters than upon any other of the science.
They were gradually more and more extended, and were divided into many
inferior chapters; till at last the doctrine of spirits, of which so
little can be known, came to take up as much room in the system of
philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, of which so much can be known. The
doctrines concerning those two subjects were considered as making two
distinct sciences. What are called metaphysics, or pneumatics, were
set in opposition to physics, and were cultivated not only as the more
sublime, but, for the purposes of a particular profession, as the
more useful science of the two. The proper subject of experiment and
observation, a subject in which a careful attention is capable of making
so many useful discoveries, was almost entirely neglected. The subject
in which, after a very few simple and almost obvious truths, the most
careful attention can discover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty,
and can consequently produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was
greatly cultivated.

When those two sciences had thus been set in opposition to one another,
the comparison between them naturally gave birth to a third, to what
was called ontology, or the science which treated of the qualities
and attributes which were common to both the subjects of the other two
sciences. But if subtleties and sophisms composed the greater part of
the metaphysics or pneumatics of the schools, they composed the whole
of this cobweb science of ontology, which was likewise sometimes called
metaphysics.

Wherein consisted the happiness and perfection of a man, considered not
only as an individual, but as the member of a family, of a state, and
of the great society of mankind, was the object which the ancient moral
philosophy proposed to investigate. In that philosophy, the duties
of human life were treated of as subservient to the happiness and
perfection of human life, But when moral, as well as natural philosophy,
came to be taught only as subservient to theology, the duties of human
life were treated of as chiefly subservient to the happiness of a
life to come. In the ancient philosophy, the perfection of virtue was
represented as necessarily productive, to the person who possessed it,
of the most perfect happiness in this life. In the modern philosophy,
it was frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always,
inconsistent with any degree of happiness in this life; and heaven was
to be earned only by penance and mortification, by the austerities and
abasement of a monk, not by the liberal, generous, and spirited conduct
of a man. Casuistry, and an ascetic morality, made up, in most cases,
the greater part of the moral philosophy of the schools. By far the most
important of all the different branches of philosophy became in this
manner by far the most corrupted.

Such, therefore, was the common course of philosophical education in
the greater part of the universities in Europe. Logic was taught first;
ontology came in the second place; pneumatology, comprehending the
doctrine concerning the nature of the human soul and of the Deity, in
the third; in the fourth followed a debased system of moral philosophy,
which was considered as immediately connected with the doctrines of
pneumatology, with the immortality of the human soul, and with the
rewards and punishments which, from the justice of the Deity, were to
be expected in a life to come: a short and superficial system of physics
usually concluded the course.

The alterations which the universities of Europe thus introduced into
the ancient course of philosophy were all meant for the education of
ecclesiastics, and to render it a more proper introduction to the study
of theology. But the additional quantity of subtlety and sophistry, the
casuistry and ascetic morality which those alterations introduced into
it, certainly did not render it more for the education of gentlemen or
men of the world, or more likely either to improve the understanding or
to mend the heart.

This course of philosophy is what still continues to be taught in the
greater part of the universities of Europe, with more or less diligence,
according as the constitution of each particular university happens to
render diligence more or less necessary to the teachers. In some of the
richest and best endowed universities, the tutors content themselves
with teaching a few unconnected shreds and parcels of this corrupted
course; and even these they commonly teach very negligently and
superficially.

The improvements which, in modern times have been made in several
different branches of philosophy, have not, the greater part of them,
been made in universities, though some, no doubt, have. The greater
part of universities have not even been very forward to adopt those
improvements after they were made; and several of those learned
societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries
in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and
protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the
world. In general, the richest and best endowed universities have been
slowest in adopting those improvements, and the most averse to permit
any considerable change in the established plan of education. Those
improvements were more easily introduced into some of the poorer
universities, in which the teachers, depending upon their reputation
for the greater part of their subsistence, were obliged to pay more
attention to the current opinions of the world.

But though the public schools and universities of Europe were originally
intended only for the education of a particular profession, that of
churchmen; and though they were not always very diligent in instructing
their pupils, even in the sciences which were supposed necessary for
that profession; yet they gradually drew to themselves the education of
almost all other people, particularly of almost all gentlemen and men of
fortune. No better method, it seems, could be fallen upon, of spending,
with any advantage, the long interval between infancy and that period of
life at which men begin to apply in good earnest to the real business of
the world, the business which is to employ them during the remainder
of their days. The greater part of what is taught in schools and
universities, however, does not seem to be the most proper preparation
for that business.

In England, it becomes every day more and more the custom to send young
people to travel in foreign countries immediately upon their leaving
school, and without sending them to any university. Our young people, it
is said, generally return home much improved by their travels. A young
man, who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen, and returns home at
one-and-twenty, returns three or four years older than he was when he
went abroad; and at that age it is very difficult not to improve a good
deal in three or four years. In the course of his travels, he generally
acquires some knowledge of one or two foreign languages; a knowledge,
however, which is seldom sufficient to enable him either to speak or
write them with propriety. In other respects, he commonly returns home
more conceited, more unprincipled, more dissipated, and more incapable
of my serious application, either to study or to business, than he could
well have become in so short a time had he lived at home. By travelling
so very young, by spending in the most frivolous dissipation the most
previous years of his life, at a distance from the inspection and
control of his parents and relations, every useful habit, which the
earlier parts of his education might have had some tendency to form
in him, instead of being riveted and confirmed, is almost necessarily
either weakened or effaced. Nothing but the discredit into which the
universities are allowing themselves to fall, could ever have brought
into repute so very absurd a practice as that of travelling at this
early period of life. By sending his son abroad, a father delivers
himself, at least for some time, from so disagreeable an object as that
of a son unemployed, neglected, and going to ruin before his eyes.

Such have been the effects of some of the modern institutions for
education.

Different plans and different institutions for education seem to have
taken place in other ages and nations.

In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen was instructed,
under the direction of the public magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and
in music. By gymnastic exercises, it was intended to harden his body, to
sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of
war; and as the Greek militia was, by all accounts, one of the best that
ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have
answered completely the purpose for which it was intended. By the
other part, music, it was proposed, at least by the philosophers and
historians, who have given us an account of those institutions,
to humanize the mind, to soften the temper, and to dispose it for
performing all the social and moral duties of public and private life.

In ancient Rome, the exercises of the Campus Martius answered the same
purpose as those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece, and they seem to
have answered it equally well. But among the Romans there was nothing
which corresponded to the musical education of the Greeks. The morals of
the Romans, however, both in private and public life, seem to have been,
not only equal, but, upon the whole, a good deal superior to those of
the Greeks. That they were superior in private life, we have the express
testimony of Polybius, and of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two authors
well acquainted with both nations; and the whole tenor of the Greek and
Roman history bears witness to the superiority of the public morals of
the Romans. The good temper and moderation of contending factions seem
to be the most essential circumstances in the public morals of a free
people. But the factions of the Greeks were almost always violent and
sanguinary; whereas, till the time of the Gracchi, no blood had ever
been shed in any Roman faction; and from the time of the Gracchi,
the Roman republic may be considered as in reality dissolved.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the very respectable authority of Plato,
Aristotle, and Polybius, and notwithstanding the very ingenious reasons
by which Mr. Montesquieu endeavours to support that authority, it seems
probable that the musical education of the Greeks had no great effect
in mending their morals, since, without any such education, those of
the Romans were, upon the whole, superior. The respect of those ancient
sages for the institutions of their ancestors had probably disposed them
to find much political wisdom in what was, perhaps, merely an ancient
custom, continued, without interruption, from the earliest period
of those societies, to the times in which they had arrived at a
considerable degree of refinement. Music and dancing are the
great amusements of almost all barbarous nations, and the great
accomplishments which are supposed to fit any man for entertaining his
society. It is so at this day among the negroes on the coast of Africa.
It was so among the ancient Celtes, among the ancient Scandinavians,
and, as we may learn from Homer, among the ancient Greeks, in the times
preceding the Trojan war. When the Greek tribes had formed themselves
into little republics, it was natural that the study of those
accomplishments should for a long time make a part of the public and
common education of the people.

The masters who instructed the young people, either in music or in
military exercises, do not seem to have been paid, or even appointed by
the state, either in Rome or even at Athens, the Greek republic of whose
laws and customs we are the best informed. The state required that every
free citizen should fit himself for defending it in war, and should upon
that account, learn his military exercises. But it left him to learn
them of such masters as he could find; and it seems to have advanced
nothing for this purpose, but a public field or place of exercise, in
which he should practise and perform them.

In the early ages, both of the Greek and Roman republics, the other
parts of education seem to have consisted in learning to read,
write, and account, according to the arithmetic of the times. These
accomplishments the richer citizens seem frequently to have acquired at
home, by the assistance of some domestic pedagogue, who was, generally,
either a slave or a freedman; and the poorer citizens in the schools
of such masters as made a trade of teaching for hire. Such parts of
education, however, were abandoned altogether to the care of the parents
or guardians of each individual. It does not appear that the state ever
assumed any inspection or direction of them. By a law of Solon, indeed,
the children were acquitted from maintaining those parents who had
neglected to instruct them in some profitable trade or business.

In the progress of refinement, when philosophy and rhetoric came into
fashion, the better sort of people used to send their children to the
schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, in order to be instructed in
these fashionable sciences. But those schools were not supported by the
public. They were, for a long time, barely tolerated by it. The demand
for philosophy and rhetoric was, for a long time, so small, that the
first professed teachers of either could not find constant employment in
any one city, but were obliged to travel about from place to place. In
this manner lived Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many
others. As the demand increased, the school, both of philosophy and
rhetoric, became stationary, first in Athens, and afterwards in several
other cities. The state, however, seems never to have encouraged them
further, than by assigning to some of them a particular place to teach
in, which was sometimes done, too, by private donors. The state seems
to have assigned the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and
the Portico to Zeno of Citta, the founder of the Stoics. But Epicurus
bequeathed his gardens to his own school. Till about the time of Marcus
Antoninus, however, no teacher appears to have had any salary from the
public, or to have had any other emoluments, but what arose from the
honorarius or fees of his scholars. The bounty which that philosophical
emperor, as we learn from Lucian, bestowed upon one of the teachers
of philosophy, probably lasted no longer than his own life. There was
nothing equivalent to the privileges of graduation; and to have attended
any of those schools was not necessary, in order to be permitted to
practise any particular trade or profession. If the opinion of their own
utility could not draw scholars to them, the law neither forced anybody
to go to them, nor rewarded anybody for having gone to them. The
teachers had no jurisdiction over their pupils, nor any other authority
besides that natural authority which superior virtue and abilities never
fail to procure from young people towards those who are entrusted with
any part of their education.

At Rome, the study of the civil law made a part of the education, not of
the greater part of the citizens, but of some particular families. The
young people, however, who wished to acquire knowledge in the law, had
no public school to go to, and had no other method of studying it, than
by frequenting the company of such of their relations and friends as
were supposed to understand it. It is, perhaps, worth while to remark,
that though the laws of the twelve tables were many of them copied from
those of some ancient Greek republics, yet law never seems to have grown
up to be a science in any republic of ancient Greece. In Rome it became
a science very early, and gave a considerable degree of illustration
to those citizens who had the reputation of understanding it. In the
republics of ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, the ordinary courts
of justice consisted of numerous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of
people, who frequently decided almost at random, or as clamour, faction,
and party-spirit, happened to determine. The ignominy of an unjust
decision, when it was to be divided among five hundred, a thousand, or
fifteen hundred people (for some of their courts were so very numerous),
could not fall very heavy upon any individual. At Rome, on the contrary,
the principal courts of justice consisted either of a single judge,
or of a small number of judges, whose characters, especially as they
deliberated always in public, could not fail to be very much affected by
any rash or unjust decision. In doubtful cases such courts, from their
anxiety to avoid blame, would naturally endeavour to shelter themselves
under the example or precedent of the judges who had sat before them,
either in the same or in some other court. This attention to practice
and precedent, necessarily formed the Roman law into that regular and
orderly system in which it has been delivered down to us; and the like
attention has had the like effects upon the laws of every other country
where such attention has taken place. The superiority of character in
the Romans over that of the Greeks, so much remarked by Polybius and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was probably more owing to the better
constitution of their courts of justice, than to any of the
circumstances to which those authors ascribe it. The Romans are said to
have been particularly distinguished for their superior respect to an
oath. But the people who were accustomed to make oath only before some
diligent and well informed court of justice, would naturally be much
more attentive to what they swore, than they who were accustomed to do
the same thing before mobbish and disorderly assemblies.

The abilities, both civil and military, of the Greeks and Romans, will
readily be allowed to have been at least equal to those of any modern
nation. Our prejudice is perhaps rather to overrate them. But except in
what related to military exercises, the state seems to have been at no
pains to form those great abilities; for I cannot be induced to believe
that the musical education of the Greeks could be of much consequence
in forming them. Masters, however, had been found, it seems, for
instructing the better sort of people among those nations, in every
art and science in which the circumstances of their society rendered it
necessary or convenient for them to be instructed. The demand for such
instruction produced, what it always produces, the talent for giving
it; and the emulation which an unrestrained competition never fails to
excite, appears to have brought that talent to a very high degree of
perfection. In the attention which the ancient philosophers excited, in
the empire which they acquired over the opinions and principles of their
auditors, in the faculty which they possessed of giving a certain tone
and character to the conduct and conversation of those auditors, they
appear to have been much superior to any modern teachers. In modern
times, the diligence of public teachers is more or less corrupted by
the circumstances which render them more or less independent of their
success and reputation in their particular professions. Their salaries,
too, put the private teacher, who would pretend to come into competition
with them, in the same state with a merchant who attempts to
trade without a bounty, in competition with those who trade with a
considerable one. If he sells his goods at nearly the same price, he
cannot have the same profit; and poverty and beggary at least, if not
bankruptcy and ruin, will infallibly be his lot. If he attempts to
sell them much dearer, he is likely to have so few customers, that his
circumstances will not be much mended. The privileges of graduation,
besides, are in many countries necessary, or at least extremely
convenient, to most men of learned professions, that is, to the far
greater part of those who have occasion for a learned education. But
those privileges can be obtained only by attending the lectures of
the public teachers. The most careful attendance upon the ablest
instructions of any private teacher cannot always give any title to
demand them. It is from these different causes that the private teacher
of any of the sciences, which are commonly taught in universities, is,
in modern times, generally considered as in the very lowest order of
men of letters. A man of real abilities can scarce find out a more
humiliating or a more unprofitable employment to turn them to. The
endowments of schools and colleges have in this manner not only
corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost
impossible to have any good private ones.

Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science,
would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the
circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or
convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could
never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated
system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally
believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and
nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those
incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are
in a great measure independent of their industry. Were there no public
institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with
application and abilities, the most complete course of education which
the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come
into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common
subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world.

There are no public institutions for the education of women, and there
is accordingly nothing useless, absurd, or fantastical, in the common
course of their education. They are taught what their parents or
guardians judge it necessary or useful for them to learn, and they are
taught nothing else. Every part of their education tends evidently to
some useful purpose; either to improve the natural attractions of their
person, or to form their mind to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, and
to economy; to render them both likely to became the mistresses of a
family, and to behave properly when they have become such. In every part
of her life, a woman feels some conveniency or advantage from every part
of her education. It seldom happens that a man, in any part of his life,
derives any conveniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and
troublesome parts of his education.

Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention, it may be asked, to
the education of the people? Or, if it ought to give any, what are
the different parts of education which it ought to attend to in the
different orders of the people? and in what manner ought it to attend to
them?

In some cases, the state of society necessarily places the greater part
of individuals in such situations as naturally form in them, without any
attention of government, almost all the abilities and virtues which that
state requires, or perhaps can admit of. In other cases, the state
of the society does not place the greater part of individuals in such
situations; and some attention of government is necessary, in order to
prevent the almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of
the people.

In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far
greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body
of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations;
frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of
men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose
whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the
effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has
no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in
finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He
naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally
becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature
to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable
of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of
conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of
forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of
private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is
altogether incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have
been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending
his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally
corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard, with abhorrence,
the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts
even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his
strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment, than that
to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular
trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his
intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and
civilized society, this is the state into which the labouring poor,
that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless
government takes some pains to prevent it.

It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called,
of hunters, of shepherds, and even of husbandmen in that rude state
of husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures, and the
extension of foreign commerce. In such societies, the varied occupations
of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity, and to invent
expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring.
Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that
drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the
understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those
barbarous societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been
observed, is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some measure a statesman,
and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the
society, and the conduct of those who govern it. How far their chiefs
are good judges in peace, or good leaders in war, is obvious to the
observation of almost every single man among them. In such a society,
indeed, no man can well acquire that improved and refined understanding
which a few men sometimes possess in a more civilized state. Though in a
rude society there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every
individual, there is not a great deal in those of the whole society.
Every man does, or is capable of doing, almost every thing which any
other man does, or is capable of being. Every man has a considerable
degree of knowledge, ingenuity, and invention but scarce any man has
a great degree. The degree, however, which is commonly possessed, is
generally sufficient for conducting the whole simple business of the
society. In a civilized state, on the contrary, though there is little
variety in the occupations of the greater part of individuals, there is
an almost infinite variety in those of the whole society. These varied
occupations present an almost infinite variety of objects to the
contemplation of those few, who, being attached to no particular
occupation themselves, have leisure and inclination to examine the
occupations of other people. The contemplation of so great a variety
of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons
and combinations, and renders their understandings, in an extraordinary
degree, both acute anti comprehensive. Unless those few, however, happen
to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities,
though honourable to themselves, may contribute very little to the good
government or happiness of their society. Notwithstanding the great
abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of the human character may
be, in a great measure, obliterated and extinguished in the great body
of the people.

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized
and commercial society, the attention of the public, more than that of
people of some rank and fortune. People of some rank and fortune are
generally eighteen or nineteen years of age before they enter upon that
particular business, profession, or trade, by which they propose to
distinguish themselves in the world. They have, before that, full time
to acquire, or at least to fit themselves for afterwards acquiring,
every accomplishment which can recommend them to the public esteem,
or render them worthy of it. Their parents or guardians are generally
sufficiently anxious that they should be so accomplished, and are in
most cases, willing enough to lay out the expense which is necessary
for that purpose. If they are not always properly educated, it is seldom
from the want of expense laid out upon their education, but from the
improper application of that expense. It is seldom from the want of
masters, but from the negligence and incapacity of the masters who are
to be had, and from the difficulty, or rather from the impossibility,
which there is, in the present state of things, of finding any better.
The employments, too, in which people of some rank or fortune spend the
greater part of their lives, are not, like those of the common people,
simple and uniform. They are almost all of them extremely complicated,
and such as exercise the head more than the hands. The understandings
of those who are engaged in such employments, can seldom grow torpid for
want of exercise. The employments of people of some rank and fortune,
besides, are seldom such as harass them from morning to night. They
generally have a good deal of leisure, during which they may perfect
themselves in every branch, either of useful or ornamental knowledge,
of which they may have laid the foundation, or for which they may have
acquired some taste in the earlier part of life.

It is otherwise with the common people. They have little time to spare
for education. Their parents can scarce afford to maintain them, even
in infancy. As soon as they are able to work, they must apply to some
trade, by which they can earn their subsistence. That trade, too, is
generally so simple and uniform, as to give little exercise to the
understanding; while, at the same time, their labour is both so constant
and so severe, that it leaves them little leisure and less inclination
to apply to, or even to think of any thing else.

But though the common people cannot, in any civilized society, be so
well instructed as people of some rank and fortune; the most essential
parts of education, however, to read, write, and account, can be
acquired at so early a period of life, that the greater part, even of
those who are to be bred to the lowest occupations, have time to acquire
them before they can be employed in those occupations. For a very small
expense, the public can facilitate, can encourage and can even impose
upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring
those most essential parts of education.

The public can facilitate this acquisition, by establishing in every
parish or district a little school, where children maybe taught for
a reward so moderate, that even a common labourer may afford it; the
master being partly, but not wholly, paid by the public; because, if
he was wholly, or even principally, paid by it, he would soon learn
to neglect his business. In Scotland, the establishment of such parish
schools has taught almost the whole common people to read, and a
very great proportion of them to write and account. In England, the
establishment of charity schools has had an effect of the same
kind, though not so universally, because the establishment is not so
universal. If, in those little schools, the books by which the children
are taught to read, were a little more instructive than they commonly
are; and if, instead of a little smattering in Latin, which the children
of the common people are sometimes taught there, and which can scarce
ever be of any use to them, they were instructed in the elementary parts
of geometry and mechanics; the literary education of this rank of people
would, perhaps, be as complete as can be. There is scarce a common
trade, which does not afford some opportunities of applying to it the
principles of geometry and mechanics, and which would not, therefore,
gradually exercise and improve the common people in those principles,
the necessary introduction to the most sublime, as well as to the most
useful sciences.

The public can encourage the acquisition of those most essential
parts of education, by giving small premiums, and little badges of
distinction, to the children of the common people who excel in them.

The public can impose upon almost the whole body of the people the
necessity of acquiring the most essential parts of education, by
obliging every man to undergo an examination or probation in them,
before he can obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to
set up any trade, either in a village or town corporate.

It was in this manner, by facilitating the acquisition of their military
and gymnastic exercises, by encouraging it, and even by imposing upon
the whole body of the people the necessity of learning those exercises,
that the Greek and Roman republics maintained the martial spirit of
their respective citizens. They facilitated the acquisition of those
exercises, by appointing a certain place for learning and practising
them, and by granting to certain masters the privilege of teaching in
that place. Those masters do not appear to have had either salaries or
exclusive privileges of any kind. Their reward consisted altogether in
what they got from their scholars; and a citizen, who had learnt his
exercises in the public gymnasia, had no sort of legal advantage over
one who had learnt them privately, provided the latter had learned
them equally well. Those republics encouraged the acquisition of those
exercises, by bestowing little premiums and badges of distinction upon
those who excelled in them. To have gained a prize in the Olympic,
Isthmian, or Nemaean games, gave illustration, not only to the person
who gained it, but to his whole family and kindred. The obligation which
every citizen was under, to serve a certain number of years, if called
upon, in the armies of the republic, sufficiently imposed the necessity
of learning those exercises, without which he could not be fit for that
service.

That in the progress of improvement, the practice of military exercises,
unless government takes proper pains to support it, goes gradually to
decay, and, together with it, the martial spirit of the great body of
the people, the example of modern Europe sufficiently demonstrates. But
the security of every society must always depend, more or less, upon the
martial spirit of the great body of the people. In the present times,
indeed, that martial spirit alone, and unsupported by a well-disciplined
standing army, would not, perhaps, be sufficient for the defence and
security of any society. But where every citizen had the spirit of a
soldier, a smaller standing army would surely be requisite. That spirit,
besides, would necessarily diminish very much the dangers to liberty,
whether real or imaginary, which are commonly apprehended from a
standing army. As it would very much facilitate the operations of that
army against a foreign invader; so it would obstruct them as much, if
unfortunately they should ever be directed against the constitution of
the state.

The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome seem to have been much more
effectual for maintaining the martial spirit of the great body of the
people, than the establishment of what are called the militias of modern
times. They were much more simple. When they were once established,
they executed themselves, and it required little or no attention from
government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour. Whereas to
maintain, even in tolerable execution, the complex regulations of
any modern militia, requires the continual and painful attention of
government, without which they are constantly falling into total neglect
and disuse. The influence, besides, of the ancient institutions, was
much more universal. By means of them, the whole body of the people was
completely instructed in the use of arms; whereas it is but a very small
part of them who can ever be so instructed by the regulations of any
modern militia, except, perhaps, that of Switzerland. But a coward, a
man incapable either of defending or of revenging himself, evidently
wants one of the most essential parts of the character of a man. He is
as much mutilated and deformed in his mind as another is in his body,
who is either deprived of some of its most essential members, or has
lost the use of them. He is evidently the more wretched and miserable
of the two; because happiness and misery, which reside altogether in the
mind, must necessarily depend more upon the healthful or unhealthful,
the mutilated or entire state of the mind, than upon that of the body.
Even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the
defence of the society, yet, to prevent that sort of mental mutilation,
deformity, and wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves in it,
from spreading themselves through the great body of the people, would
still deserve the most serious attention of government; in the same
manner as it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent a
leprosy, or any other loathsome and offensive disease, though neither
mortal nor dangerous, from spreading itself among them; though, perhaps,
no other public good might result from such attention, besides the
prevention of so great a public evil.

The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which,
in a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings
of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of the
intellectual faculties of a man, is, if possible, more contemptible than
even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed in a still more
essential part of the character of human nature. Though the state was
to derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of
people, it would still deserve its attention that they should not be
altogether uninstructed. The state, however, derives no inconsiderable
advantage from their instruction. The more they are instructed, the less
liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which,
among ignorant nations frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders.
An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent
and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. They feel themselves, each
individually, more respectable, and more likely to obtain the respect
of their lawful superiors, and they are, therefore, more disposed to
respect those superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more
capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and
sedition; and they are, upon that account, less apt to be misled into
any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government. In
free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon
the favourable judgment which the people may form of its conduct,
it must surely be of the highest importance, that they should not be
disposed to judge rashly or capriciously concerning it.

Art. III.--Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Instruction of
People of all Ages.

The institutions for the instruction of people of all ages, are chiefly
those for religious instruction. This is a species of instruction, of
which the object is not so much to render the people good citizens in
this world, as to prepare them for another and a better world in
the life to come. The teachers of the doctrine which contains this
instruction, in the same manner as other teachers, may either depend
altogether for their subsistence upon the voluntary contributions of
their hearers; or they may derive it from some other fund, to which the
law of their country may entitle them; such as a landed estate, a tythe
or land tax, an established salary or stipend. Their exertion, their
zeal and industry, are likely to be much greater in the former situation
than in the latter. In this respect, the teachers of a new religion
have always had a considerable advantage in attacking those ancient and
established systems, of which the clergy, reposing themselves upon their
benefices, had neglected to keep up the fervour of faith and devotion
in the great body of the people; and having given themselves up to
indolence, were become altogether incapable of making any vigorous
exertion in defence even of their own establishment. The clergy of an
established and well endowed religion frequently become men of learning
and elegance, who possess all the virtues of gentlemen, or which can
recommend them to the esteem of gentlemen; but they are apt gradually
to lose the qualities, both good and bad, which gave them authority and
influence with the inferior ranks of people, and which had perhaps been
the original causes of the success and establishment of their religion.
Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of popular and bold, though
perhaps stupid and ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves as perfectly
defenceless as the indolent, effeminate, and full fed nations of the
southern parts of Asia, when they were invaded by the active, hardy, and
hungry Tartars of the north. Such a clergy, upon such an emergency, have
commonly no other resource than to call upon the civil magistrate to
persecute, destroy, or drive out their adversaries, as disturbers of the
public peace. It was thus that the Roman catholic clergy called upon the
civil magistrate to persecute the protestants, and the church of England
to persecute the dissenters; and that in general every religious sect,
when it has once enjoyed, for a century or two, the security of a legal
establishment, has found itself incapable of making any vigorous defence
against any new sect which chose to attack its doctrine or discipline.
Upon such occasions, the advantage, in point of learning and good
writing, may sometimes be on the side of the established church. But the
arts of popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes, are constantly
on the side of its adversaries. In England, those arts have been long
neglected by the well endowed clergy of the established church, and are
at present chiefly cultivated by the dissenters and by the methodists.
The independent provisions, however, which in many places have been made
for dissenting teachers, by means of voluntary subscriptions, of trust
rights, and other evasions of the law, seem very much to have abated the
zeal and activity of those teachers. They have many of them become very
learned, ingenious, and respectable men; but they have in general ceased
to be very popular preachers. The methodists, without half the learning
of the dissenters, are much more in vogue.

In the church of Rome the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are
kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in
any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive many of
them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary
oblations of the people; a source of revenue, which confession gives
them many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their
whole subsistence from such oblations. It is with them as with the
hussars and light infantry of some armies; no plunder, no pay. The
parochial clergy are like those teachers whose reward depends partly
upon their salary, and partly upon the fees or honoraries which they
get from their pupils; and these must always depend, more or less,
upon their industry and reputation. The mendicant orders are like those
teachers whose subsistence depends altogether upon their industry. They
are obliged, therefore, to use every art which can animate the devotion
of the common people. The establishment of the two great mendicant
orders of St Dominic and St. Francis, it is observed by Machiavel,
revived, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the languishing
faith and devotion of the catholic church. In Roman catholic countries,
the spirit of devotion is supported altogether by the monks, and by the
poorer parochial clergy. The great dignitaries of the church, with all
the accomplishments of gentlemen and men of the world, and sometimes
with those of men of learning, are careful to maintain the necessary
discipline over their inferiors, but seldom give themselves any trouble
about the instruction of the people.

"Most of the arts and professions in a state," says by far the most
illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age, "are of such a
nature, that, while they promote the interests of the society, they are
also useful or agreeable to some individuals; and, in that case,
the constant rule of the magistrate, except, perhaps, on the first
introduction of any art, is, to leave the profession to itself, and
trust its encouragement to the individuals who reap the benefit of
it. The artizans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their
customers, increase, as much as possible, their skill and industry; and
as matters are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the commodity
is always sure to be at all times nearly proportioned to the demand.

"But there are also some callings which, though useful and even
necessary in a state, bring no advantage or pleasure to any individual;
and the supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the
retainers of those professions. It must give them public encouragement
in order to their subsistence; and it must provide against that
negligence to which they will naturally be subject, either by annexing
particular honours to profession, by establishing a long subordination
of ranks, and a strict dependence, or by some other expedient. The
persons employed in the finances, fleets, and magistracy, are instances
of this order of men.

"It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics
belong to the first class, and that their encouragement, as well as that
of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of
individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit
or consolation from their spiritual ministry and assistance. Their
industry and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional
motive; and their skill in the profession, as well as their address in
governing the minds of the people, must receive daily increase, from
their increasing practice, study, and attention.

"But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find that this
interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will
study to prevent; because, in every religion except the true, it is
highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the
truth, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and
delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more
precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them
with the most violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually
endeavour, by some novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his
audience. No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency, in the
doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the
disorderly affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn to
each conventicle by new industry and address, in practising on the
passions and credulity of the populace. And, in the end, the civil
magistrate will find that he has dearly paid for his intended frugality,
in saving a fixed establishment for the priests; and that, in reality,
the most decent and advantageous composition, which he can make with
the spiritual guides, is to bribe their indolence, by assigning stated
salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to
be farther active, than merely to prevent their flock from straying in
quest of new pastors. And in this manner ecclesiastical establishments,
though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the
end advantageous to the political interests of society."

But whatever may have been the good or bad effects of the independent
provision of the clergy, it has, perhaps, been very seldom bestowed
upon them from any view to those effects. Times of violent religious
controversy have generally been times of equally violent political
faction. Upon such occasions, each political party has either found
it, or imagined it, for his interest, to league itself with some one or
other of the contending religious sects. But this could be done only by
adopting, or, at least, by favouring the tenets of that particular sect.
The sect which had the good fortune to be leagued with the conquering
party necessarily shared in the victory of its ally, by whose favour and
protection it was soon enabled, in some degree, to silence and subdue
all its adversaries. Those adversaries had generally leagued themselves
with the enemies of the conquering party, and were, therefore the
enemies of that party. The clergy of this particular sect having thus
become complete masters of the field, and their influence and authority
with the great body of the people being in its highest vigour, they were
powerful enough to overawe the chiefs and leaders of their own party,
and to oblige the civil magistrate to respect their opinions and
inclinations. Their first demand was generally that he should silence
and subdue all their adversaries; and their second, that he should
bestow an independent provision on themselves. As they had generally
contributed a good deal to the victory, it seemed not unreasonable that
they should have some share in the spoil. They were weary, besides,
of humouring the people, and of depending upon their caprice for a
subsistence. In making this demand, therefore, they consulted their own
ease and comfort, without troubling themselves about the effect which it
might have, in future times, upon the influence and authority of their
order. The civil magistrate, who could comply with their demand only by
giving them something which he would have chosen much rather to take,
or to keep to himself, was seldom very forward to grant it. Necessity,
however, always forced him to submit at last, though frequently not till
after many delays, evasions, and affected excuses.

But if politics had never called in the aid of religion, had the
conquering party never adopted the tenets of one sect more than those
of another, when it had gained the victory, it would probably have dealt
equally and impartially with all the different sects, and have allowed
every man to choose his own priest, and his own religion, as he thought
proper. There would, and, in this case, no doubt, have been, a great
multitude of religious sects. Almost every different congregation might
probably have had a little sect by itself, or have entertained some
peculiar tenets of its own. Each teacher, would, no doubt, have felt
himself under the necessity of making the utmost exertion, and of using
every art, both to preserve and to increase the number of his disciples.
But as every other teacher would have felt himself under the same
necessity, the success of no one teacher, or sect of teachers, could
have been very great. The interested and active zeal of religious
teachers can be dangerous and troublesome only where there is either but
one sect tolerated in the society, or where the whole of a large society
is divided into two or three great sects; the teachers of each acting by
concert, and under a regular discipline and subordination. But that zeal
must be altogether innocent, where the society is divided into two or
three hundred, or, perhaps, into as many thousand small sects, of which
no one could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity.
The teachers of each sect, seeing themselves surrounded on all sides
with more adversaries than friends, would be obliged to learn that
candour and moderation which are so seldom to be found among the
teachers of those great sects, whose tenets, being supported by the
civil magistrate, are held in veneration by almost all the inhabitants
of extensive kingdoms and empires, and who, therefore, see nothing round
them but followers, disciples, and humble admirers. The teachers of
each little sect, finding themselves almost alone, would be obliged to
respect those of almost every other sect; and the concessions which
they would mutually find in both convenient and agreeable to make one to
another, might in time, probably reduce the doctrine of the greater part
of them to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of
absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism, such as wise men have, in all ages
of the world, wished to see established; but such as positive law has,
perhaps, never yet established, and probably never will establish in any
country; because, with regard to religion, positive law always has
been, and probably always will be, more or less influenced by popular
superstition and enthusiasm. This plan of ecclesiastical government, or,
more properly, of no ecclesiastical government, was what the sect called
Independents (a sect, no doubt, of very wild enthusiasts), proposed to
establish in England towards the end of the civil war. If it had been
established, though of a very unphilosophical origin, it would probably,
by this time, have been productive of the most philosophical good temper
and moderation with regard to every sort of religious principle. It has
been established in Pennsylvania, where, though the quakers happen to
be the most numerous, the law, in reality, favours no one sect more
than another; and it is there said to have been productive of this
philosophical good temper and moderation.

But though this equality of treatment should not be productive of this
good temper and moderation in all, or even in the greater part of the
religious sects of a particular country; yet, provided those sects
were sufficiently numerous, and each of them consequently too small
to disturb the public tranquillity, the excessive zeal of each for
its particular tenets could not well be productive of any very hurtful
effects, but, on the contrary, of several good ones; and if the
government was perfectly decided, both to let them all alone, and to
oblige them all to let alone one another, there is little danger that
they would not of their own accord, subdivide themselves fast enough, so
as soon to become sufficiently numerous.

In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of
ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two
different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time;
of which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the
liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally
admired and revered by the common people; the latter is commonly more
esteemed and adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The
degree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of
levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from
the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal
distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the
liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth,
the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of
chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, etc. provided they are
not accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and
injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indulgence, and are
easily either excused or pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on
the contrary, those excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence
and detestation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common
people, and a single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often
sufficient to undo a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through
despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser and better
sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence
and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them
are so immediately fatal to people of their condition. The disorder and
extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will not always ruin
a man of fashion; and people of that rank are very apt to consider the
power of indulging in some degree of excess, as one of the advantages of
their fortune; and the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach,
as one of the privileges which belong to their station. In people of
their own station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small
degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very slightly or not
at all.

Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom
they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous
proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been
adopted by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions;
for there have been some. It was the system by which they could best
recommend themselves to that order of people, to whom they first
proposed their plan of reformation upon what had been before
established. Many of them, perhaps the greater part of them, have even
endeavoured to gain credit by refining upon this austere system, and by
carrying it to some degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive
rigour has frequently recommended them, more than any thing else, to the
respect and veneration of the common people.

A man of rank and fortune is, by his station, the distinguished member
of a great society, who attend to every part of his conduct, and who
thereby oblige him to attend to every part of it himself. His authority
and consideration depend very much upon the respect which this society
bears to him. He dares not do anything which would disgrace or discredit
him in it; and he is obliged to a very strict observation of that
species of morals, whether liberal or austere, which the general consent
of this society prescribes to persons of his rank and fortune. A man of
low condition, on the contrary, is far from being a distinguished member
of any great society. While he remains in a country village, his conduct
may be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In
this situation, and in this situation only, he may have what is called a
character to lose. But as soon as he comes into a great city, he is sunk
in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by
nobody; and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it himself, and
to abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and vice. He never
emerges so effectually from this obscurity, his conduct never excites
so much the attention of any respectable society, as by his becoming the
member of a small religious sect. He from that moment acquires a degree
of consideration which he never had before. All his brother sectaries
are, for the credit of the sect, interested to observe his conduct; and,
if he gives occasion to any scandal, if he deviates very much from
those austere morals which they almost always require of one another,
to punish him by what is always a very severe punishment, even where no
evil effects attend it, expulsion or excommunication from the sect. In
little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people
have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly; generally much
more so than in the established church. The morals of those little
sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and
unsocial.

There are two very easy and effectual remedies, however, by whose
joint operation the state might, without violence, correct whatever was
unsocial or disagreeably rigorous in the morals of all the little sects
into which the country was divided.

The first of those remedies is the study of science and philosophy,
which the state might render almost universal among all people of
middling or more than middling rank and fortune; not by giving salaries
to teachers in order to make them negligent and idle, but by instituting
some sort of probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences,
to be undergone by every person before he was permitted to exercise any
liberal profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for
any honourable office, of trust or profit. If the state imposed upon
this order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion
to give itself any trouble about providing them with proper teachers.
They would soon find better teachers for themselves, than any whom
the state could provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the
poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks
of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much
exposed to it.

The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public
diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire liberty
to all those who, from their own interest, would attempt, without
scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting,
poetry, music, dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations and
exhibitions; would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that
melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse of popular
superstition and enthusiasm. Public diversions have always been the
objects of dread and hatred to all the fanatical promoters of those
popular frenzies. The gaiety and good humour which those diversions
inspire, were altogether inconsistent with that temper of mind which was
fittest for their purpose, or which they could best work upon. Dramatic
representations, besides, frequently exposing their artifices to public
ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were, upon that
account, more than all other diversions, the objects of their peculiar
abhorrence.

In a country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more
than those of another, it would not be necessary that any of them
should have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sovereign
or executive power; or that he should have anything to do either
in appointing or in dismissing them from their offices. In such a
situation, he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about
them, further than to keep the peace among them, in the same manner
as among the rest of his subjects, that is, to hinder them from
persecuting, abusing, or oppressing one another. But it is quite
otherwise in countries where there is an established or governing
religion. The sovereign can in this case never be secure, unless he has
the means of influencing in a considerable degree the greater part of
the teachers of that religion.

The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation.
They can act in concert, and pursue their interest upon one plan, and
with one spirit as much as if they were under the direction of one man;
and they are frequently, too, under such direction. Their interest as an
incorporated body is never the same with that of the sovereign, and is
sometimes directly opposite to it. Their great interest is to maintain
their authority with the people, and this authority depends upon the
supposed certainty and importance of the whole doctrine which they
inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity of adopting every part of it
with the most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery. Should
the sovereign have the imprudence to appear either to deride, or doubt
himself of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity,
attempt to protect those who did either the one or the other, the
punctilious honour of a clergy, who have no sort of dependency upon him,
is immediately provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to
employ all the terrors of religion, in order to oblige the people to
transfer their allegiance to some more orthodox and obedient prince.
Should he oppose any of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger
is equally great. The princes who have dared in this manner to rebel
against the church, over and above this crime of rebellion, have
generally been charged, too, with the additional crime of heresy,
notwithstanding their solemn protestations of their faith, and humble
submission to every tenet which she thought proper to prescribe to them.
But the authority of religion is superior to every other authority. The
fears which it suggests conquer all other fears. When the authorized
teachers of religion propagate through the great body of the people,
doctrines subversive of the authority of the sovereign, it is by
violence only, or by the force of a standing army, that he can maintain
his authority. Even a standing army cannot in this case give him any
lasting security; because if the soldiers are not foreigners, which can
seldom be the case, but drawn from the great body of the people, which
must almost always be the case, they are likely to be soon corrupted by
those very doctrines. The revolutions which the turbulence of the Greek
clergy was continually occasioning at Constantinople, as long as the
eastern empire subsisted; the convulsions which, during the course of
several centuries, the turbulence of the Roman clergy was continually
occasioning in every part of Europe, sufficiently demonstrate how
precarious and insecure must always be the situation of the sovereign,
who has no proper means of influencing the clergy of the established and
governing religion of his country.

Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evident
enough, are not within the proper department of a temporal sovereign,
who, though he may be very well qualified for protecting, is seldom
supposed to be so for instructing the people. With regard to such
matters, therefore, his authority can seldom be sufficient to
counterbalance the united authority of the clergy of the established
church. The public tranquillity, however, and his own security, may
frequently depend upon the doctrines which they may think proper to
propagate concerning such matters. As he can seldom directly oppose
their decision, therefore, with proper weight and authority, it is
necessary that he should be able to influence it; and he can influence
it only by the fears and expectations which he may excite in the greater
part of the individuals of the order. Those fears and expectations
may consist in the fear of deprivation or other punishment, and in the
expectation of further preferment.

In all Christian churches, the benefices of the clergy are a sort of
freeholds, which they enjoy, not during pleasure, but during life or
good behaviour. If they held them by a more precarious tenure, and were
liable to be turned out upon every slight disobligation either of the
sovereign or of his ministers, it would perhaps be impossible for them
to maintain their authority with the people, who would then consider
them as mercenary dependents upon the court, in the sincerity of whose
instructions they could no longer have any confidence. But should the
sovereign attempt irregularly, and by violence, to deprive any number
of clergymen of their freeholds, on account, perhaps, of their having
propagated, with more than ordinary zeal, some factious or seditious
doctrine, he would only render, by such persecution, both them and
their doctrine ten times more popular, and therefore ten times more
troublesome and dangerous, than they had been before. Fear is in almost
all cases a wretched instrument of govermnent, and ought in particular
never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest
pretensions to independency. To attempt to terrify them, serves only to
irritate their bad humour, and to confirm them in an opposition, which
more gentle usage, perhaps, might easily induce them either to soften,
or to lay aside altogether. The violence which the French government
usually employed in order to oblige all their parliaments, or sovereign
courts of justice, to enregister any unpopular edict, very seldom
succeeded. The means commonly employed, however, the imprisonment of
all the refractory members, one would think, were forcible enough. The
princes of the house of Stuart sometimes employed the like means in
order to influence some of the members of the parliament of England, and
they generally found them equally intractable. The parliament of England
is now managed in another manner; and a very small experiment, which the
duke of Choiseul made, about twelve years ago, upon the parliament of
Paris, demonstrated sufficiently that all the parliaments of France
might have been managed still more easily in the same manner. That
experiment was not pursued. For though management and persuasion are
always the easiest and safest instruments of government as force and
violence are the worst and the most dangerous; yet such, it seems, is
the natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the
good instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The
French government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to
use management and persuasion. But there is no order of men, it appears
I believe, from the experience of all ages, upon whom it is so dangerous
or rather so perfectly ruinous, to employ force and violence, as
upon the respected clergy of an established church. The rights, the
privileges, the personal liberty of every individual ecclesiastic, who
is upon good terms with his own order, are, even in the most despotic
governments, more respected than those of any other person of nearly
equal rank and fortune. It is so in every gradation of despotism, from
that of the gentle and mild government of Paris, to that of the violent
and furious government of Constantinople. But though this order of men
can scarce ever be forced, they may be managed as easily as any other;
and the security of the sovereign, as well as the public tranquillity,
seems to depend very much upon the means which he has of managing them;
and those means seem to consist altogether in the preferment which he
has to bestow upon them.

In the ancient constitution of the Christian church, the bishop of each
diocese was elected by the joint votes of the clergy and of the people
of the episcopal city. The people did not long retain their right of
election; and while they did retain it, they almost always acted under
the influence of the clergy, who, in such spiritual matters, appeared
to be their natural guides. The clergy, however, soon grew weary of the
trouble of managing them, and found it easier to elect their own bishops
themselves. The abbot, in the same manner, was elected by the monks
of the monastery, at least in the greater part of abbacies. All the
inferior ecclesiastical benefices comprehended within the diocese were
collated by the bishop, who bestowed them upon such ecclesiastics as
he thought proper. All church preferments were in this manner in
the disposal of the church. The sovereign, though he might have some
indirect influence in those elections, and though it was sometimes usual
to ask both his consent to elect, and his approbation of the election,
yet had no direct or sufficient means of managing the clergy. The
ambition of every clergyman naturally led him to pay court, not so much
to his sovereign as to his own order, from which only he could expect
preferment.

Through the greater part of Europe, the pope gradually drew to himself,
first the collation of almost all bishoprics and abbacies, or of
what were called consistorial benefices, and afterwards, by various
machinations and pretences, of the greater part of inferior benefices
comprehended within each diocese, little more being left to the bishop
than what was barely necessary to give him a decent authority with his
own clergy. By this arrangement the condition of the sovereign was still
worse than it had been before. The clergy of all the different countries
of Europe were thus formed into a sort of spiritual army, dispersed in
different quarters indeed, but of which all the movements and operations
could now be directed by one head, and conducted upon one uniform
plan. The clergy of each particular country might be considered as a
particular detachment of that army, of which the operations could easily
be supported and seconded by all the other detachments quartered in
the different countries round about. Each detachment was not only
independent of the sovereign of the country in which it was quartered,
and by which it was maintained, but dependent upon a foreign sovereign,
who could at any time turn its arms against the sovereign of that
particular country, and support them by the arms of all the other
detachments.

Those arms were the most formidable that can well be imagined. In
the ancient state of Europe, before the establishment of arts and
manufactures, the wealth of the clergy gave them the same sort of
influence over the common people which that of the great barons gave
them over their respective vassals, tenants, and retainers. In the great
landed estates, which the mistaken piety both of princes and private
persons had bestowed upon the church, jurisdictions were established, of
the same kind with those of the great barons, and for the same reason.
In those great landed estates, the clergy, or their bailiffs, could
easily keep the peace, without the support or assistance either of the
king or of any other person; and neither the king nor any other person
could keep the peace there without the support and assistance of the
clergy. The jurisdictions of the clergy, therefore, in their particular
baronies or manors, were equally independent, and equally exclusive
of the authority of the king's courts, as those of the great temporal
lords. The tenants of the clergy were, like those of the great barons,
almost all tenants at will, entirely dependent upon their immediate
lords, and, therefore, liable to be called out at pleasure, in order to
fight in any quarrel in which the clergy might think proper to engage
them. Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in
the tithes a very large portion of the rents of all the other estates in
every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both those species
of rents were, the greater part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine,
cattle, poultry, etc. The quantity exceeded greatly what the clergy
could themselves consume; and there were neither arts nor manufactures,
for the produce of which they could exchange the surplus. The clergy
could derive advantage from this immense surplus in no other way than
by employing it, as the great barons employed the like surplus of their
revenues, in the most profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive
charity. Both the hospitality and the charity of the ancient clergy,
accordingly, are said to have been very great. They not only maintained
almost the whole poor of every kingdom, but many knights and gentlemen
had frequently no other means of subsistence than by travelling about
from monastery to monastery, under pretence of devotion, but in reality
to enjoy the hospitality of the clergy. The retainers of some particular
prelates were often as numerous as those of the greatest lay-lords;
and the retainers of all the clergy taken together were, perhaps, more
numerous than those of all the lay-lords. There was always much more
union among the clergy than among the lay-lords. The former were under a
regular discipline and subordination to the papal authority. The latter
were under no regular discipline or subordination, but almost always
equally jealous of one another, and of the king. Though the tenants and
retainers of the clergy, therefore, had both together been less numerous
than those of the great lay-lords, and their tenants were probably much
less numerous, yet their union would have rendered them more formidable.
The hospitality and charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the
command of a great temporal force, but increased very much the weight of
their spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect
and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many
were constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them. Everything
belonging or related to so popular an order, its possessions, its
privileges, its doctrines, necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes
of the common people; and every violation of them, whether real or
pretended, the highest act of sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness.
In this state of things, if the sovereign frequently found it difficult
to resist the confederacy of a few of the great nobility, we cannot
wonder that he should find it still more so to resist the united force
of the clergy of his own dominions, supported by that of the clergy of
all the neighbouring dominions. In such circumstances, the wonder is,
not that he was sometimes obliged to yield, but that he ever was able to
resist.

The privileges of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us,
who live in the present times, appear the most absurd), their total
exemption from the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England
was called the benefit of clergy, were the natural, or rather the
necessary, consequences of this state of things. How dangerous must it
have been for the sovereign to attempt to punish a clergyman for any
crime whatever, if his order were disposed to protect him, and to
represent either the proof as insufficient for convicting so holy a man,
or the punishment as too severe to be inflicted upon one whose person
had been rendered sacred by religion? The sovereign could, in
such circumstances, do no better than leave him to be tried by the
ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own order, were
interested to restrain, as much as possible, every member of it from
committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such gross
scandal as might disgust the minds of the people.

In the state in which things were, through the greater part of Europe,
during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and for
some time both before and after that period, the constitution of the
church of Rome may be considered as the most formidable combination that
ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government,
as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind, which
can flourish only where civil government is able to protect them. In
that constitution, the grossest delusions of superstition were supported
in such a manner by the private interests of so great a number of
people, as put them out of all danger from any assault of human reason;
because, though human reason might, perhaps, have been able to unveil,
even to the eyes of the common people, some of the delusions of
superstition, it could never have dissolved the ties of private
interest. Had this constitution been attacked by no other enemies but
the feeble efforts of human reason, it must have endured for ever. But
that immense and well-built fabric, which all the wisdom and virtue
of man could never have shaken, much less have overturned, was, by
the natural course of things, first weakened, and afterwards in part
destroyed; and is now likely, in the course of a few centuries more,
perhaps, to crumble into ruins altogether.

The gradual improvements of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the same
causes which destroyed the power of the great barons, destroyed, in
the same manner, through the greater part of Europe, the whole temporal
manufactures, and commerce, the clergy, like the great barons, found
something for which they could exchange their rude produce, and thereby
discovered the means of spending their whole revenues upon their own
persons, without giving any considerable share of them to other people.
Their charity became gradually less extensive, their hospitality less
liberal, or less profuse. Their retainers became consequently less
numerous, and, by degrees, dwindled away altogether. The clergy, too,
like the great barons, wished to get a better rent from their
landed estates, in order to spend it, in the same manner, upon the
gratification of their own private vanity and folly. But this increase
of rent could be got only by granting leases to their tenants, who
thereby became, in a great measure, independent of them. The ties of
interest, which bound the inferior ranks of people to the clergy, were
in this manner gradually broken and dissolved. They were even broken and
dissolved sooner than those which bound the same ranks of people to the
great barons; because the benefices of the church being, the greater
part of them, much smaller than the estates of the great barons, the
possessor of each benefice was much sooner able to spend the whole
of its revenue upon his own person. During the greater part of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of the great barons was,
through the greater part of Europe, in full vigour. But the temporal
power of the clergy, the absolute command which they had once had over
the great body of the people was very much decayed. The power of the
church was, by that time, very nearly reduced, through the greater part
of Europe, to what arose from their spiritual authority; and even that
spiritual authority was much weakened, when it ceased to be supported by
the charity and hospitality of the clergy. The inferior ranks of
people no longer looked upon that order as they had done before; as the
comforters of their distress, and the relievers of their indigence. On
the contrary, they were provoked and disgusted by the vanity, luxury,
and expense of the richer clergy, who appeared to spend upon their own
pleasures what had always before been regarded as the patrimony of the
poor.

In this situation of things, the sovereigns in the different states of
Europe endeavoured to recover the influence which they had once had in
the disposal of the great benefices of the church; by procuring to the
deans and chapters of each diocese the restoration of their ancient
right of electing the bishop; and to the monks of each abbacy that
of electing the abbot. The re-establishing this ancient order was the
object of several statutes enacted in England during the course of
the fourteenth century, particularly of what is called the statute of
provisors; and of the pragmatic sanction, established in France in
the fifteenth century. In order to render the election valid, it was
necessary that the sovereign should both consent to it before hand, and
afterwards approve of the person elected; and though the election was
still supposed to be free, he had, however all the indirect means which
his situation necessarily afforded him, of influencing the clergy in
his own dominions. Other regulations, of a similar tendency, were
established in other parts of Europe. But the power of the pope, in
the collation of the great benefices of the church, seems, before the
reformation, to have been nowhere so effectually and so universally
restrained as in France and England. The concordat afterwards, in the
sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right
of presenting to all the great, or what are called the consistorial,
benefices of the Gallican church.

Since the establishment of the pragmatic sanction and of the concordat,
the clergy of France have in general shewn less respect to the decrees
of the papal court, than the clergy of any other catholic country. In
all the disputes which their sovereign has had with the pope, they have
almost constantly taken part with the former. This independency of the
clergy of France upon the court of Rome seems to be principally founded
upon the pragmatic sanction and the concordat. In the earlier periods of
the monarchy, the clergy of France appear to have been as much devoted
to the pope as those of any other country. When Robert, the second
prince of the Capetian race, was most unjustly excommunicated by the
court of Rome, his own servants, it is said, threw the victuals
which came from his table to the dogs, and refused to taste any thing
themselves which had been polluted by the contact of a person in his
situation. They were taught to do so, it may very safely be presumed, by
the clergy of his own dominions.

The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church, a claim in
defence of which the court of Rome had frequently shaken, and
sometimes overturned, the thrones of some of the greatest sovereigns in
Christendom, was in this manner either restrained or modified, or given
up altogether, in many different parts of Europe, even before the
time of the reformation. As the clergy had now less influence over the
people, so the state had more influence over the clergy. The clergy,
therefore, had both less power, and less inclination, to disturb the
state.

The authority of the church of Rome was in this state of declension,
when the disputes which gave birth to the reformation began in Germany,
and soon spread themselves through every part of Europe. The new
doctrines were everywhere received with a high degree of popular favour.
They were propagated with all that enthusiastic zeal which commonly
animates the spirit of party, when it attacks established authority. The
teachers of those doctrines, though perhaps, in other respects, not more
learned than many of the divines who defended the established church,
seem in general to have been better acquainted with ecclesiastical
history, and with the origin and progress of that system of opinions
upon which the authority of the church was established; and they had
thereby the advantage in almost every dispute. The austerity of their
manners gave them authority with the common people, who contrasted the
strict regularity of their conduct with the disorderly lives of the
greater part of their own clergy. They possessed, too, in a much higher
degree than their adversaries, all the arts of popularity and of gaining
proselytes; arts which the lofty and dignified sons of the church had
long neglected, as being to them in a great measure useless. The reason
of the new doctrines recommended them to some, their novelty to many;
the hatred and contempt of the established clergy to a still greater
number: but the zealous, passionate, and fanatical, though frequently
coarse and rustic eloquence, with which they were almost everywhere
inculcated, recommended them to by far the greatest number.

The success of the new doctrines was almost everywhere so great, that
the princes, who at that time happened to be on bad terms with the court
of Rome, were, by means of them, easily enabled, in their own dominions,
to overturn the church, which having lost the respect and veneration
of the inferior ranks of people, could make scarce any resistance. The
court of Rome had disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern
parts of Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant
to be worth the managing. They universally, therefore, established the
reformation in their own dominions. The tyranny of Christiern II., and
of Troll archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them
both from Sweden. The pope favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and
Gustavus Vasa found no difficulty in establishing the reformation
in Sweden. Christiern II. was afterwards deposed from the throne of
Denmark, where his conduct had rendered him as odious as in Sweden.
The pope, however, was still disposed to favour him; and Frederic of
Holstein, who had mounted the throne in his stead, revenged himself,
by following the example of Gustavus Vasa. The magistrates of Berne and
Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with the pope, established with
great ease the reformation in their respective cantons, where just
before some of the clergy had, by an imposture somewhat grosser than
ordinary, rendered the whole order both odious and contemptible.

In this critical situation of its affairs the papal court was at
sufficient pains to cultivate the friendship of the powerful sovereigns
of France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that time emperor of
Germany. With their assistance, it was enabled, though not without great
difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or to
obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions.
It was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of
England. But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so
without giving offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king
of Spain and emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he
did not embrace himself the greater part of the doctrines of the
reformation, was yet enabled, by their general prevalence, to suppress
all the monasteries, and to abolish the authority of the church of Rome
in his dominions. That he should go so far, though he went no further,
gave some satisfaction to the patrons of the reformation, who, having
got possession of the government in the reign of his son and successor
completed, without any difficulty, the work which Henry VIII. had begun.

In some countries, as in Scotland, where the government was weak,
unpopular, and not very firmly established, the reformation was strong
enough to overturn, not only the church, but the state likewise, for
attempting to support the church.

Among the followers of the reformation, dispersed in all the different
countries of Europe, there was no general tribunal, which, like that of
the court of Rome, or an oecumenical council, could settle all disputes
among them, and, with irresistible authority, prescribe to all of them
the precise limits of orthodoxy. When the followers of the reformation
in one country, therefore, happened to differ from their brethren in
another, as they had no common judge to appeal to, the dispute could
never be decided; and many such disputes arose among them. Those
concerning the government of the church, and the right of conferring
ecclesiastical benefices, were perhaps the most interesting to the peace
and welfare of civil society. They gave birth, accordingly, to the two
principal parties or sects among the followers of the reformation, the
Lutheran and Calvinistic sects, the only sects among them, of which the
doctrine and discipline have ever yet been established by law in any
part of Europe.

The followers of Luther, together with what is called the church of
England, preserved more or less of the episcopal government, established
subordination among the clergy, gave the sovereign the disposal of all
the bishoprics, and other consistorial benefices within his dominions,
and thereby rendered him the real head of the church; and without
depriving the bishop of the right of collating to the smaller benefices
within his diocese, they, even to those benefices, not only admitted,
but favoured the right of presentation, both in the sovereign and in
all other lay patrons. This system of church government was, from the
beginning, favourable to peace and good order, and to submission to the
civil sovereign. It has never, accordingly, been the occasion of any
tumult or civil commotion in any country in which it has once been
established. The church of England, in particular, has always valued
herself, with great reason, upon the unexceptionable loyalty of her
principles. Under such a government, the clergy naturally endeavour to
recommend themselves to the sovereign, to the court, and to the nobility
and gentry of the country, by whose influence they chiefly expect to
obtain preferment. They pay court to those patrons, sometimes, no
doubt, by the vilest flattery and assentation; but frequently, too, by
cultivating all those arts which best deserve, and which are therefore
most likely to gain them, the esteem of people of rank and fortune; by
their knowledge in all the different branches of useful and ornamental
learning, by the decent liberality of their manners, by the social good
humour of their conversation, and by their avowed contempt of those
absurd and hypocritical austerities which fanatics inculcate and pretend
to practise, in order to draw upon themselves the veneration, and upon
the greater part of men of rank and fortune, who avow that they do
not practise them, the abhorrence of the common people. Such a clergy,
however, while they pay their court in this manner to the higher ranks
of life, are very apt to neglect altogether the means of maintaining
their influence and authority with the lower. They are listened to,
esteemed, and respected by their superiors; but before their inferiors
they are frequently incapable of defending, effectually, and to the
conviction of such hearers, their own sober and moderate doctrines,
against the most ignorant enthusiast who chooses to attack them.

The followers of Zuinglius, or more properly those of Calvin, on the
contrary, bestowed upon the people of each parish, whenever the church
became vacant, the right of electing their own pastor; and established,
at the same time, the most perfect equality among the clergy. The former
part of this institution, as long as it remained in vigour, seems to
have been productive of nothing but disorder and confusion, and to
have tended equally to corrupt the morals both of the clergy and of the
people. The latter part seems never to have had any effects but what
were perfectly agreeable.

As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing
their own pastors, they acted almost always under the influence of the
clergy, and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order.
The clergy, in order to preserve their influence in those popular
elections, became, or affected to become, many of them, fanatics
themselves, encouraged fanaticism among the people, and gave the
preference almost always to the most fanatical candidate. So small a
matter as the appointment of a parish priest, occasioned almost always
a violent contest, not only in one parish, but in all the neighbouring
parishes who seldom failed to take part in the quarrel. When the parish
happened to be situated in a great city, it divided all the inhabitants
into two parties; and when that city happened, either to constitute
itself a little republic, or to be the head and capital of a little
republic, as in the case with many of the considerable cities in
Switzerland and Holland, every paltry dispute of this kind, over and
above exasperating the animosity of all their other factions, threatened
to leave behind it, both a new schism in the church, and a new faction
in the state. In those small republics, therefore, the magistrate very
soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the public peace,
to assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant benefices. In
Scotland, the most extensive country in which this presbyterian form
of church government has ever been established, the rights of patronage
were in effect abolished by the act which established presbytery in the
beginning of the reign of William III. That act, at least, put in the
power of certain classes of people in each parish to purchase, for
a very small price, the right of electing their own pastor. The
constitution which this act established, was allowed to subsist for
about two-and-twenty years, but was abolished by the 10th of queen
Anne, ch.12, on account of the confusions and disorders which this
more popular mode of election had almost everywhere occasioned. In so
extensive a country as Scotland, however, a tumult in a remote parish
was not so likely to give disturbance to government as in a smaller
state. The 10th of queen Anne restored the rights of patronage. But
though, in Scotland, the law gives the benefice, without any exception
to the person presented by the patron; yet the church requires sometimes
(for she has not in this respect been very uniform in her decisions)
a certain concurrence of the people, before she will confer upon the
presentee what is called the cure of souls, or the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction in the parish. She sometimes, at least, from an affected
concern for the peace of the parish, delays the settlement till this
concurrence can be procured. The private tampering of some of the
neighbouring clergy, sometimes to procure, but more frequently to
prevent this concurrence, and the popular arts which they cultivate, in
order to enable them upon such occasions to tamper more effectually, are
perhaps the causes which principally keep up whatever remains of the old
fanatical spirit, either in the clergy or in the people of Scotland.

The equality which the presbyterian form of church government
establishes among the clergy, consists, first, in the equality of
authority or ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, secondly, in the equality
of benefice. In all presbyterian churches, the equality of authority is
perfect; that of benefice is not so. The difference, however, between
one benefice and another, is seldom so considerable, as commonly to
tempt the possessor even of the small one to pay court to his patron, by
the vile arts of flattery and assentation, in order to get a better.
In all the presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are
thoroughly established, it is by nobler and better arts, that the
established clergy in general endeavour to gain the favour of their
superiors; by their learning, by the irreproachable regularity of their
life, and by the faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their
patrons even frequently complain of the independency of their spirit,
which they are apt to construe into ingratitude for past favours, but
which, at worse, perhaps, is seldom anymore than that indifference which
naturally arises from the consciousness that no further favours of the
kind are ever to be expected. There is scarce, perhaps, to be found
anywhere in Europe, a more learned, decent, independent, and respectable
set of men, than the greater part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland,
Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland.

Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be
very great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may be, no doubt,
carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable effects. Nothing but
exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. The
vices of levity and vanity necessarily render him ridiculous, and are,
besides, almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common people.
In his own conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of
morals which the common people respect the most. He gains their esteem
and affection, by that plan of life which his own interest and situation
would lead him to follow. The common people look upon him with that
kindness with which we naturally regard one who approaches somewhat to
our own condition, but who, we think, ought to be in a higher. Their
kindness naturally provokes his kindness. He becomes careful to instruct
them, and attentive to assist and relieve them. He does not even despise
the prejudices of people who are disposed to be so favourable to him,
and never treats them with those contemptuous and arrogant airs, which
we so often meet with in the proud dignitaries of opulent and well
endowed churches. The presbyterian clergy, accordingly, have more
influence over the minds of the common people, than perhaps the clergy
of any other established church. It is, accordingly, in presbyterian
countries only, that we ever find the common people converted, without
persecution completely, and almost to a man, to the established church.

In countries where church benefices are, the greater part of them, very
moderate, a chair in a university is generally a better establishment
than a church benefice. The universities have, in this case, the picking
and chusing of their members from all the churchmen of the country, who,
in every country, constitute by far the most numerous class of men of
letters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many of them
very considerable, the church naturally draws from the universities the
greater part of their eminent men of letters; who generally find some
patron, who does himself honour by procuring them church preferment. In
the former situation, we are likely to find the universities filled with
the most eminent men of letters that are to be found in the country. In
the latter, we are likely to find few eminent men among them, and those
few among the youngest members of the society, who are likely, too, to
be drained away from it, before they can have acquired experience and
knowledge enough to be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr. de
Voltaire, that father Porée, a jesuit of no great eminence in the
republic of letters, was the only professor they had ever had in France,
whose works were worth the reading. In a country which has produced
so many eminent men of letters, it must appear somewhat singular, that
scarce one of them should have been a professor in a university. The
famous Cassendi was, in the beginning of his life, a professor in
the university of Aix. Upon the first dawning of his genius, it was
represented to him, that by going into the church he could easily find
a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well as a better
situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediately followed the
advice. The observation of Mr. de Voltaire may be applied, I believe,
not only to France, but to all other Roman Catholic countries. We very
rarely find in any of them an eminent man of letters, who is a professor
in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions of law and physic;
professions from which the church is not so likely to draw them. After
the church of Rome, that of England is by far the richest and best
endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the church
is continually draining the universities of all their best and ablest
members; and an old college tutor who is known and distinguished in
Europe as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be found there
as in any Roman catholic country, In Geneva, on the contrary, in the
protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the protestant countries of
Germany, in Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, the most
eminent men of letters whom those countries have produced, have, not
all indeed, but the far greater part of them, been professors in
universities. In those countries, the universities are continually
draining the church of all its most eminent men of letters.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the poets,
a few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of the other
eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to have been
either public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or
of rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true, from the days of
Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch
and Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the
necessity of teaching, year after year, in any particular branch of
science seems in reality to be the most effectual method for rendering
him completely master of it himself. By being obliged to go every
year over the same ground, if he is good for any thing, he necessarily
becomes, in a few years, well acquainted with every part of it, and if,
upon any particular point, he should form too hasty an opinion one year,
when he comes, in the course of his lectures to reconsider the same
subject the year thereafter, he is very likely to correct it. As to be a
teacher of science is certainly the natural employment of a mere man of
letters; so is it likewise, perhaps, the education which is most likely
to render him a man of solid learning and knowledge. The mediocrity
of church benefices naturally tends to draw the greater part of men of
letters in the country where it takes place, to the employment in which
they can be the most useful to the public, and at the same time to give
them the best education, perhaps, they are capable of receiving. It
tends to render their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful
as possible.

The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as
may arise from particular lands or manors, is a branch, it ought to be
observed, of the general revenue of the state, which is thus diverted to
a purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe,
for example, is a real land tax, which puts it out of the power of the
proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence of the
state as they otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land, however,
is, according to some, the sole fund; and, according to others, the
principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the exigencies of
the state must be ultimately supplied. The more of this fund that is
given to the church, the less, it is evident, can be spared to the
state. It may be laid down as a certain maxim, that all other things
being supposed equal, the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily
be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other;
and, in all cases, the less able must the state be to defend itself. In
several protestant countries, particularly in all the protestant cantons
of Switzerland, the revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman
catholic church, the tithes and church lands, has been found a fund
sufficient, not only to afford competent salaries to the established
clergy, but to defray, with little or no addition, all the other
expenses of the state. The magistrates of the powerful canton of Berne,
in particular, have accumulated, out of the savings from this fund, a
very large sum, supposed to amount to several millions; part or which is
deposited in a public treasure, and part is placed at interest in what
are called the public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe;
chiefly in those of France and Great Britain. What may be the amount
of the whole expense which the church, either of Berne, or of any other
protestant canton, costs the state, I do not pretend to know. By a very
exact account it appears, that, in 1755, the whole revenue of the clergy
of the church of Scotland, including their glebe or church lands, and
the rent of their manses or dwelling-houses, estimated according to
a reasonable valuation, amounted only to £68,514:1:5 1/12d. This very
moderate revenue affords a decent subsistence to nine hundred and
forty-four ministers. The whole expense of the church, including what is
occasionally laid out for the building and reparation of churches, and
of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to exceed eighty
or eighty-five thousand pounds a-year. The most opulent church in
Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith, the
fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere
morals, in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed
church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious,
which an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced
by it as completely as by any other. The greater part of the protestant
churches of Switzerland, which, in general, are not better endowed than
the church of Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree.
In the greater part of the protestant cantons, there is not a
single person to be found, who does not profess himself to be of the
established church. If he professes himself to be of any other, indeed,
the law obliges him to leave the canton. But so severe, or, rather,
indeed, so oppressive a law, could never have been executed in such free
countries, had not the diligence of the clergy beforehand converted to
the established church the whole body of the people, with the exception
of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In some parts of Switzerland,
accordingly, where, from the accidental union of a protestant and
Roman catholic country, the conversion has not been so complete, both
religions are not only tolerated, but established by law.

The proper performance of every service seems to require, that its pay
or recompence should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the
nature of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is
very apt to suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of
those who are employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is apt to
suffer, perhaps still more, by their negligence and idleness. A man of
a large revenue, whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live
like other men of large revenues; and to spend a great part of his time
in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman, this
train of life not only consumes the time which ought to be employed
in the duties of his function, but in the eyes of the common people,
destroys almost entirely that sanctity of character, which can alone
enable him to perform those duties with proper weight and authority.


PART IV. Of the Expense of supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign.

Over and above the expenses necessary for enabling the sovereign to
perform his several duties, a certain expense is requisite for the
support of his dignity. This expense varies, both with the different
periods of improvement, and with the different forms of government.

In an opulent and improved society, where all the different orders of
people are growing every day more expensive in their houses, in their
furniture, in their tables, in their dress, and in their equipage; it
cannot well be expected that the sovereign should alone hold out against
the fashion. He naturally, therefore, or rather necessarily, becomes
more expensive in all those different articles too. His dignity even
seems to require that he should become so.

As, in point of dignity, a monarch is more raised above his subjects
than the chief magistrate of any republic is ever supposed to be above
his fellow-citizens; so a greater expense is necessary for supporting
that higher dignity. We naturally expect more splendour in the court of
a king, than in the mansion-house of a doge or burgo-master.

CONCLUSION.

The expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity
of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of
the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be
defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; all the
different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to
their respective abilities.

The expense of the administration of justice, too, may no doubt be
considered as laid out for the benefit of the whole society. There is
no impropriety, therefore, in its being defrayed by the general
contribution of the whole society. The persons, however, who give
occasion to this expense, are those who, by their injustice in one way
or another, make it necessary to seek redress or protection from the
courts of justice. The persons, again, most immediately benefited by
this expense, are those whom the courts of justice either restore
to their rights, or maintain in their rights. The expense of the
administration of justice, therefore, may very properly be defrayed
by the particular contribution of one or other, or both, of those two
different sets of persons, according as different occasions may require,
that is, by the fees of court. It cannot be necessary to have recourse
to the general contribution of the whole society, except for the
conviction of those criminals who have not themselves any estate or fund
sufficient for paying those fees.

Those local or provincial expenses, of which the benefit is local
or provincial (what is laid out, for example, upon the police of
a particular town or district), ought to be defrayed by a local or
provincial revenue, and ought to be no burden upon the general revenue
of the society. It is unjust that the whole society should contribute
towards an expense, of which the benefit is confined to a part of the
society.

The expense of maintaining good roads and communications is, no doubt,
beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without any
injustice, be defrayed by the general contributions of the whole
society. This expense, however, is most immediately and directly
beneficial to those who travel or carry goods from one place to another,
and to those who consume such goods. The turnpike tolls in England,
and the duties called peages in other countries, lay it altogether upon
those two different sets of people, and thereby discharge the general
revenue of the society from a very considerable burden.

The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction,
is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may,
therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution
of the whole society. This expense, however, might, perhaps, with equal
propriety, and even with some advantage, be defrayed altogether by those
who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or
by the voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for
either the one or the other.

When the institutions, or public works, which are beneficial to the
whole society, either cannot be maintained altogether, or are not
maintained altogether, by the contribution of such particular members
of the society as are most immediately benefited by them; the deficiency
must, in most cases, be made up by the general contribution of the whole
society. The general revenue of the society, over and above defraying
the expense of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of
the chief magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular
branches of revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue, I
shall endeavour to explain in the following chapter.


CHAPTER II. OF THE SOURCES OF THE GENERAL OR PUBLIC REVENUE OF THE
SOCIETY.

The revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending the
society and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, but all
the other necessary expenses of government, for which the constitution
of the state has not provided any particular revenue may be drawn,
either, first, from some fund which peculiarly belongs to the sovereign
or commonwealth, and which is independent of the revenue of the people;
or, secondly, from the revenue of the people.


PART I. Of the Funds, or Sources, of Revenue, which may peculiarly
belong to the Sovereign or Commonwealth.

The funds, or sources, of revenue, which may peculiarly belong to the
sovereign or commonwealth, must consist, either in stock, or in land.

The sovereign, like, any other owner of stock, may derive a revenue from
it, either by employing it himself, or by lending it. His revenue is, in
the one case, profit, in the other interest.

The revenue of a Tartar or Arabian chief consists in profit. It arises
principally from the milk and increase of his own herds and flocks,
of which he himself superintends the management, and is the principal
shepherd or herdsman of his own horde or tribe. It is, however, in this
earliest and rudest state of civil government only, that profit has ever
made the principal part of the public revenue of a monarchical state.

Small republics have sometimes derived a considerable revenue from the
profit of mercantile projects. The republic of Hamburgh is said to do
so from the profits of a public wine-cellar and apothecary's shop. {See
Memoires concernant les Droits et Impositions en Europe, tome i. page
73. This work was compiled by the order of the court, for the use of a
commission employed for some years past in considering the proper means
for reforming the finances of France. The account of the French taxes,
which takes up three volumes in quarto, may be regarded as perfectly
authentic. That of those of other European nations was compiled from
such information as the French ministers at the different courts could
procure. It is much shorter, and probably not quite so exact as that
of the French taxes.} That state cannot be very great, of which the
sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade of a wine-merchant or an
apothecary. The profit of a public bank has been a source of revenue to
more considerable states. It has been so, not only to Hamburgh, but to
Venice and Amsterdam. A revenue of this kind has even by some people
been thought not below the attention of so great an empire as that of
Great Britain. Reckoning the ordinary dividend of the bank of England at
five and a-half per cent., and its capital at ten millions seven hundred
and eighty thousand pounds, the neat annual profit, after paying the
expense of management, must amount, it is said, to five hundred and
ninety-two thousand nine hundred pounds. Government, it is pretended,
could borrow this capital at three per cent. interest, and, by taking
the management of the bank into its own hands, might make a clear profit
of two hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred pounds a-year. The
orderly, vigilant, and parsimonious administration of such aristocracies
as those of Venice and Amsterdam, is extremely proper, it appears from
experience, for the management of a mercantile project of this kind. But
whether such a government us that of England, which, whatever may be
its virtues, has never been famous for good economy; which, in time of
peace, has generally conducted itself with the slothful and negligent
profusion that is, perhaps, natural to monarchies; and, in time of
war, has constantly acted with all the thoughtless extravagance that
democracies are apt to fall into, could be safely trusted with the
management of such a project, must at least be a good deal more
doubtful.

The post-office is properly a mercantile project. The government
advances the expense of establishing the different offices, and of
buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid, with
a large profit, by the duties upon what is carried. It is, perhaps,
the only mercantile project which has been successfully managed by, I
believe, every sort of government. The capital to be advanced is not
very considerable. There is no mystery in the business. The returns are
not only certain but immediate.

Princes, however, have frequently engaged in many other mercantile
projects, and have been willing, like private persons, to mend their
fortunes, by becoming adventurers in the common branches of trade. They
have scarce ever succeeded. The profusion with which the affairs of
princes are always managed, renders it almost impossible that they
should. The agents of a prince regard the wealth of their master as
inexhaustible; are careless at what price they buy, are careless at what
price they sell, are careless at what expense they transport his
goods from one place to another. Those agents frequently live with the
profusion of princes; and sometimes, too, in spite of that profusion,
and by a proper method of making up their accounts, acquire the fortunes
of princes. It was thus, as we are told by Machiavel, that the agents
of Lorenzo of Medicis, not a prince of mean abilities, carried on his
trade. The republic of Florence was several times obliged to pay
the debt into which their extravagance had involved him. He found
it convenient, accordingly to give up the business of merchant, the
business to which his family had originally owed their fortune, and,
in the latter part of his life, to employ both what remained of that
fortune, and the revenue of the state, of which he had the disposal, in
projects and expenses more suitable to his station.

No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and
sovereign. If the trading spirit of the English East India company
renders them very bad sovereigns, the spirit of sovereignty seems to
have rendered them equally bad traders. While they were traders only,
they managed their trade successfully, and were able to pay from their
profits a moderate dividend to the proprietors of their stock. Since
they became sovereigns, with a revenue which, it is said, was originally
more than three millions sterling, they have been obliged to beg
the ordinary assistance of government, in order to avoid immediate
bankruptcy. In their former situation, their servants in India
considered themselves as the clerks of merchants; in their present
situation, those servants consider themselves as the ministers of
sovereigns.

A state may sometimes derive some part of its public revenue from the
interest of money, as well as from the profits of stock. If it has
amassed a treasure, it may lend a part of that treasure, either to
foreign states, or to its own subjects.

The canton of Berne derives a considerable revenue by lending a part
of its treasure to foreign states, that is, by placing it in the public
funds of the different indebted nations of Europe, chiefly in those of
France and England. The security of this revenue must depend, first,
upon the security of the funds in which it is placed, or upon the good
faith of the government which has the management of them; and, secondly,
upon the certainty or probability of the continuance of peace with the
debtor nation. In the case of a war, the very first act of hostility on
the part of the debtor nation might be the forfeiture of the funds of
its credit. This policy of lending money to foreign states is, so far
as I know peculiar to the canton of Berne.

The city of Hamburgh {See Memoire concernant les Droites et Impositions
en Europe tome i p. 73.}has established a sort of public pawn-shop,
which lends money to the subjects of the state, upon pledges, at six per
cent. interest. This pawn-shop, or lombard, as it is called, affords a
revenue, it is pretended, to the state, of a hundred and fifty thousand
crowns, which, at four and sixpence the crown, amounts to £33,750
sterling.

The government of Pennsylvania, without amassing any treasure, invented
a method of lending, not money, indeed, but what is equivalent to money,
to its subjects. By advancing to private people, at interest, and upon
land security to double the value, paper bills of credit, to be redeemed
fifteen years after their date; and, in the mean time, made transferable
from hand to hand, like banknotes, and declared by act of assembly to
be a legal tender in all payments from one inhabitant of the province
to another, it raised a moderate revenue, which went a considerable way
towards defraying an annual expense of about £4,500, the whole ordinary
expense of that frugal and orderly government. The success of an
expedient of this kind must have depended upon three different
circumstances: first, upon the demand for some other instrument of
commerce, besides gold and silver money, or upon the demand for such a
quantity of consumable stock as could not be had without sending abroad
the greater part of their gold and silver money, in order to purchase
it; secondly, upon the good credit of the government which made use
of this expedient; and, thirdly, upon the moderation with which it was
used, the whole value of the paper bills of credit never exceeding
that of the gold and silver money which would have been necessary for
carrying on their circulation, had there been no paper bills of credit.
The same expedient was, upon different occasions, adopted by several
other American colonies; but, from want of this moderation, it produced,
in the greater part of them, much more disorder than conveniency.

The unstable and perishable nature of stock and credit, however, renders
them unfit to be trusted to as the principal funds of that sure, steady,
and permanent revenue, which can alone give security and dignity to
government. The government of no great nation, that was advanced beyond
the shepherd state, seems ever to have derived the greater part of its
public revenue from such sources.

Land is a fund of more stable and permanent nature; and the rent of
public lands, accordingly, has been the principal source of the public
revenue of many a great nation that was much advanced beyond the
shepherd state. From the produce or rent of the public lands, the
ancient republics of Greece and Italy derived for a long the the greater
part of that revenue which defrayed the necessary expenses of the
commonwealth. The rent of the crown lands constituted for a long time
the greater part of the revenue of the ancient sovereigns of Europe.

War, and the preparation for war, are the two circumstances which, in
modern times, occasion the greater part of the necessary expense or all
great states. But in the ancient republics of Greece and Italy, every
citizen was a soldier, and both served, and prepared himself for
service, at his own expense. Neither of those two circumstances,
therefore, could occasion any very considerable expense to the state.
The rent of a very moderate landed estate might be fully sufficient for
defraying all the other necessary expenses of government.

In the ancient monarchies of Europe, the manners and customs of the time
sufficiently prepared the great body of the people for war; and when
they took the field, they were, by the condition of their feudal
tenures, to be maintained either at their own expense, or at that
of their immediate lords, without bringing any new charge upon the
sovereign. The other expenses of government were, the greater part of
them, very moderate. The administration of justice, it has been shewn,
instead of being a cause of expense was a source of revenue. The labour
of the country people, for three days before, and for three days after,
harvest, was thought a fund sufficient for making and maintaining all
the bridges, highways, and other public works, which the commerce of the
country was supposed to require. In those days the principal expense
of the sovereign seems to have consisted in the maintenance of his own
family and household. The officers of his household, accordingly, were
then the great officers of state. The lord treasurer received his rents.
The lord steward and lord chamberlain looked after the expense of his
family. The care of his stables was committed to the lord constable and
the lord marshal. His houses were all built in the form of castles,
and seem to have been the principal fortresses which he possessed. The
keepers of those houses or castles might be considered as a sort of
military governors. They seem to have been the only military
officers whom it was necessary to maintain in time of peace. In these
circumstances, the rent of a great landed estate might, upon ordinary
occasions, very well defray all the necessary expenses of government.

In the present state of the greater part of the civilized monarchies
of Europe, the rent of all the lands in the country, managed as they
probably would be, if they all belonged to one proprietor, would scarce,
perhaps, amount to the ordinary revenue which they levy upon the people
even in peaceable times. The ordinary revenue of Great Britain, for
example, including not only what is necessary for defraying the current
expense of the year, but for paying the interest of the public debts,
and for sinking a part of the capital of those debts, amounts to upwards
of ten millions a-year. But the land tax, at four shillings in the
pound, falls short of two millions a-year. This land tax, as it is
called however, is supposed to be one-fifth, not only of the rent of all
the land, but of that of all the houses, and of the interest of all the
capital stock of Great Britain, that part of it only excepted which
is either lent to the public, or employed as farming stock in the
cultivation of land. A very considerable part of the produce of this tax
arises from the rent of houses and the interest of capital stock. The
land tax of the city of London, for example, at four shillings in the
pound, amounts to £123,399: 6: 7; that of the city of Westminster to
£63,092: 1: 5; that of the palaces of Whitehall and St. James's, to
£30,754: 6: 3. A certain proportion of the land tax is, in the same
manner, assessed upon all the other cities and towns corporate in the
kingdom; and arises almost altogether, either from the rent of houses,
or from what is supposed to be the interest of trading and capital
stock. According to the estimation, therefore, by which Great Britain is
rated to the land tax, the whole mass of revenue arising from the rent
of all the lands, from that of all the houses, and from the interest
of all the capital stock, that part of it only excepted which is either
lent to the public, or employed in the cultivation of land, does
not exceed ten millions sterling a-year, the ordinary revenue which
government levies upon the people, even in peaceable times. The
estimation by which Great Britain is rated to the land tax is, no doubt,
taking the whole kingdom at an average, very much below the real value;
though in several particular counties and districts it is said to be
nearly equal to that value. The rent of the lands alone, exclusive of
that of houses and of the interest of stock, has by many people been
estimated at twenty millions; an estimation made in a great measure at
random, and which, I apprehend, is as likely to be above as below the
truth. But if the lands of Great Britain, in the present state of their
cultivation, do not afford a rent of more than twenty millions a-year,
they could not well afford the half, most probably not the fourth part
of that rent, if they all belonged to a single proprietor, and were put
under the negligent, expensive, and oppressive management of his factors
and agents. The crown lands of Great Britain do not at present afford
the fourth part of the rent which could probably be drawn from them if
they were the property of private persons. If the crown lands were more
extensive, it is probable, they would be still worse managed.

The revenue which the great body of the people derives from land is, in
proportion, not to the rent, but to the produce of the land. The whole
annual produce of the land of every country, if we except what is
reserved for seed, is either annually consumed by the great body of
the people, or exchanged for something else that is consumed by
them. Whatever keeps down the produce of the land below what it would
otherwise rise to, keeps down the revenue of the great body of the
people, still more than it does that of the proprietors of land.
The rent of land, that portion of the produce which belongs to the
proprietors, is scarce anywhere in Great Britain supposed to be more
than a third part of the whole produce. If the land which, in one state
of cultivation, affords a revenue of ten millions sterling a-year, would
in another afford a rent of twenty millions; the rent being, in
both cases, supposed a third part of the produce, the revenue of the
proprietors would be less than it otherwise might be, by ten millions
a-year only; but the revenue of the great hotly of the people would be
less than it otherwise might be, by thirty millions a-year, deducting
only what would be necessary for seed. The population of the country
would be less by the number of people which thirty millions a-year,
deducting always the seed, could maintain, according to the particular
mode of living, and expense which might take place in the different
ranks of men, among whom the remainder was distributed.

Though there is not at present in Europe, any civilized state of any
kind which derives the greater part of its public revenue from the rent
of lands which are the property of the state; yet, in all the great
monarchies of Europe, there are still many large tracts of land which
belong to the crown. They are generally forest, and sometimes forests
where, after travelling several miles, you will scarce find a single
tree; a mere waste and loss of country, in respect both of produce and
population. In every great monarchy of Europe, the sale of the crown
lands would produce a very large sum of money, which, if applied to the
payment of the public debts, would deliver from mortgage a much greater
revenue than any which those lands have even afforded to the crown.
In countries where lands, improved and cultivated very highly, and
yielding, at the time of sale, as great a rent as can easily be got
from them, commonly sell at thirty years purchase; the unimproved,
uncultivated, and low-rented crown lands, might well be expected to sell
at forty, fifty, or sixty years purchase. The crown might immediately
enjoy the revenue which this great price would redeem from mortgage. In
the course of a few years, it would probably enjoy another revenue. When
the crown lands had become private property, they would, in the course
of a few years, become well improved and well cultivated. The increase
of their produce would increase the population of the country, by
augmenting the revenue and consumption of the people. But the revenue
which the crown derives from the duties or custom and excise, would
necessarily increase with the revenue and consumption of the people.

The revenue which, in any civilized monarchy, the crown derives from
the crown lands, though it appears to cost nothing to individuals, in
reality costs more to the society than perhaps any other equal revenue
which the crown enjoys. It would, in all cases, be for the interest of
the society, to replace this revenue to the crown by some other equal
revenue, and to divide the lands among the people, which could not well
be done better, perhaps, than by exposing them to public sale.

Lands, for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens,
public walks, etc. possessions which are everywhere considered as causes
of expense, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which,
in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong to the crown.

Public stock and public lands, therefore, the two sources of revenue
which may peculiarly belong to the sovereign or commonwealth, being both
improper and insufficient funds for defraying the necessary expense of
any great and civilized state; it remains that this expense must, the
greater part of it, be defrayed by taxes of one kind or another; the
people contributing a part of their own private revenue, in order to
make up a public revenue to the sovereign or commonwealth.



PART II. Of Taxes.

The private revenue of individuals, it has been shown in the first book
of this Inquiry, arises, ultimately from three different sources; rent,
profit, and wages. Every tax must finally be paid from some one or
other of those three different sources of revenue, or from all of them
indifferently. I shall endeavour to give the best account I can, first,
of those taxes which, it is intended should fall upon rent; secondly, of
those which, it is intended should fall upon profit; thirdly, of those
which, it is intended should fall upon wages; and fourthly, of those
which, it is intended should fall indifferently upon all those three
different sources of private revenue. The particular consideration of
each of these four different sorts of taxes will divide the second part
of the present chapter into four articles, three of which will require
several other subdivisions. Many of these taxes, it will appear from
the following review, are not finally paid from the fund, or source of
revenue, upon which it is intended they should fall.

Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary
to premise the four following maximis with regard to taxes in general.


1. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support
of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their
respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they
respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of
government to the individuals of a great nation, is like the expense of
management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged
to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate.
In the observation or neglect of this maxim, consists what is called the
equality or inequality of taxation. Every tax, it must be observed once
for all, which falls finally upon one only of the three sorts of revenue
above mentioned, is necessarily unequal, in so far as it does not affect
the other two. In the following examination of different taxes, I shall
seldom take much farther notice of this sort of inequality; but shall,
in most cases, confine my observations to that inequality which is
occasioned by a particular tax falling unequally upon that particular
sort of private revenue which is affected by it.

2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay, ought to be certain
and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the
quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor,
and to every other person. Where it is otherwise, every person subject
to the tax is put more or less in the power of the tax-gatherer, who can
either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by
the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself.
The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence, and favours the
corruption, of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where
they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each
individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great
importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears,
I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an
evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.

3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which
it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. A tax
upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which
such rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most
likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or when he is most
likely to have wherewithall to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods
as are articles of luxury, are all finally paid by the consumer, and
generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He pays them
by little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at
liberty too, either to buy or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his
own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniency from such
taxes.

4. Every tax ought to be so contrived, as both to take out and to keep
out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above
what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either
take out or keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than
it brings into the public treasury, in the four following ways. First,
the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries
may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose
perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people. Secondly,
it may obstruct the industry of the people, and discourage them from
applying to certain branches of business which might give maintenance
and employment to great multitudes. While it obliges the people to pay,
it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might
enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and
other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur, who attempt
unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and
thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have
received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax
offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling
must arise in proportion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the
ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then
punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment,
too, in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to
alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime. {See Sketches of the
History of Man page 474, and Seq.} Fourthly, by subjecting the people to
the frequent visits and the odious examination of the tax-gatherers, it
may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppression;
and though vexation is not, strictly speaking, expense, it is certainly
equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem
himself from it. It is in some one or other of these four different
ways, that taxes are frequently so much more burdensome to the people
than they are beneficial to the sovereign.

The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended
them, more or less, to the attention of all nations. All nations have
endeavoured, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes
as equal as they could contrive; as certain, as convenient to the
contributor, both the time and the mode of payment, and in proportion
to the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome
to the people. The following short review of some of the principal taxes
which have taken place in different ages and countries, will show, that
the endeavours of all nations have not in this respect been equally
successful.


ARTICLE I.--Taxes upon Rent--Taxes upon the Rent of Land.

A tax upon the rent of land may either be imposed according to a certain
canon, every district being valued at a curtain rent, which valuation is
not afterwards to be altered; or it may be imposed in such a manner, as
to vary with every variation in the real rent of the land, and to rise
or fall with the improvement or declension of its cultivation.

A land tax which, like that of Great Britain, is assessed upon each
district according to a certain invariable canon, though it should
be equal at the time of its first establishment, necessarily becomes
unequal in process of time, according to the unequal degrees of
improvement or neglect in the cultivation of the different parts of the
country. In England, the valuation, according to which the different
counties and parishes were assessed to the land tax by the 4th of
William and Mary, was very unequal even at its first establishment.
This tax, therefore, so far offends against the first of the four maxims
above mentioned. It is perfectly agreeable to the other three. It is
perfectly certain. The time of payment for the tax, being the same as
that for the rent, is as convenient as it can be to the contributor.
Though the landlord is, in all cases, the real contributor, the tax
is commonly advanced by the tenant, to whom the landlord is obliged
to allow it in the payment of the rent. This tax is levied by a much
smaller number of officers than any other which affords nearly the same
revenue. As the tax upon each district does not rise with the rise of
the rent, the sovereign does not share in the profits of the landlord's
improvements. Those improvements sometimes contribute, indeed, to the
discharge of the other landlords of the district. But the aggravation of
the tax, which this may sometimes occasion upon a particular estate, is
always so very small, that it never can discourage those improvements,
nor keep down the produce of the land below what it would otherwise rise
to. As it has no tendency to diminish the quantity, it can have none to
raise the price of that produce. It does not obstruct the industry of
the people; it subjects the landlord to no other inconveniency besides
the unavoidable one of paying the tax. The advantage, however, which the
land-lord has derived from the invariable constancy of the valuation, by
which all the lands of Great Britain are rated to the land-tax, has been
principally owing to some circumstances altogether extraneous to the
nature of the tax.

It has been owing in part, to the great prosperity of almost every part
of the country, the rents of almost all the estates of Great Britain
having, since the time when this valuation was first established, been
continually rising, and scarce any of them having fallen. The landlords,
therefore, have almost all gained the difference between the tax which
they would have paid, according to the present rent of their estates,
and that which they actually pay according to the ancient valuation.
Had the state of the country been different, had rents been gradually
falling in consequence of the declension of cultivation, the landlords
would almost all have lost this difference. In the state of things which
has happened to take place since the revolution, the constancy of the
valuation has been advantageous to the landlord and hurtful to
the sovereign. In a different state of things it might have been
advantageous to the sovereign and hurtful to the landlord.

As the tax is made payable in money, so the valuation of the land is
expressed in money. Since the establishment of this valuation, the value
of silver has been pretty uniform, and there has been no alteration in
the standard of the coin, either as to weight or fineness. Had silver
risen considerably in its value, as it seems to have done in the course
of the two centuries which preceded the discovery of the mines
of America, the constancy of the valuation might have proved very
oppressive to the landlord. Had silver fallen considerably in its value,
as it certainly did for about a century at least after the discovery
of those mines, the same constancy of valuation would have reduced very
much this branch of the revenue of the sovereign. Had any considerable
alteration been made in the standard of the money, either by sinking the
same quantity of silver to a lower denomination, or by raising it to
a higher; had an ounce of silver, for example, instead of being coined
into five shillings and two pence, been coined either into pieces which
bore so low a denomination as two shillings and seven pence, or into
pieces which bore so high a one as ten shillings and four pence, it
would, in the one case, have hurt the revenue of the proprietor, in the
other that of the sovereign.

In circumstances, therefore, somewhat different from those which have
actually taken place, this constancy of valuation might have been a very
great inconveniency, either to the contributors or to the commonwealth.
In the course of ages, such circumstances, however, must at some time or
other happen. But though empires, like all the other works of men, have
all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality. Every
constitution, therefore, which it is meant should be as permanent as
the empire itself, ought to be convenient, not in certain circumstances
only, but in all circumstances; or ought to be suited, not to those
circumstances which are transitory, occasional, or accidental, but to
those which are necessary, and therefore always the same.

A tax upon the rent of land, which varies with every variation of the
rent, or which rises and falls according to the improvement or neglect
of cultivation, is recommended by that sect of men of letters in France,
who call themselves the economists, as the most equitable of all taxes.
All taxes, they pretend, fall ultimately upon the rent of land, and
ought, therefore, to be imposed equally upon the fund which must finally
pay them. That all taxes ought to fall as equally as possible upon
the fund which must finally pay them, is certainly true. But without
entering into the disagreeable discussion of the metaphysical arguments
by which they support their very ingenious theory, it will sufficiently
appear, from the following review, what are the taxes which fall finally
upon the rent of the land, and what are those which fall finally upon
some other fund.

In the Venetian territory, all the arable lands which are given in lease
to farmers are taxed at a tenth of the rent. {Memoires concernant les
Droits, p. 240, 241.} The leases are recorded in a public register,
which is kept by the officers of revenue in each province or district.
When the proprietor cultivates his own lands, they are valued according
to an equitable estimation, and he is allowed a deduction of one-fifth
of the tax; so that for such land he pays only eight instead of ten per
cent. of the supposed rent.

A land-tax of this kind is certainly more equal than the land-tax
of England. It might not, perhaps, be altogether so certain, and the
assessment of the tax might frequently occasion a good deal more trouble
to the landlord. It might, too, be a good deal more expensive in the
levying.

Such a system of administration, however, might, perhaps, be contrived,
as would in a great measure both prevent this uncertainty, and moderate
this expense.

The landlord and tenant, for example, might jointly be obliged to record
their lease in a public register. Proper penalties might be enacted
against concealing or misrepresenting any of the conditions; and if
part of those penalties were to be paid to either of the two parties
who informed against and convicted the other of such concealment or
misrepresentation, it would effectually deter them from combining
together in order to defraud the public revenue. All the conditions of
the lease might be sufficiently known from such a record.

Some landlords, instead of raising the rent, take a fine for the renewal
of the lease. This practice is, in most cases, the expedient of a
spendthrift, who, for a sum of ready money sells a future revenue of
much greater value. It is, in most cases, therefore, hurtful to the
landlord; it is frequently hurtful to the tenant; and it is always
hurtful to the community. It frequently takes from the tenant so great
a part of his capital, and thereby diminishes so much his ability to
cultivate the land, that he finds it more difficult to pay a small
rent than it would otherwise have been to pay a great one. Whatever
diminishes his ability to cultivate, necessarily keeps down, below what
it would otherwise have been, the most important part of the revenue of
the community. By rendering the tax upon such fines a good deal heavier
than upon the ordinary rent, this hurtful practice might be discouraged,
to the no small advantage of all the different parties concerned, of the
landlord, of the tenant, of the sovereign, and of the whole community.

Some leases prescribe to the tenant a certain mode of cultivation, and a
certain succession of crops, during the whole continuance of the lease.
This condition, which is generally the effect of the landlord's
conceit of his own superior knowledge (a conceit in most cases very
ill-founded), ought always to be considered as an additional rent, as a
rent in service, instead of a rent in money. In order to discourage the
practice, which is generally a foolish one, this species of rent might
be valued rather high, and consequently taxed somewhat higher than
common money-rents.

Some landlords, instead of a rent in money, require a rent in kind, in
corn, cattle, poultry, wine, oil, etc.; others, again, require a rent
in service. Such rents are always more hurtful to the tenant than
beneficial to the landlord. They either take more, or keep more out
of the pocket of the former, than they put into that of the latter. In
every country where they take place, the tenants are poor and beggarly,
pretty much according to the degree in which they take place. By
valuing, in the same manner, such rents rather high, and consequently
taxing them somewhat higher than common money-rents, a practice which
is hurtful to the whole community, might, perhaps, be sufficiently
discouraged.

When the landlord chose to occupy himself a part of his own lands,
the rent might be valued according to an equitable arbitration of the
farmers and landlords in the neighbourhood, and a moderate abatement of
the tax might be granted to him, in the same manner as in the Venetian
territory, provided the rent of the lands which he occupied did not
exceed a certain sum. It is of importance that the landlord should be
encouraged to cultivate a part of his own land. His capital is generally
greater than that of the tenant, and, with less skill, he can frequently
raise a greater produce. The landlord can afford to try experiments, and
is generally disposed to do so. His unsuccessful experiments occasion
only a moderate loss to himself. His successful ones contribute to the
improvement and better cultivation of the whole country. It might be of
importance, however, that the abatement of the tax should encourage
him to cultivate to a certain extent only. If the landlords should, the
greater part of them, be tempted to farm the whole of their own lands,
the country (instead of sober and industrious tenants, who are bound by
their own interest to cultivate as well as their capital and skill will
allow them) would be filled with idle and profligate bailiffs, whose
abusive management would soon degrade the cultivation, and reduce the
annual produce of the land, to the diminution, not only of the revenue
of their masters, but of the most important part of that of the whole
society.

Such a system of administration might, perhaps, free a tax of this kind
from any degree of uncertainty, which could occasion either oppression
or inconveniency to the contributor; and might, at the same time, serve
to introduce into the common management of land such a plan of policy
as might contribute a good deal to the general improvement and good
cultivation of the country.

The expense of levying a land-tax, which varied with every variation of
the rent, would, no doubt, be somewhat greater than that of levying one
which was always rated according to a fixed valuation. Some additional
expense would necessarily be incurred, both by the different
register-offices which it would be proper to establish in the different
districts of the country, and by the different valuations which might
occasionally be made of the lands which the proprietor chose to occupy
himself. The expense of all this, however, might be very moderate, and
much below what is incurred in the levying of many other taxes, which
afford a very inconsiderable revenue in comparison of what might easily
be drawn from a tax of this kind.

The discouragement which a variable land-tax of this kind might give to
the improvement of land, seems to be the most important objection which
can be made to it. The landlord would certainly be less disposed to
improve, when the sovereign, who contributed nothing to the expense, was
to share in the profit of the improvement. Even this objection might,
perhaps, be obviated, by allowing the landlord, before he began his
improvement, to ascertain, in conjunction with the officers of revenue,
the actual value of his lands, according to the equitable arbitration of
a certain number of landlords and farmers in the neighbourhood, equally
chosen by both parties: and by rating him, according to this valuation,
for such a number of years as might be fully sufficient for his complete
indemnification. To draw the attention of the sovereign towards the
improvement of the land, from a regard to the increase of his own
revenue, is one or the principal advantages proposed by this species of
land-tax. The term, therefore, allowed, for the indemnification of the
landlord, ought not to be a great deal longer than what was necessary
for that purpose, lest the remoteness of the interest should discourage
too much this attention. It had better, however, be somewhat too long,
than in any respect too short. No incitement to the attention of the
sovereign can ever counterbalance the smallest discouragement to that of
the landlord. The attention of the sovereign can be, at best, but a very
general and vague consideration of what is likely to contribute to the
better cultivation of the greater part of his dominions. The attention
of the landlord is a particular and minute consideration of what is
likely to be the most advantageous application of every inch of ground
upon his estate. The principal attention of the sovereign ought to be,
to encourage, by every means in his power, the attention both of
the landlord and of the farmer, by allowing both to pursue their own
interest in their own way, and according to their own judgment; by
giving to both the most perfect security that they shall enjoy the full
recompence of their own industry; and by procuring to both the most
extensive market for every part of their produce, in consequence of
establishing the easiest and safest communications, both by land and
by water, through every part of his own dominions, as well as the most
unbounded freedom of exportation to the dominions of all other princes.

If, by such a system of administration, a tax of this kind could be so
managed as to give, not only no discouragement, but, on the contrary,
some encouragement to the improvement or land, it does not appear likely
to occasion any other inconveniency to the landlord, except always the
unavoidable one of being obliged to pay the tax. In all the variations
of the state of the society, in the improvement and in the declension
of agriculture; in all the variations in the value of silver, and in all
those in the standard of the coin, a tax of this kind would, of its own
accord, and without any attention of government, readily suit itself to
the actual situation of things, and would be equally just and equitable
in all those different changes. It would, therefore, be much more proper
to be established as a perpetual and unalterable regulation, or as what
is called a fundamental law of the commonwealth, than any tax which was
always to be levied according to a certain valuation.

Some states, instead of the simple and obvious expedient of a register
of leases, have had recourse to the laborious and expensive one of an
actual survey and valuation of all the lands in the country. They have
suspected, probably, that the lessor and lessee, in order to defraud the
public revenue, might combine to conceal the real terms of the lease.
Doomsday-book seems to have been the result of a very accurate survey of
this kind.

In the ancient dominions of the king of Prussia, the land-tax is
assessed according to an actual survey and valuation, which is reviewed
and altered from time to time. {Memoires concurent les Droits, etc.
tom, i. p. 114, 115, 116, etc.} According to that valuation, the lay
proprietors pay from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of their revenue;
ecclesiastics from forty to forty-five per cent. The survey and
valuation of Silesia was made by order of the present king, it is said,
with great accuracy. According to that valuation, the lands belonging to
the bishop of Breslaw are taxed at twenty-five per cent. of their rent.
The other revenues of the ecclesiastics of both religions at fifty per
cent. The commanderies of the Teutonic order, and of that of Malta,
at forty per cent. Lands held by a noble tenure, at thirty-eight and
one-third per cent. Lands held by a base tenure, at thirty-five and
one-third per cent.

The survey and valuation of Bohemia is said to have been the work of
more than a hundred years. It was not perfected till after the peace of
1748, by the orders of the present empress queen. {Id. tom i. p.85, 84.}
The survey of the duchy of Milan, which was begun in the time of Charles
VI., was not perfected till after 1760 It is esteemed one of the most
accurate that has ever been made. The survey of Savoy and Piedmont was
executed under the orders of the late king of Sardinia. {Id. p. 280,
etc.; also p, 287. etc. to 316.}

In the dominions of the king of Prussia, the revenue of the church
is taxed much higher than that of lay proprietors. The revenue of the
church is, the greater part of it, a burden upon the rent of land. It
seldom happens that any part of it is applied towards the improvement
of land; or is so employed as to contribute, in any respect, towards
increasing the revenue of the great body of the people. His Prussian
majesty had probably, upon that account, thought it reasonable that it
should contribute a good deal more towards relieving the exigencies of
the state. In some countries, the lands of the church are exempted from
all taxes. In others, they are taxed more lightly than other lands. In
the duchy of Milan, the lands which the church possessed before 1575,
are rated to the tax at a third only or their value.

In Silesia, lands held by a noble tenure are taxed three per cent.
higher than those held by a base tenure. The honours and privileges of
different kinds annexed to the former, his Prussian majesty had probably
imagined, would sufficiently compensate to the proprietor a small
aggravation of the tax; while, at the same time, the humiliating
inferiority of the latter would be in some measure alleviated, by being
taxed somewhat more lightly. In other countries, the system of taxation,
instead of alleviating, aggravates this inequality. In the dominions of
the king of Sardinia, and in those provinces of France which are subject
to what is called the real or predial taille, the tax falls altogether
upon the lands held by a base tenure. Those held by a noble one are
exempted.

A land tax assessed according to a general survey and valuation, how
equal soever it may be at first, must, in the course of a very moderate
period of time, become unequal. To prevent its becoming so would require
the continual and painful attention of government to all the variations
in the state and produce of every different farm in the country. The
governments of Prussia, of Bohemia, of Sardinia, and of the duchy
of Milan, actually exert an attention of this kind; an attention so
unsuitable to the nature of government, that it is not likely to be of
long continuance, and which, if it is continued, will probably, in the
long-run, occasion much more trouble and vexation than it can possibly
bring relief to the contributors.

In 1666, the generality of Montauban was assessed to the real or predial
taille, according, it is said, to a very exact survey and valuation.
{Memoires concernant les Droits, etc. tom. ii p. 139, etc.} By 1727,
this assessment had become altogether unequal. In order to remedy this
inconveniency, government has found no better expedient, than to impose
upon the whole generality an additional tax of a hundred and twenty
thousand livres. This additional tax is rated upon all the different
districts subject to the taille according to the old assessment. But it
is levied only upon those which, in the actual state of things, are by
that assessment under-taxed; and it is applied to the relief of those
which, by the same assessment, are over-taxed. Two districts, for
example, one of which ought, in the actual state of things, to be taxed
at nine hundred, the other at eleven hundred livres, are, by the old
assessment, both taxed at a thousand livres. Both these districts are,
by the additional tax, rated at eleven hundred livres each. But this
additional tax is levied only upon the district under-charged, and it is
applied altogether to the relief of that overcharged, which consequently
pays only nine hundred livres. The government neither gains nor loses
by the additional tax, which is applied altogether to remedy the
inequalities arising from the old assessment. The application is pretty
much regulated according to the discretion of the intendant of the
generality, and must, therefore, be in a great measure arbitrary.


Taxes which are proportioned, not in the Rent, but to the Produce of
Land.

Taxes upon the produce of land are, In reality, taxes upon the rent; and
though they may be originally advanced by the farmer, are finally paid
by the landlord. When a certain portion of the produce is to be paid
away for a tax, the farmer computes as well as he can, what the value
of this portion is, one year with another, likely to amount to, and he
makes a proportionable abatement in the rent which he agrees to pay to
the landlord. There is no farmer who does not compute beforehand what
the church tythe, which is a land tax of this kind, is, one year with
another, likely to amount to.

The tythe, and every other land tax of this kind, under the appearance
of perfect equality, are very unequal taxes; a certain portion of the
produce being in differrent situations, equivalent to a very different
portion of the rent. In some very rich lands, the produce is so great,
that the one half of it is fully sufficient to replace to the farmer his
capital employed in cultivation, together with the ordinary profits of
farming stock in the neighbourhood. The other half, or, what comes to
the same thing, the value of the other half, he could afford to pay
as rent to the landlord, if there was no tythe. But if a tenth of
the produce is taken from him in the way of tythe, he must require an
abatement of the fifth part of his rent, otherwise he cannot get back
his capital with the ordinary profit. In this case, the rent of the
landlord, instead of amounting to a half, or five-tenths of the whole
produce, will amount only to four-tenths of it. In poorer lands, on
the contrary, the produce is sometimes so small, and the expense of
cultivation so great, that it requires four-fifths of the whole produce,
to replace to the farmer his capital with the ordinary profit. In this
case, though there was no tythe, the rent of the landlord could amount
to no more than one-fifth or two-tenths of the whole produce. But if
the farmer pays one-tenth of the produce in the way of tythe, he must
require an equal abatement of the rent of the landlord, which will thus
be reduced to one-tenth only of the whole produce. Upon the rent of rich
lands the tythe may sometimes be a tax of no more than one-fifth part,
or four shillings in the pound; whereas upon that of poorer lands, it
may sometimes be a tax of one half, or of ten shillings in the pound.

The tythe, as it is frequently a very unequal tax upon the rent, so
it is always a great discouragement, both to the improvements of the
landlord, and to the cultivation of the farmer. The one cannot venture
to make the most important, which are generally the most expensive
improvements; nor the other to raise the most valuable, which are
generally, too, the most expensive crops; when the church, which lays
out no part of the expense, is to share so very largely in the profit.
The cultivation of madder was, for a long time, confined by the tythe to
the United Provinces, which, being presbyterian countries, and upon that
account exempted from this destructive tax, enjoyed a sort of monopoly
of that useful dyeing drug against the rest of Europe. The late attempts
to introduce the culture of this plant into England, have been made only
in consequence of the statute, which enacted that five shillings an acre
should be received in lieu of all manner of tythe upon madder.

As through the greater part of Europe, the church, so in many different
countries of Asia, the state, is principally supported by a land tax,
proportioned not to the rent, but to the produce of the land. In China,
the principal revenue of the sovereign consists in a tenth part of the
produce of all the lands of the empire. This tenth part, however, is
estimated so very moderately, that, in many provinces, it is said not
to exceed a thirtieth part of the ordinary produce. The land tax or land
rent which used to be paid to the Mahometan government of Bengal, before
that country fell into the hands of the English East India company, is
said to have amounted to about a fifth part of the produce. The land tax
of ancient Egypt is said likewise to have amounted to a fifth part.

In Asia, this sort of land tax is said to interest the sovereign in the
improvement and cultivation of land. The sovereigns of China, those of
Bengal while under the Mahometan govermnent, and those of ancient Egypt,
are said, accordingly, to have been extremely attentive to the making
and maintaining of good roads and navigable canals, in order to
increase, as much as possible, both the quantity and value of every part
of the produce of the land, by procuring to every part of it the most
extensive market which their own dominions could afford. The tythe
of the church is divided into such small portions that no one of its
proprietors can have any interest of this kind. The parson of a parish
could never find his account, in making a road or canal to a distant
part of the country, in order to extend the market for the produce of
his own particular parish. Such taxes, when destined for the maintenance
of the state, have some advantages, which may serve in some measure to
balance their inconveniency. When destined for the maintenance of the
church, they are attended with nothing but inconveniency.

Taxes upon the produce of land may be levied, either in kind, or,
according to a certain valuation in money.

The parson of a parish, or a gentleman of small fortune who lives upon
his estate, may sometimes, perhaps find some advantage in receiving,
the one his tythe, and the other his rent, in kind. The quantity to be
collected, and the district within which it is to be collected, are so
small, that they both can oversee, with their own eyes, the collection
and disposal of every part of what is due to them. A gentleman of great
fortune, who lived in the capital, would be in danger of suffering much
by the neglect, and more by the fraud, of his factors and agents, if the
rents of an estate in a distant province were to be paid to him in this
manner. The loss of the sovereign, from the abuse and depredation of his
tax-gatherers, would necessarily be much greater. The servants of the
most careless private person are, perhaps, more under the eye of their
master than those of the most careful prince; and a public revenue,
which was paid in kind, would suffer so much from the mismanagement
of the collectors, that a very small part of what was levied upon the
people would ever arrive at the treasury of the prince. Some part of the
public revenue of China, however, is said to be paid in this manner. The
mandarins and other tax-gatherers will, no doubt, find their advantage
in continuing the practice of a payment, which is so much more liable to
abuse than any payment in money.

A tax upon the produce of land, which is levied in money, may be levied,
either according to a valuation, which varies with all the variations of
the market price; or according to a fixed valuation, a bushel of wheat,
for example, being always valued at one and the same money price,
whatever may be the state of the market. The produce of a tax levied in
the former way will vary only according to the variations in the
real produce of the land, according to the improvement or neglect of
cultivation. The produce of a tax levied in the latter way will vary,
not only according to the variations in the produce of the land, but
according both to those in the value of the precious metals, and those
in the quantity of those metals which is at different times contained
in coin of the same denomination. The produce of the former will always
bear the same proportion to the value of the real produce of the land.
The produce of the latter may, at different times, bear very different
proportions to that value.

When, instead either of a certain portion of the produce of land, or of
the price of a certain portion, a certain sum of money is to be paid in
full compensation for all tax or tythe; the tax becomes, in this case,
exactly of the same nature with the land tax of England. It neither
rises nor falls with the rent of the land. It neither encourages nor
discourages improvement. The tythe in the greater part of those parishes
which pay what is called a modus, in lieu of all other tythe is a tax
of this kind. During the Mahometan government of Bengal, instead of the
payment in kind of the fifth part of the produce, a modus, and, it is
said, a very moderate one, was established in the greater part of the
districts or zemindaries of the country. Some of the servants of the
East India company, under pretence of restoring the public revenue to
its proper value, have, in some provinces, exchanged this modus for a
payment in kind. Under their management, this change is likely both to
discourage cultivation, and to give new opportunities for abuse in the
collection of the public revenue, which has fallen very much below what
it was said to have been when it first fell under the management of the
company. The servants of the company may, perhaps, have profited by the
change, but at the expense, it is probable, both of their masters and of
the country.

Taxes upon the Rent of Houses.

The rent of a house may be distinguished into two parts, of which the
one may very properly be called the building-rent; the other is commonly
called the ground-rent.

The building-rent is the interest or profit of the capital expended in
building the house. In order to put the trade of a builder upon a level
with other trades, it is necessary that this rent should be sufficient,
first, to pay him the same interest which he would have got for his
capital, if he had lent it upon good security; and, secondly, to keep
the house in constant repair, or, what comes to the same thing, to
replace, within a certain term of years, the capital which had been
employed in building it. The building-rent, or the ordinary profit of
building, is, therefore, everywhere regulated by the ordinary interest
of money. Where the market rate of interest is four per cent. the rent
of a house, which, over and above paying the ground-rent, affords six
or six and a-half per cent. upon the whole expense of building, may,
perhaps, afford a sufficient profit to the builder. Where the market
rate of interest is five per cent. it may perhaps require seven or seven
and a half per cent. If, in proportion to the interest of money, the
trade of the builders affords at any time much greater profit than this,
it will soon draw so much capital from other trades as will reduce the
profit to its proper level. If it affords at any time much less than
this, other trades will soon draw so much capital from it as will again
raise that profit.

Whatever part of the whole rent of a house is over and above what is
sufficient for affording this reasonable profit, naturally goes to the
ground-rent; and, where the owner of the ground and the owner of the
building are two different persons, is, in most cases, completely paid
to the former. This surplus rent is the price which the inhabitant of
the house pays for some real or supposed advantage of the situation. In
country houses, at a distance from any great town, where there is plenty
of ground to chuse upon, the ground-rent is scarce anything, or no more
than what the ground which the house stands upon would pay, if employed
in agriculture. In country villas, in the neighbourhood of some great
town, it is sometimes a good deal higher; and the peculiar conveniency
or beauty of situation is there frequently very well paid for.
Ground-rents are generally highest in the capital, and in those
particular parts of it where there happens to be the greatest demand
for houses, whatever be the reason of that demand, whether for trade and
business, for pleasure and society, or for mere vanity and fashion.

A tax upon house-rent, payable by the tenant, and proportioned to the
whole rent of each house, could not, for any considerable time at least,
affect the building-rent. If the builder did not get his reasonable
profit, he would be obliged to quit the trade; which, by raising the
demand for building, would, in a short time, bring back his profit to
its proper level with that of other trades. Neither would such a tax
fall altogether upon the ground-rent; but it would divide itself in such
a manner, as to fall partly upon the inhabitant of the house, and partly
upon the owner of the ground.

Let us suppose, for example, that a particular person judges that he
can afford for house-rent all expense of sixty pounds a-year; and let
us suppose, too, that a tax of four shillings in the pound, or of
one-fifth, payable by the inhabitant, is laid upon house-rent. A house
of sixty pounds rent will, in that case, cost him seventy-two pounds
a-year, which is twelve pounds more than he thinks he can afford. He
will, therefore, content himself with a worse house, or a house of fifty
pounds rent, which, with the additional ten pounds that he must pay for
the tax, will make up the sum of sixty pounds a-year, the expense which
he judges he can afford, and, in order to pay the tax, he will give up a
part of the additional conveniency which he might have had from a house
of ten pounds a-year more rent. He will give up, I say, a part of this
additional conveniency; for he will seldom be obliged to give up the
whole, but will, in consequence of the tax, get a better house for fifty
pounds a-year, than he could have got if there had been no tax for as
a tax of this kind, by taking away this particular competitor, must
diminish the competition for houses of sixty pounds rent, so it must
likewise diminish it for those of fifty pounds rent, and in the same
manner for those of all other rents, except the lowest rent, for which
it would for some time increase the competition. But the rents of
every class of houses for which the competition was diminished, would
necessarily be more or less reduced. As no part of this reduction,
however, could for any considerable time at least, affect the
building-rent, the whole of it must, in the long-run, necessarily fall
upon the ground-rent. The final payment of this tax, therefore, would
fall partly upon the inhabitant of the house, who, in order to pay his
share, would be obliged to give up a part of his conveniency; and partly
upon the owner of the ground, who, in order to pay his share, would be
obliged to give up a part of his revenue. In what proportion this final
payment would be divided between them, it is not, perhaps, very easy to
ascertain. The division would probably be very different in different
circumstances, and a tax of this kind might, according to those
different circumstances, affect very unequally, both the inhabitant of
the house and the owner of the ground.

The inequality with which a tax of this kind might fall upon the owners
of different ground-rents, would arise altogether from the accidental
inequality of this division. But the inequality with which it might fall
upon the inhabitants of different houses, would arise, not only
from this, but from another cause. The proportion of the expense of
house-rent to the whole expense of living, is different in the different
degrees of fortune. It is, perhaps, highest in the highest degree, and
it diminishes gradually through the inferior degrees, so as in general
to be lowest in the lowest degree. The necessaries of life occasion the
great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and
the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The
luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the
rich; and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best
advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax
upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the
rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be any
thing very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich
should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their
revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

The rent of houses, though it in some respects resembles the rent of
land, is in one respect essentially different from it. The rent of land
is paid for the use of a productive subject. The land which pays it
produces it. The rent of houses is paid for the use of an unproductive
subject. Neither the house, nor the ground which it stands upon, produce
anything. The person who pays the rent, therefore, must draw it from
some other source of revenue, distinct from and independent of this
subject. A tax upon the rent of houses, so far as it falls upon the
inhabitants, must be drawn from the same source as the rent itself,
and must be paid from their revenue, whether derived from the wages of
labour, the profits of stock, or the rent of land. So far as it falls
upon the inhabitants, it is one of those taxes which fall, not upon one
only, but indifferently upon all the three different sources of revenue;
and is, in every respect, of the same nature as a tax upon any other
sort of consumable commodities. In general, there is not perhaps,
any one article of expense or consumption by which the liberality or
narrowness of a man's whole expense can be better judged of than by his
house-rent. A proportional tax upon this particular article of expense
might, perhaps, produce a more considerable revenue than any which has
hitherto been drawn from it in any part of Europe. If the tax, indeed,
was very high, the greater part of people would endeavour to evade it as
much as they could, by contenting themselves with smaller houses, and by
turning the greater part of their expense into some other channel.

The rent of houses might easily be ascertained with sufficient accuracy,
by a policy of the same kind with that which would be necessary for
ascertaining the ordinary rent of land. Houses not inhabited ought to
pay no tax. A tax upon them would fall altogether upon the proprietor,
who would thus be taxed for a subject which afforded him neither
conveniency nor revenue. Houses inhabited by the proprietor ought to
be rated, not according to the expense which they might have cost in
building, but according to the rent which an equitable arbitration might
judge them likely to bring if leased to a tenant. If rated according to
the expense which they might have cost in building, a tax of three or
four shillings in the pound, joined with other taxes, would ruin almost
all the rich and great families of this, and, I believe, of every other
civilized country. Whoever will examine with attention the different
town and country houses of some of the richest and greatest families
in this country, will find that, at the rate of only six and a-half, or
seven per cent. upon the original expense of building, their house-rent
is nearly equal to the whole neat rent of their estates. It is the
accumulated expense of several successive generations, laid out upon
objects of great beauty and magnificence, indeed, but, in proportion
to what they cost, of very small exchangeable value. {Since the
first publication of this book, a tax nearly upon the above-mentioned
principles has been imposed.}

Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent
of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rent of houses;
it would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts
always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got
for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it, according as
the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify
their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller
expense. In every country, the greatest number of rich competitors is in
the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents
are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no
respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably
be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was
to be advanced by the inhabitant or by the owner of the ground, would be
of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the
tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the
final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the
ground-rent. The ground-rents of uninhabited houses ought to pay no
tax. Both ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are a species
of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or
attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be taken from
him in order to defray the expenses of the state, no discouragement will
thereby be given to any sort of industry. The annual produce of the land
and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great
body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before.
Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are therefore, perhaps, the
species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed
upon them.

Ground-rents seem, in this respect, a more proper subject of peculiar
taxation, than even the ordinary rent of land. The ordinary rent of land
is, in many cases, owing partly, at least, to the attention and good
management of the landlord. A very heavy tax might discourage, too much,
this attention and good management. Ground-rents, so far as they exceed
the ordinary rent of land, are altogether owing to the good government
of the sovereign, which, by protecting the industry either of the whole
people or of the inhabitants of some particular place, enables them to
pay so much more than its real value for the ground which they
build their houses upon; or to make to its owner so much more than
compensation for the loss which he might sustain by this use of it.
Nothing can be more reasonable, than that a fund, which owes its
existence to the good government of the state, should be taxed
peculiarly, or should contribute something more than the greater part of
other funds, towards the support of that government.

Though, in many different countries of Europe, taxes have been imposed
upon the rent of houses, I do not know of any in which ground-rents have
been considered as a separate subject of taxation. The contrivers of
taxes have, probably, found some difficulty in ascertaining what part of
the rent ought to be considered as ground-rent, and what part ought
to be considered as building-rent. It should not, however, seem very
difficult to distinguish those two parts of the rent from one another.

In Great Britain the rent of houses is supposed to be taxed in the same
proportion as the rent of land, by what is called the annual land tax.
The valuation, according to which each different parish and district is
assessed to this tax, is always the same. It was originally extremely
unequal, and it still continues to be so. Through the greater part of
the kingdom this tax falls still more lightly upon the rent of
houses than upon that of land. In some few districts only, which were
originally rated high, and in which the rents of houses have fallen
considerably, the land tax of three or four shillings in the pound
is said to amount to an equal proportion of the real rent of houses.
Untenanted houses, though by law subject to the tax, are, in most
districts, exempted from it by the favour of the assessors; and this
exemption sometimes occasions some little variation in the rate of
particular houses, though that of the district is always the same.
Improvements of rent, by new buildings, repairs, etc. go to the
discharge of the district, which occasions still further variations in
the rate of particular houses.

In the province of Holland, {Memoires concernant les Droits, etc. p.
223.} every house is taxed at two and a-half per cent. of its value,
without any regard, either to the rent which it actually pays, or to the
circumstance of its being tenanted or untenanted. There seems to be
a hardship in obliging the proprietor to pay a tax for an untenanted
house, from which he can derive no revenue, especially so very heavy a
tax. In Holland, where the market rate of interest does not exceed three
per cent., two and a-half per cent. upon the whole value of the house
must, in most cases, amount to more than a third of the building-rent,
perhaps of the whole rent. The valuation, indeed, according to which the
houses are rated, though very unequal, is said to be always below the
real value. When a house is rebuilt, improved, or enlarged, there is a
new valuation, and the tax is rated accordingly.

The contrivers of the several taxes which in England have, at different
times, been imposed upon houses, seem to have imagined that there was
some great difficulty in ascertaining, with tolerable exactness, what
was the real rent of every house. They have regulated their taxes,
therefore, according to some more obvious circumstance, such as they
had probably imagined would, in most cases, bear some proportion to the
rent.

The first tax of this kind was hearth-money; or a tax of two shillings
upon every hearth. In order to ascertain how many hearths were in the
house, it was necessary that the tax-gatherer should enter every room
in it. This odious visit rendered the tax odious. Soon after the
Revolution, therefore, it was abolished as a badge of slavery.

The next tax of this kind was a tax of two shillings upon every
dwelling-house inhabited. A house with ten windows to pay four shillings
more. A house with twenty windows and upwards to pay eight shillings.
This tax was afterwards so far altered, that houses with twenty windows,
and with less than thirty, were ordered to pay ten shillings, and those
with thirty windows and upwards to pay twenty shillings. The number of
windows can, in most cases, be counted from the outside, and, in all
cases, without entering every room in the house. The visit of the
tax-gatherer, therefore, was less offensive in this tax than in the
hearth-money.

This tax was afterwards repealed, and in the room of it was established
the window-tax, which has undergone two several alterations and
augmentations. The window tax, as it stands at present (January 1775),
over and above the duty of three shillings upon every house in England,
and of one shilling upon every house in Scotland, lays a duty upon every
window, which in England augments gradually from twopence, the lowest
rate upon houses with not more than seven windows, to two shillings, the
highest rate upon houses with twenty-five windows and upwards.

The principal objection to all such taxes is their inequality; an
inequality of the worst kind, as they must frequently fall much heavier
upon the poor than upon the rich. A house of ten pounds rent in a
country town, may sometimes have more windows than a house of five
hundred pounds rent in London; and though the inhabitant of the former
is likely to be a much poorer man than that of the latter, yet, so far
as his contribution is regulated by the window tax, he must contribute
more to the support of the state. Such taxes are, therefore, directly
contrary to the first of the four maxims above mentioned. They do not
seem to offend much against any of the other three.

The natural tendency of the window tax, and of all other taxes upon
houses, is to lower rents. The more a man pays for the tax, the less, it
is evident, he can afford to pay for the rent. Since the imposition of
the window tax, however, the rents of houses have, upon the whole, risen
more or less, in almost every town and village of Great Britain, with
which I am acquainted. Such has been, almost everywhere, the increase of
the demand for houses, that it has raised the rents more than the window
tax could sink them; one of the many proofs of the great prosperity of
the country, and of the increasing revenue of its inhabitants. Had it
not been for the tax, rents would probably have risen still higher.

ARTICLE II.--Taxes upon Profit, or upon the Revenue arising from Stock.

The revenue or profit arising from stock naturally divides itself into
two parts; that which pays the interest, and which belongs to the owner
of the stock; and that surplus part which is over and above what is
necessary for paying the interest.

This latter part of profit is evidently a subject not taxable directly.
It is the compensation, and, in most cases, it is no more than a very
moderate compensation for the risk and trouble of employing the
stock. The employer must have this compensation, otherwise he cannot,
consistently with his own interest, continue the employment. If he was
taxed directly, therefore, in proportion to the whole profit, he would
be obliged either to raise the rate of his profit, or to charge the tax
upon the interest of money; that is, to pay less interest. If he raised
the rate of his profit in proportion to the tax, the whole tax, though
it might be advanced by him, would be finally paid by one or other of
two different sets of people, according to the different ways in which
he might employ the stock of which he had the management. If he employed
it as a farming stock, in the cultivation of land, he could raise the
rate of his profit only by retaining a greater portion, or, what comes
to the same thing, the price of a greater portion, of the produce of the
land; and as this could be done only by a reduction of rent, the final
payment of the tax would fall upon the landlord. If he employed it as a
mercantile or manufacturing stock, he could raise the rate of his profit
only by raising the price of his goods; in which case, the final payment
of the tax would fall altogether upon the consumers of those goods. If
he did not raise the rate of his profit, he would be obliged to charge
the whole tax upon that part of it which was allotted for the interest
of money. He could afford less interest for whatever stock he borrowed,
and the whole weight of the tax would, in this case, fall ultimately
upon the interest of money. So far as he could not relieve himself from
the tax in the one way, he would be obliged to relieve himself in the
other.

The interest of money seems, at first sight, a subject equally capable
of being taxed directly as the rent of land. Like the rent of land,
it is a neat produce, which remains, after completely compensating the
whole risk and trouble of employing the stock. As a tax upon the rent of
land cannot raise rents, because the neat produce which remains, after
replacing the stock of the farmer, together with his reasonable profit,
cannot be greater after the tax than before it, so, for the same reason,
a tax upon the interest of money could not raise the rate of interest;
the quantity of stock or money in the country, like the quantity of
land, being supposed to remain the same after the tax as before it.
The ordinary rate of profit, it has been shewn, in the first book,
is everywhere regulated by the quantity of stock to be employed, in
proportion to the quantity of the employment, or of the business which
must be done by it. But the quantity of the employment, or of the
business to be done by stock, could neither be increased nor diminished
by any tax upon the interest of money. If the quantity of the stock to
be employed, therefore, was neither increased nor diminished by it,
the ordinary rate of profit would necessarily remain the same. But the
portion of this profit, necessary for compensating the risk and trouble
of the employer, would likewise remain the same; that risk and trouble
being in no respect altered. The residue, therefore, that portion which
belongs to the owner of the stock, and which pays the interest of money,
would necessarily remain the same too. At first sight, therefore, the
interest of money seems to be a subject as fit to be taxed directly as
the rent of land.

There are, however, two different circumstances, which render the
interest of money a much less proper subject of direct taxation than the
rent of land.

First, the quantity and value of the land which any man possesses, can
never be a secret, and can always be ascertained with great exactness.
But the whole amount of the capital stock which he possesses is almost
always a secret, and can scarce ever be ascertained with tolerable
exactness. It is liable, besides, to almost continual variations. A year
seldom passes away, frequently not a month, sometimes scarce a single
day, in which it does not rise or fall more or less. An inquisition into
every man's private circumstances, and an inquisition which, in order
to accommodate the tax to them, watched over all the fluctuations of his
fortune, would be a source of such continual and endless vexation as no
person could support.

Secondly, land is a subject which cannot be removed; whereas stock
easily may. The proprietor of land is necessarily a citizen of the
particular country in which his estate lies. The proprietor of stock is
properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any
particular country. He would be apt to abandon the country in which he
was exposed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to a
burdensome tax; and would remove his stock to some other country, where
he could either carry on his business, or enjoy his fortune more at his
ease. By removing his stock, he would put an end to all the industry
which it had maintained in the country which he left. Stock cultivates
land; stock employs labour. A tax which tended to drive away stock from
any particular country, would so far tend to dry up every source of
revenue, both to the sovereign and to the society. Not only the
profits of stock, but the rent of land, and the wages of labour, would
necessarily be more or less diminished by its removal.

The nations, accordingly, who have attempted to tax the revenue arising
from stock, instead of any severe inquisition of this kind, have been
obliged to content themselves with some very loose, and, therefore, more
or less arbitrary estimation. The extreme inequality and uncertainty of
a tax assessed in this manner, can be compensated only by its extreme
moderation; in consequence of which, every man finds himself rated
so very much below his real revenue, that he gives himself little
disturbance though his neighbour should be rated somewhat lower.

By what is called the land tax in England, it was intended that the
stock should be taxed in the same proportion as land. When the tax upon
land was at four shillings in the pound, or at one-fifth of the supposed
rent, it was intended that stock should be taxed at one-fifth of the
supposed interest. When the present annual land tax was first imposed,
the legal rate of interest was six per cent. Every hundred pounds stock,
accordingly, was supposed to be taxed at twenty-four shillings, the
fifth part of six pounds. Since the legal rate of interest has been
reduced to five per cent. every hundred pounds stock is supposed to be
taxed at twenty shillings only. The sum to be raised, by what is called
the land tax, was divided between the country and the principal towns.
The greater part of it was laid upon the country; and of what was laid
upon the towns, the greater part was assessed upon the houses. What
remained to be assessed upon the stock or trade of the towns (for the
stock upon the land was not meant to be taxed) was very much below the
real value of that stock or trade. Whatever inequalities, therefore,
there might be in the original assessment, gave little disturbance.
Every parish and district still continues to be rated for its land, its
houses, and its stock, according to the original assessment; and the
almost universal prosperity of the country, which, in most places, has
raised very much the value of all these, has rendered those inequalities
of still less importance now. The rate, too, upon each district,
continuing always the same, the uncertainty of this tax, so far as it
might he assessed upon the stock of any individual, has been very much
diminished, as well as rendered of much less consequence. If the greater
part of the lands of England are not rated to the land tax at half their
actual value, the greater part of the stock of England is, perhaps,
scarce rated at the fiftieth part of its actual value. In some towns,
the whole land tax is assessed upon houses; as in Westminster, where
stock and trade are free. It is otherwise in London.

In all countries, a severe inquisition into the circumstances of private
persons has been carefully avoided.

At Hamburg, {Memoires concernant les Droits, tom. i, p.74} every
inhabitant is obliged to pay to the state one fourth per cent. of all
that he possesses; and as the wealth of the people of Hamburg consists
principally in stock, this tax maybe considered as a tax upon stock.
Every man assesses himself, and, in the presence of the magistrate,
puts annually into the public coffer a certain sum of money, which he
declares upon oath, to be one fourth per cent. of all that he possesses,
but without declaring what it amounts to, or being liable to any
examination upon that subject. This tax is generally supposed to be paid
with great fidelity. In a small republic, where the people have entire
confidence in their magistrates, are convinced of the necessity of the
tax for the support of the state, and believe that it will be faithfully
applied to that purpose, such conscientious and voluntary payment may
sometimes be expected. It is not peculiar to the people of Hamburg.

The canton of Underwald, in Switzerland, is frequently ravaged by storms
and inundations, and it is thereby exposed to extraordinary expenses.
Upon such occasions the people assemble, and every one is said to
declare with the greatest frankness what he is worth, in order to
be taxed accordingly. At Zurich, the law orders, that in cases of
necessity, every one should be taxed in proportion to his revenue;
the amount of which he is obliged to declare upon oath. They have no
suspicion, it is said, that any of their fellow citizens will deceive
them. At Basil, the principal revenue of the state arises from a small
custom upon goods exported. All the citizens make oath, that they will
pay every three months all the taxes imposed by law. All merchants, and
even all inn-keepers, are trusted with keeping themselves the account
of the goods which they sell, either within or without the territory. At
the end of every three months, they send this account to the treasurer,
with the amount of the tax computed at the bottom of it. It is not
suspected that the revenue suffers by this confidence. {Memoires
concernant les Droits, tom. i p. 163, 167,171.}

To oblige every citizen to declare publicly upon oath, the amount of
his fortune, must not, it seems, in those Swiss cantons, be reckoned
a hardship. At Hamburg it would be reckoned the greatest. Merchants
engaged in the hazardous projects of trade, all tremble at the thoughts
of being obliged, at all times, to expose the real state of their
circumstances. The ruin of their credit, and the miscarriage of their
projects, they foresee, would too often be the consequence. A sober and
parsimonious people, who are strangers to all such projects, do not feel
that they have occasion for any such concealment.

In Holland, soon after the exaltation of the late prince of Orange to
the stadtholdership, a tax of two per cent. or the fiftieth penny, as it
was called, was imposed upon the whole substance of every citizen. Every
citizen assesed himself, and paid his tax, in the same manner as at
Hamburg, and it was in general supposed to have been paid with great
fidelity. The people had at that time the greatest affection for
their new government, which they had just established by a general
insurrection. The tax was to be paid but once, in order to relieve
the state in a particular exigency. It was, indeed, too heavy to be
permanent. In a country where the market rate of interest seldom exceeds
three per cent., a tax of two per cent. amounts to thirteen shillings
and four pence in the pound, upon the highest neat revenue which is
commonly drawn from stock. It is a tax which very few people could pay,
without encroaching more or less upon their capitals. In a particular
exigency, the people may, from great public zeal, make a great effort,
and give up even a part of their capital, in order to relieve the
state. But it is impossible that they should continue to do so for any
considerable time; and if they did, the tax would soon ruin them so
completely, as to render them altogether incapable of supporting the
state.

The tax upon stock, imposed by the land tax bill in England, though it
is proportioned to the capital, is not intended to diminish or, take
away any part of that capital. It is meant only to be a tax upon the
interest of money, proportioned to that upon the rent of land; so that
when the latter is at four shillings in the pound, the former may be at
four shillings in the pound too. The tax at Hamburg, and the still more
moderate taxes of Underwald and Zurich, are meant, in the same manner,
to be taxes, not upon the capital, but upon the interest or neat revenue
of stock. That of Holland was meant to be a tax upon the capital.

Taxes upon the Profit of particular Employments.

In some countries, extraordinary taxes are imposed upon the profits
of stock; sometimes when employed in particular branches of trade, and
sometimes when employed in agriculture.

Of the former kind, are in England, the tax upon hawkers and pedlars,
that upon hackney-coaches and chairs, and that which the keepers of
ale-houses pay for a licence to retail ale and spiritous liquors. During
the late war, another tax of the same kind was proposed upon shops. The
war having been undertaken, it was said, in defence of the trade of the
country, the merchants, who were to profit by it, ought to contribute
towards the support of it.

A tax, however, upon the profits of stock employed in any particular
branch of trade, can never fall finally upon the dealers (who must
in all ordinary cases have their reasonable profit, and, where the
competition is free, can seldom have more than that profit), but always
upon the consumers, who must be obliged to pay in the price of the goods
the tax which the dealer advances; and generally with some overcharge.

A tax of this kind, when it is proportioned to the trade of the dealer,
is finally paid by the consumer, and occasions no oppression to the
dealer. When it is not so proportioned, but is the same upon all
dealers, though in this case, too, it is finally paid by the consumer,
yet it favours the great, and occasions some oppression to the small
dealer. The tax of five shillings a-week upon every hackney coach, and
that of ten shillings a-year upon every hackney chair, so far as it is
advanced by the different keepers of such coaches and chairs, is exactly
enough proportioned to the extent of their respective dealings. It
neither favours the great, nor oppresses the smaller dealer. The tax of
twenty shillings a-year for a licence to sell ale; of forty shillings
for a licence to sell spiritous liquors; and of forty shillings more
for a licence to sell wine, being the same upon all retailers, must
necessarily give some advantage to the great, and occasion some
oppression to the small dealers. The former must find it more easy
to get back the tax in the price of their goods than the latter.
The moderation of the tax, however, renders this inequality of less
importance; and it may to many people appear not improper to give some
discouragement to the multiplication of little ale-houses. The tax upon
shops, it was intended, should be the same upon all shops. It could not
well have been otherwise. It would have been impossible to proportion,
with tolerable exactness, the tax upon a shop to the extent of the
trade carried on in it, without such an inquisition as would have
been altogether insupportable in a free country. If the tax had been
considerable, it would have oppressed the small, and forced almost the
whole retail trade into the hands of the great dealers. The competition
of the former being taken away, the latter would have enjoyed a monopoly
of the trade; and, like all other monopolists, would soon have combined
to raise their profits much beyond what was necessary for the payment
of the tax. The final payment, instead of falling upon the shop-keeper,
would have fallen upon the consumer, with a considerable overcharge to
the profit of the shop-keeper. For these reasons, the project of a tax
upon shops was laid aside, and in the room of it was substituted the
subsidy, 1759.

What in France is called the personal taille, is perhaps, the most
important tax upon the profits of stock employed in agriculture, that is
levied in any part of Europe.

In the disorderly state of Europe, during the prevalence of the feudal
government, the sovereign was obliged to content himself with taxing
those who were too weak to refuse to pay taxes. The great lords, though
willing to assist him upon particular emergencies, refused to subject
themselves to any constant tax, and he was not strong enough to force
them. The occupiers of land all over Europe were, the greater part of
them, originally bond-men. Through the greater part of Europe, they
were gradually emancipated. Some of them acquired the property of landed
estates, which they held by some base or ignoble tenure, sometimes under
the king, and sometimes under some other great lord, like the ancient
copy-holders of England. Others, without acquiring the property,
obtained leases for terms of years, of the lands which they occupied
under their lord, and thus became less dependent upon him. The great
lords seem to have beheld the degree of prosperity and independency,
which this inferior order of men had thus come to enjoy, with a
malignant and contemptuous indignation, and willingly consented that the
sovereign should tax them. In some countries, this tax was confined to
the lands which were held in property by an ignoble tenure; and, in this
case, the taille was said to be real. The land tax established by the
late king of Sardinia, and the taille in the provinces of Languedoc,
Provence, Dauphine, and Britanny; in the generality of Montauban, and in
the elections of Agen and Condom, as well as in some other districts of
France; are taxes upon lands held in property by an ignoble tenure. In
other countries, the tax was laid upon the supposed profits of all those
who held, in farm or lease, lands belonging to other people, whatever
might be the tenure by which the proprietor held them; and in this
case, the taille was said to be personal. In the greater part of those
provinces of France, which are called the countries of elections, the
taille is of this kind. The real taille, as it is imposed only upon a
part of the lands of the country, is necessarily an unequal, but it is
not always an arbitrary tax, though it is so upon some occasions. The
personal taille, as it is intended to be proportioned to the profits of
a certain class of people, which can only be guessed at, is necessarily
both arbitrary and unequal.

In France, the personal taille at present (1775) annually imposed upon
the twenty generalities, called the countries of elections, amounts to
40,107,239 livres, 16 sous. {Memoires concernant les Droits, etc tom.
ii, p.17.} the proportion in which this sum is assessed upon those
different provinces, varies from year to year, according to the reports
which are made to the king's council concerning the goodness or badness
of the crops, as well as other circumstances, which may either increase
or diminish their respective abilities to pay. Each generality is
divided into a certain number of elections; and the proportion in
which the sum imposed upon the whole generality is divided among those
different elections, varies likewise from year to year, according to the
reports made to the council concerning their respective abilities. It
seems impossible, that the council, with the best intentions, can ever
proportion, with tolerable exactness, either of these two assessments
to the real abilities of the province or district upon which they are
respectively laid. Ignorance and misinformation must always, more or
less, mislead the most upright council. The proportion which each parish
ought to support of what is assessed upon the whole election, and that
which each individual ought to support of what is assessed upon his
particular parish, are both in the same manner varied from year to year,
according as circumstances are supposed to require. These circumstances
are judged of, in the one case, by the officers of the election, in the
other, by those of the parish; and both the one and the other are, more
or less, under the direction and influence of the intendant. Not only
ignorance and misinformation, but friendship, party animosity, and
private resentment, are said frequently to mislead such assessors. No
man subject to such a tax, it is evident, can ever be certain, before he
is assessed, of what he is to pay. He cannot even be certain after he is
assessed. If any person has been taxed who ought to have been exempted,
or if any person has been taxed beyond his proportion, though both
must pay in the mean time, yet if they complain, and make good their
complaints, the whole parish is reimposed next year, in order to
reimburse them. If any of the contributors become bankrupt or insolvent,
the collector is obliged to advance his tax; and the whole parish
is reimposed next year, in order to reimburse the collector. If the
collector himself should become bankrupt, the parish which elects him
must answer for his conduct to the receiver-general of the election.
But, as it might be troublesome for the receiver to prosecute the whole
parish, he takes at his choice five or six of the richest contributors,
and obliges them to make good what had been lost by the insolvency of
the collector. The parish is afterwards reimposed, in order to reimburse
those five or six. Such reimpositions are always over and above the
taille of the particular year in which they are laid on.

When a tax is imposed upon the profits of stock in a particular branch
of trade, the traders are all careful to bring no more goods to market
than what they can sell at a price sufficient to reimburse them from
advancing the tax. Some of them withdraw a part of their stocks from the
trade, and the market is more sparingly supplied than before. The price
of the goods rises, and the final payment of the tax falls upon the
consumer. But when a tax is imposed upon the profits of stock employed
in agriculture, it is not the interest of the farmers to withdraw any
part of their stock from that employment. Each farmer occupies a certain
quantity of land, for which he pays rent. For the proper cultivation of
this land, a certain quantity of stock is necessary; and by withdrawing
any part of this necessary quantity, the farmer is not likely to be more
able to pay either the rent or the tax. In order to pay the tax, it
can never be his interest to diminish the quantity of his produce, nor
consequently to supply the market more sparingly than before. The tax,
therefore, will never enable him to raise the price of his produce,
so as to reimburse himself, by throwing the final payment upon the
consumer. The farmer, however, must have his reasonable profit as well
as every other dealer, otherwise he must give up the trade. After the
imposition of a tax of this kind, he can get this reasonable profit only
by paying less rent to the landlord. The more he is obliged to pay in
the way of tax, the less he can afford to pay in the way of rent. A tax
of this kind, imposed during the currency of a lease, may, no doubt,
distress or ruin the farmer. Upon the renewal of the lease, it must
always fall upon the landlord.

In the countries where the personal taille takes place, the farmer is
commonly assessed in proportion to the stock which he appears to employ
in cultivation. He is, upon this account, frequently afraid to have
a good team of horses or oxen, but endeavours to cultivate with the
meanest and most wretched instruments of husbandry that he can. Such
is his distrust in the justice of his assessors, that he counterfeits
poverty, and wishes to appear scarce able to pay anything, for fear of
being obliged to pay too much. By this miserable policy, he does not,
perhaps, always consult his own interest in the most effectual manner;
and he probably loses more by the diminution of his produce, than
he saves by that of his tax. Though, in consequence of this wretched
cultivation, the market is, no doubt, somewhat worse supplied; yet the
small rise of price which this may occasion, as it is not likely even to
indemnify the farmer for the diminution of his produce, it is still less
likely to enable him to pay more rent to the landlord. The public,
the farmer, the landlord, all suffer more or less by this degraded
cultivation. That the personal taille tends, in many different ways, to
discourage cultivation, and consequently to dry up the principal source
of the wealth of every great country, I have already had occasion to
observe in the third book of this Inquiry.

What are called poll-taxes in the southern provinces of North America,
and the West India islands, annual taxes of so much a-head upon every
negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain species of stock
employed in agriculture. As the planters, are the greater part of them,
both farmers and landlords, the final payment of the tax falls upon them
in their quality of landlords, without any retribution.

Taxes of so much a head upon the bondmen employed in cultivation, seem
anciently to have been common all over Europe. There subsists at present
a tax of this kind in the empire of Russia. It is probably upon this
account that poll-taxes of all kinds have often been represented as
badges of slavery. Every tax, however, is, to the person who pays it, a
badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to
government, indeed; but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself
be the property of a master. A poll tax upon slaves is altogether
different from a poll-tax upon freemen. The latter is paid by the
persons upon whom it is imposed; the former, by a different set of
persons. The latter is either altogether arbitrary, or altogether
unequal, and, in most cases, is both the one and the other; the former,
though in some respects unequal, different slaves being of different
values, is in no respect arbitrary. Every master, who knows the number
of his own slaves, knows exactly what he has to pay. Those different
taxes, however, being called by the same name, have been considered as
of the same nature.

The taxes which in Holland are imposed upon men and maid servants, are
taxes, not upon stock, but upon expense; and so far resemble the taxes
upon consumable commodities. The tax of a guinea a-head for every
man-servant, which has lately been imposed in Great Britain, is of
the same kind. It falls heaviest upon the middling rank. A man of two
hundred a-year may keep a single man-servant. A man of ten thousand
a-year will not keep fifty. It does not affect the poor.

Taxes upon the profits of stock, in particular employments, can never
affect the interest of money. Nobody will lend his money for less
interest to those who exercise the taxed, than to those who exercise the
untaxed employments. Taxes upon the revenue arising from stock in all
employments, where the government attempts to levy them with any degree
of exactness, will, in many cases, fall upon the interest of money. The
vingtieme, or twentieth penny, in France, is a tax of the same kind with
what is called the land tax in England, and is assessed, in the same
manner, upon the revenue arising upon land, houses, and stock. So far as
it affects stock, it is assessed, though not with great rigour, yet with
much more exactness than that part of the land tax in England which is
imposed upon the same fund. It, in many cases, falls altogether upon
the interest of money. Money is frequently sunk in France, upon what
are called contracts for the constitution of a rent; that is, perpetual
annuities, redeemable at any time by the debtor, upon payment of the sum
originally advanced, but of which this redemption is not exigible by
the creditor except in particular cases. The vingtieme seems not to have
raised the rate of those annuities, though it is exactly levied upon
them all.

APPENDIX TO ARTICLES I. AND II.--Taxes upon the Capital Value of Lands,
Houses, and Stock.

While property remains in the possession of the same person, whatever
permanent taxes may have been imposed upon it, they have never been
intended to diminish or take away any part of its capital value, but
only some part of the revenue arising from it. But when property changes
hands, when it is transmitted either from the dead to the living, or
from the living to the living, such taxes have frequently been imposed
upon it as necessarily take away some part of its capital value.

The transference of all sorts of property from the dead to the living,
and that of immoveable property of land and houses from the living to
the living, are transactions which are in their nature either public
and notorious, or such as cannot be long concealed. Such transactions,
therefore, may be taxed directly. The transference of stock or moveable
property, from the living to the living, by the lending of money, is
frequently a secret transaction, and may always be made so. It cannot
easily, therefore, be taxed directly. It has been taxed indirectly in
two different ways; first, by requiring that the deed, containing the
obligation to repay, should be written upon paper or parchment which
had paid a certain stamp duty, otherwise not to be valid; secondly,
by requiring, under the like penalty of invalidity, that it should be
recorded either in a public or secret register, and by imposing certain
duties upon such registration. Stamp duties, and duties of registration,
have frequently been imposed likewise upon the deeds transferring
property of all kinds from the dead to the living, and upon those
transferring immoveable property from the living to the living;
transactions which might easily have been taxed directly.

The vicesima hereditatum, or the twentieth penny of inheritances,
imposed by Augustus upon the ancient Romans, was a tax upon the
transference of property from the dead to the living. Dion Cassius,
{ Lib. 55. See also Burman. de Vectigalibus Pop. Rom. cap. xi. and
Bouchaud de l'impot du vingtieme sur les successions.} the author who
writes concerning it the least indistinctly, says, that it was imposed
upon all successions, legacies and donations, in case of death, except
upon those to the nearest relations, and to the poor.

Of the same kind is the Dutch tax upon successions. {See Memoires
concernant les Droits, etc. tom i, p. 225.} Collateral successions are
taxed according to the degree of relation, from five to thirty per
cent. upon the whole value of the succession. Testamentary donations,
or legacies to collaterals, are subject to the like duties. Those from
husband to wife, or from wife to husband, to the fiftieth penny.
The luctuosa hereditas, the mournful succession of ascendants to
descendants, to the twentieth penny only. Direct successions, or those
of descendants to ascendants, pay no tax. The death of a father, to such
of his children as live in the same house with him, is seldom attended
with any increase, and frequently with a considerable diminution
of revenue; by the loss of his industry, of his office, or of some
life-rent estate, of which he may have been in possession. That tax
would be cruel and oppressive, which aggravated their loss, by taking
from them any part of his succession. It may, however, sometimes be
otherwise with those children, who, in the language of the Roman
law, are said to be emancipated; in that of the Scotch law, to be
foris-familiated; that is, who have received their portion, have
got families of their own, and are supported by funds separate and
independent of those of their father. Whatever part of his succession
might come to such children, would be a real addition to their fortune,
and might, therefore, perhaps, without more inconveniency than what
attends all duties of this kind, be liable to some tax. The casualties
of the feudal law were taxes upon the transference of land, both from
the dead to the living, and from the living to the living. In ancient
times, they constituted, in every part of Europe, one of the principal
branches of the revenue of the crown.

The heir of every immediate vassal of the crown paid a certain duty,
generally a year's rent, upon receiving the investiture of the estate.
If the heir was a minor, the whole rents of the estate, during the
continuance of the minority, devolved to the superior, without any other
charge besides the maintenance of the minor, and the payment of the
widow's dower, when there happened to be a dowager upon the land. When
the minor came to de of age, another tax, called relief, was still due
to the superior, which generally amounted likewise to a year's rent. A
long minority, which, in the present times, so frequently disburdens a
great estate of all its incumbrances, and restores the family to their
ancient splendour, could in those times have no such effect. The waste,
and not the disincumbrance of the estate, was the common effect of a
long minority.

By a feudal law, the vassal could not alienate without the consent of
his superior, who generally extorted a fine or composition on granting
it. This fine, which was at first arbitrary, came, in many countries,
to be regulated at a certain portion of the price of the land. In some
countries, where the greater part of the other feudal customs have gone
into disuse, this tax upon the alienation of land still continues to
make a very considerable branch of the revenue of the sovereign. In the
canton of Berne it is so high as a sixth part of the price of all
noble fiefs, and a tenth part of that of all ignoble ones. {Memoires
concernant les Droits, etc, tom.i p.154} In the canton of Lucern, the
tax upon the sale of land is not universal, and takes place only in
certain districts. But if any person sells his land in order to remove
out of the territory, he pays ten per cent. upon the whole price of the
sale. {id. p.157.} Taxes of the same kind, upon the sale either of all
lands, or of lands held by certain tenures, take place in many other
countries, and make a more or less considerable branch of the revenue of
the sovereign.

Such transactions may be taxed indirectly, by means either of stamp
duties, or of duties upon registration; and those duties either may,
or may not, be proportioned to the value of the subject which is
transferred.

In Great Britain, the stamp duties are higher or lower, not so much
according to the value of the property transferred (an eighteen-penny
or half-crown stamp being sufficient upon a bond for the largest sum
of money), as according to the nature of the deed. The highest do not
exceed six pounds upon every sheet of paper, or skin of parchment; and
these high duties fall chiefly upon grants from the crown, and upon
certain law proceedings, without any regard to the value of the subject.
There are, in Great Britain, no duties on the registration of deeds or
writings, except the fees of the officers who keep the register; and
these are seldom more than a reasonable recompence for their labour. The
crown derives no revenue from them.

In Holland {Memoires concernant les Droits, etc. tom. i. p 223, 224,
225.} there are both stamp duties and duties upon registration; which
in some cases are, and in some are not, proportioned to the value of the
property transferred. All testaments must be written upon stamped paper,
of which the price is proportioned to the property disposed of; so that
there are stamps which cost from three pence or three stivers a-sheet,
to three hundred florins, equal to about twenty-seven pounds ten
shillings of our money. If the stamp is of an inferior price to what the
testator ought to have made use of, his succession is confiscated. This
is over and above all their other taxes on succession. Except bills of
exchange, and some other mercantile bills, all other deeds, bonds, and
contracts, are subject to a stamp duty. This duty, however, does not
rise in proportion to the value of the subject. All sales of land and
of houses, and all mortgages upon either, must be registered, and, upon
registration, pay a duty to the state of two and a-half per cent. upon
the amount of the price or of the mortgage. This duty is extended to
the sale of all ships and vessels of more than two tons burden, whether
decked or undecked. These, it seems, are considered as a sort of houses
upon the water. The sale of moveables, when it is ordered by a court of
justice, is subject to the like duty of two and a-half per cent.

In France, there are both stamp duties and duties upon registration.
The former are considered as a branch of the aids of excise, and, in
the provinces where those duties take place, are levied by the excise
officers. The latter are considered as a branch of the domain of the
crown and are levied by a different set of officers.

Those modes of taxation by stamp duties and by duties upon registration,
are of very modern invention. In the course of little more than a
century, however, stamp duties have, in Europe, become almost universal,
and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one
government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from
the pockets of the people.

Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead to the living,
fall finally, as well as immediately, upon the persons to whom the
property is transferred. Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether
upon the seller. The seller is almost always under the necessity of
selling, and must, therefore, take such a price as he can get. The buyer
is scarce ever under the necessity of buying, and will, therefore, only
give such a price as he likes. He considers what the land will cost him,
in tax and price together. The more he is obliged to pay in the way
of tax, the less he will be disposed to give in the way of price. Such
taxes, therefore, fall almost always upon a necessitous person, and
must, therefore, be frequently very cruel and oppressive. Taxes upon the
sale of new-built houses, where the building is sold without the ground,
fall generally upon the buyer, because the builder must generally have
his profit; otherwise he must give up the trade. If he advances the tax,
therefore, the buyer must generally repay it to him. Taxes upon the sale
of old houses, for the same reason as those upon the sale of land, fall
generally upon the seller; whom, in most cases, either conveniency
or necessity obliges to sell. The number of new-built houses that are
annually brought to market, is more or less regulated by the demand.
Unless the demand is such as to afford the builder his profit, after
paying all expenses, he will build no more houses. The number of old
houses which happen at any time to come to market, is regulated by
accidents, of which the greater part have no relation to the demand. Two
or three great bankruptcies in a mercantile town, will bring many houses
to sale, which must be sold for what can be got for them. Taxes upon
the sale of ground-rents fall altogether upon the seller, for the same
reason as those upon the sale of lands. Stamp duties, and duties
upon the registration of bonds and contracts for borrowed money, fall
altogether upon the borrower, and, in fact, are always paid by him.
Duties of the same kind upon law proceedings fall upon the suitors. They
reduce to both the capital value of the subject in dispute. The more
it costs to acquire any property, the less must be the neat value of it
when acquired.

All taxes upon the transference of property of every kind, so far as
they diminish the capital value of that property, tend to diminish the
funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. They are all
more or less unthrifty taxes that increase the revenue of the sovereign,
which seldom maintains any but unproductive labourers, at the expense of
the capital of the people, which maintains none but productive.


Such taxes, even when they are proportioned to the value of the property
transferred, are still unequal; the frequency of transference not being
always equal in property of equal value. When they are not proportioned
to this value, which is the case with the greater part of the stamp
duties and duties of registration, they are still more so. They are in
no respect arbitrary, but are, or may be, in all cases, perfectly clear
and certain. Though they sometimes fall upon the person who is not
very able to pay, the time of payment is, in most cases, sufficiently
convenient for him. When the payment becomes due, he must, in most
cases, have the more to pay. They are levied at very little expense, and
in general subject the contributors to no other inconveniency, besides
always the unavoidable one of paying the tax. In France, the stamp
duties are not much complained of. Those of registration, which they
call the Controle, are. They give occasion, it is pretended, to much
extortion in the officers of the farmers-general who collect the tax,
which is in a great measure arbitrary and uncertain. In the greater
part of the libels which have been written against the present system of
finances in France, the abuses of the controle make a principal article.
Uncertainty, however, does not seem to be necessarily inherent in the
nature of such taxes. If the popular complaints are well founded, the
abuse must arise, not so much from the nature of the tax as from the
want of precision and distinctness in the words of the edicts or laws
which impose it.

The registration of mortgages, and in general of all rights upon
immoveable property, as it gives great security both to creditors and
purchasers, is extremely advantageous to the public. That of the greater
part of deeds of other kinds, is frequently inconvenient and even
dangerous to individuals, without any advantage to the public. All
registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought
certainly never to exist. The credit of individuals ought certainly
never to depend upon so very slender a security, as the probity and
religion of the inferior officers of revenue. But where the fees of
registration have been made a source of revenue to the sovereign,
register-offices have commonly been multiplied without end, both for the
deeds which ought to be registered, and for those which ought not.
In France there are several different sorts of secret registers. This
abuse, though not perhaps a necessary, it must be acknowledged, is a
very natural effect of such taxes.

Such stamp duties as those in England upon cards and dice, upon
newspapers and periodical pamphlets, etc. are properly taxes upon
consumption; the final payment falls upon the persons who use or consume
such commodities. Such stamp duties as those upon licences to retail
ale, wine, and spiritous liquors, though intended, perhaps, to fall upon
the profits of the retailers, are likewise finally paid by the consumers
of those liquors. Such taxes, though called by the same name, and levied
by the same officers, and in the same manner with the stamp duties above
mentioned upon the transference of property, are, however, of a quite
different nature, and fall upon quite different funds.

ARTICLE III.--Taxes upon the Wages of Labour.

The wages of the inferior classes of work men, I have endeavoured to
show in the first book are everywhere necessarily regulated by two
different circumstances; the demand for labour, and the ordinary or
average price of provisions. The demand for labour, according as it
happens to be either increasing stationary or declining; or to require
an increasing, stationary, or declining population, regulates the
subsistence of the labourer, and determines in what degree it shall
be either liberal, moderate, or scanty. The ordinary average price of
provisions determines the quantity of money which must be paid to the
workman, in order to enable him, one year with another, to purchase
this liberal, moderate, or scanty subsistence. While the demand for the
labour and the price of provisions, therefore, remain the same, a direct
tax upon the wages of labour can have no other effect, than to raise
them somewhat higher than the tax. Let us suppose, for example, that,
in a particular place, the demand for labour and the price of provisions
were such as to render ten shillings a-week the ordinary wages of
labour; and that a tax of one-fifth, or four shillings in the pound, was
imposed upon wages. If the demand for labour and the price of provisions
remained the same, it would still be necessary that the labourer should,
in that place, earn such a subsistence as could be bought only for ten
shillings a-week; so that, after paying the tax, he should have ten
shillings a-week free wages. But, in order to leave him such free wages,
after paying such a tax, the price of labour must, in that place, soon
rise, not to twelve shillings a week only, but to twelve and sixpence;
that is, in order to enable him to pay a tax of one-fifth, his wages
must necessarily soon rise, not one-fifth part only, but one-fourth.
Whatever was the proportion of the tax, the wages of labour must, in all
cases rise, not only in that proportion, but in a higher proportion. If
the tax for example, was one-tenth, the wages of labour must necessarily
soon rise, not one-tenth part only, but one-eighth.

A direct tax upon the wages of labour, therefore, though the labourer
might, perhaps, pay it out of his hand, could not properly be said to be
even advanced by him; at least if the demand for labour and the average
price of provisions remained the same after the tax as before it. In all
such cases, not only the tax, but something more than the tax, would
in reality be advanced by the person who immediately employed him. The
final payment would, in different cases, fall upon different persons.
The rise which such a tax might occasion in the wages of manufacturing
labour would be advanced by the master manufacturer, who would both be
entitled and obliged to charge it, with a profit, upon the price of his
goods. The final payment of this rise of wages, therefore, together with
the additional profit of the master manufacturer would fall upon the
consumer. The rise which such a tax might occasion in the wages of
country labour would be advanced by the farmer, who, in order to
maintain the same number of labourers as before, would be obliged to
employ a greater capital. In order to get back this greater capital,
together with the ordinary profits of stock, it would be necessary that
he should retain a larger portion, or, what comes to the same thing,
the price of a larger portion, of the produce of the land, and,
consequently, that he should pay less rent to the landlord. The final
payment of this rise of wages, therefore, would, in this case, fall upon
the landlord, together with the additional profit of the farmer who had
advanced it. In all cases, a direct tax upon the wages of labour must,
in the long-run, occasion both a greater reduction in the rent of land,
and a greater rise in the price of manufactured goods than would have
followed from the proper assessment of a sum equal to the produce of
the tax, partly upon the rent of land, and partly upon consumable
commodities.

If direct taxes upon the wages of labour have not always occasioned a
proportionable rise in those wages, it is because they have generally
occasioned a considerable fall in the demand of labour. The declension
of industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, the diminution of
the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have generally
been the effects of such taxes. In consequence of them, however, the
price of labour must always be higher than it otherwise would have
been in the actual state of the demand; and this enhancement of price,
together with the profit of those who advance it, must always be finally
paid by the landlords and consumers.

A tax upon the wages of country labour does not raise the price of the
rude produce of land in proportion to the tax; for the same reason
that a tax upon the farmer's profit does not raise that price in that
proportion.

Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in
many countries. In France, that part of the taille which is charged
upon the industry of workmen and day-labourers in country villages, is
properly a tax of this kind. Their wages are computed according to the
common rate of the district in which they reside; and, that they may be
as little liable as possible to any overcharge, their yearly gains
are estimated at no more than two hundred working days in the year.
{Memoires concernant les Droits, etc. tom. ii. p. 108.} The tax of
each individual is varied from year to year, according to different
circumstances, of which the collector or the commissary, whom intendant
appoints to assist him, are the judges. In Bohemia, in consequence of
the alteration in the system of finances which was begun in 1748, a very
heavy tax is imposed upon the industry of artificers. They are divided
into four classes. The highest class pay a hundred florins a year,
which, at two-and-twenty pence half penny a-florin, amounts to £9:7:6.
The second class are taxed at seventy; the third at fifty; and the
fourth, comprehending artificers in villages, and the lowest class of
those in towns, at twenty-five florins. {Memoires concemant les Droits,
etc. tom. iii. p. 87.}

The recompence of ingenious artists, and of men of liberal professions,
I have endeavoured to show in the first book, necessarily keeps a
certain proportion to the emoluments of inferior trades. A tax upon
this recompence, therefore, could have no other effect than to raise
it somewhat higher than in proportion to the tax. If it did not rise in
this manner, the ingenious arts and the liberal professions, being; no
longer upon a level with other trades, would be so much deserted, that
they would soon return to that level.

The emoluments of offices are not, like those of trades and professions,
regulated by the free competition of the market, and do not, therefore,
always bear a just proportion to what the nature of the employment
requires. They are, perhaps, in most countries, higher than it requires;
the persons who have the administration of government being generally
disposed to regard both themselves and their immediate dependents,
rather more than enough. The emoluments of offices, therefore, can, in
most cases, very well bear to be taxed. The persons, besides, who enjoy
public offices, especially the more lucrative, are, in all countries,
the objects of general envy; and a tax upon their emoluments, even
though it should be somewhat higher than upon any other sort of revenue,
is always a very popular tax. In England, for example, when, by the
land-tax, every other sort of revenue was supposed to be assessed at
four shillings in the pound, it was very popular to lay a real tax of
five shillings and sixpence in the pound upon the salaries of offices
which exceeded a hundred pounds a-year; the pensions of the younger
branches of the royal family, the pay of the officers of the army and
navy, and a few others less obnoxious to envy, excepted. There are in
England no other direct taxes upon the wages of labour.

ARTICLE IV.--Taxes which it is intended should fall indifferently upon
every different Species of Revenue.

The taxes which it is intended should fall indifferently upon every
different species of revenue, are capitation taxes, and taxes upon
consumable commodities. Those must be paid indifferently, from whatever
revenue the contributors may possess; from the rent of their land, from
the profits of their stock, or from the wages of their labour.

Capitation Taxes.

Capitation taxes, if it is attempted to proportion them to the fortune
or revenue of each contributor, become altogether arbitrary. The state
of a man's fortune varies from day to day; and, without an inquisition,
more intolerable than any tax, and renewed at least once every year,
can only be guessed at. His assessment, therefore, must, in most
cases, depend upon the good or bad humour of his assessors, and must,
therefore, be altogether arbitrary and uncertain.

Capitation taxes, if they are proportioned, not to the supposed fortune,
but to the rank of each contributor, become altogether unequal; the
degrees of fortune being frequently unequal in the same degree of rank.

Such taxes, therefore, if it is attempted to render them equal, become
altogether arbitrary and uncertain; and if it is attempted to render
them certain and not arbitrary, become altogether unequal. Let the tax
be light or heavy, uncertainty is always a great grievance. In a light
tax, a considerable degree of inequality may be supported; in a heavy
one, it is altogether intolerable.

In the different poll-taxes which took place in England during the
reign of William III. the contributors were, the greater part of them,
assessed according to the degree of their rank; as dukes, marquises,
earls, viscounts, barons, esquires, gentlemen, the eldest and youngest
sons of peers, etc. All shop-keepers and tradesmen worth more than three
hundred pounds, that is, the better sort of them, were subject to the
same assessment, how great soever might be the difference in their
fortunes. Their rank was more considered than their fortune. Several of
those who, in the first poll-tax, were rated according to their supposed
fortune were afterwards rated according to their rank. Serjeants,
attorneys, and proctors at law, who, in the first poll-tax, were
assessed at three shillings in the pound of their supposed income, were
afterwards assessed as gentlemen. In the assessment of a tax which was
not very heavy, a considerable degree of inequality had been found less
insupportable than any degree of uncertainty.

In the capitation which has been levied in France, without-any
interruption, since the beginning of the present century, the highest
orders of people are rated according to their rank, by an invariable
tariff; the lower orders of people, according to what is supposed to
be their fortune, by an assessment which varies from year to year. The
officers of the king's court, the judges, and other officers in the
superior courts of justice, the officers of the troops, etc are assessed
in the first manner. The inferior ranks of people in the provinces
are assessed in the second. In France, the great easily submit to a
considerable degree of inequality in a tax which, so far as it affects
them, is not a very heavy one; but could not brook the arbitrary
assessment of an intendant.

The inferior ranks of people must, in that country, suffer patiently the
usage which their superiors think proper to give them.

In England, the different poll-taxes never produced the sum which
had been expected from them, or which it was supposed they might have
produced, had they been exactly levied. In France, the capitation always
produces the sum expected from it. The mild government of England, when
it assessed the different ranks of people to the poll-tax, contented
itself with what that assessment happened to produce, and required no
compensation for the loss which the state might sustain, either by those
who could not pay, or by those who would not pay (for there were many
such), and who, by the indulgent execution of the law, were not
forced to pay. The more severe government of France assesses upon each
generality a certain sum, which the intendant must find as he can.
If any province complains of being assessed too high, it may, in
the assessment of next year, obtain an abatement proportioned to the
overcharge of the year before; but it must pay in the mean time. The
intendant, in order to be sure of finding the sum assessed upon his
generality, was empowered to assess it in a larger sum, that the failure
or inability of some of the contributors might be compensated by the
overcharge of the rest; and till 1765, the fixation of this surplus
assessment was left altogether to his discretion. In that year, indeed,
the council assumed this power to itself. In the capitation of the
provinces, it is observed by the perfectly well informed author of the
Memoirs upon the Impositions in France, the proportion which falls
upon the nobility, and upon those whose privileges exempt them from the
taille, is the least considerable. The largest falls upon those subject
to the taille, who are assessed to the capitation at so much a-pound of
what they pay to that other tax. Capitation taxes, so far as they are
levied upon the lower ranks of people, are direct taxes upon the wages
of labour, and are attended with all the inconveniencies of such taxes.

Capitation taxes are levied at little expense; and, where they are
rigorously exacted, afford a very sure revenue to the state. It is upon
this account that, in countries where the case, comfort, and security
of the inferior ranks of people are little attended to, capitation taxes
are very common. It is in general, however, but a small part of the
public revenue, which, in a great empire, has ever been drawn from such
taxes; and the greatest sum which they have ever afforded, might always
have been found in some other way much more convenient to the people.

Taxes upon Consumable Commodities.

The impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their revenue,
by any capitation, seems to have given occasion to the invention of
taxes upon consumable commodities. The state not knowing how to tax,
directly and proportionably, the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to
tax it indirectly by taxing their expense, which, it is supposed, will,
in most cases, be nearly in proportion to their revenue. Their expense
is taxed, by taxing the consumable commodities upon which it is laid
out.

Consumable commodities are either necessaries or luxuries.

By necessaries I understand, not only the commodities which are
indispensibly necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom
of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the
lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly
speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I
suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present
times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer
would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of
which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty,
which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad
conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a
necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person, of either
sex, would be ashamed to appear in public without them. In Scotland,
custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the lowest order of men;
but not to the same order of women, who may, without any discredit, walk
about barefooted. In France, they are necessaries neither to men nor to
women; the lowest rank of both sexes appearing there publicly, without
any discredit, sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted.
Under necessaries, therefore, I comprehend, not only those things which
nature, but those things which the established rules of decency have
rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people. All other things I call
luxuries, without meaning, by this appellation, to throw the smallest
degree of reproach upon the temperate use of them. Beer and ale, for
example, in Great Britain, and wine, even in the wine countries, I call
luxuries. A man of any rank may, without any reproach, abstain totally
from tasting such liquors. Nature does not render them necessary for the
support of life; and custom nowhere renders it indecent to live without
them.

As the wages of labour are everywhere regulated, partly by the demand
for it, and partly by the average price of the necessary articles of
subsistence; whatever raises this average price must necessarily raise
those wages; so that the labourer may still be able to purchase that
quantity of those necessary articles which the state of the demand for
labour, whether increasing, stationary, or declining, requires that he
should have. {See book i.chap. 8} A tax upon those articles necessarily
raises their price somewhat higher than the amount of the tax, because
the dealer, who advances the tax, must generally get it back, with a
profit. Such a tax must, therefore, occasion a rise in the wages of
labour, proportionable to this rise of price.

It is thus that a tax upon the necessaries of life operates exactly in
the same manner as a direct tax upon the wages of labour. The labourer,
though he may pay it out of his hand, cannot, for any considerable time
at least, be properly said even to advance it. It must always, in the
long-run, be advanced to him by his immediate employer, in the advanced
state of wages. His employer, if he is a manufacturer, will charge upon
the price of his goods the rise of wages, together with a profit, so
that the final payment of the tax, together with this overcharge, will
fall upon the consumer. If his employer is a farmer, the final payment,
together with a like overcharge, will fall upon the rent of the
landlord.

It is otherwise with taxes upon what I call luxuries, even upon those
of the poor. The rise in the price of the taxed commodities, will
not necessarily occasion any rise in the wages of labour. A tax upon
tobacco, for example, though a luxury of the poor, as well as of the
rich, will not raise wages. Though it is taxed in England at three
times, and in France at fifteen times its original price, those high
duties seem to have no effect upon the wages of labour. The same thing
maybe said of the taxes upon tea and sugar, which, in England and
Holland, have become luxuries of the lowest ranks of people; and of
those upon chocolate, which, in Spain, is said to have become so.

The different taxes which, in Great Britain, have, in the course of the
present century, been imposed upon spiritous liquors, are not supposed
to have had any effect upon the wages of labour. The rise in the price
of porter, occasioned by an additional tax of three shillings upon the
barrel of strong beer, has not raised the wages of common labour in
London. These were about eighteen pence or twenty pence a-day before the
tax, and they are not more now.

The high price of such commodities does not necessarily diminish the
ability of the inferior ranks of people to bring up families. Upon the
sober and industrious poor, taxes upon such commodities act as sumptuary
laws, and dispose them either to moderate, or to refrain altogether from
the use of superfluities which they can no longer easily afford. Their
ability to bring up families, in consequence of this forced frugality,
instead of being diminished, is frequently, perhaps, increased by the
tax. It is the sober and industrious poor who generally bring up the
most numerous families, and who principally supply the demand for useful
labour. All the poor, indeed, are not sober and industrious; and the
dissolute and disorderly might continue to indulge themselves in the
use of such commodities, after this rise of price, in the same manner as
before, without regarding the distress which this indulgence might bring
upon their families. Such disorderly persons, however, seldom rear up
numerous families, their children generally perishing from neglect,
mismanagement, and the scantiness or unwholesomeness of their food. If
by the strength of their constitution, they survive the hardships to
which the bad conduct of their parents exposes them, yet the example
of that bad conduct commonly corrupts their morals; so that, instead of
being useful to society by their industry, they become public nuisances
by their vices and disorders. Through the advanced price of the luxuries
of the poor, therefore, might increase somewhat the distress of such
disorderly families, and thereby diminish somewhat their ability to
bring up children, it would not probably diminish much the useful
population of the country.

Any rise in the average price of necessaries, unless it be compensated
by a proportionable rise in the wages of labour, must necessarily
diminish, more or less, the ability of the poor to bring up numerous
families, and, consequently, to supply the demand for useful labour;
whatever may be the state of that demand, whether increasing,
stationary, or declining; or such as requires an increasing, stationary,
or declining population.

Taxes upon luxuries have no tendency to raise the price of any
other commodities, except that of the commodities taxed. Taxes upon
necessaries, by raising the wages of labour, necessarily tend to raise
the price of all manufactures, and consequently to diminish the extent
of their sale and consumption. Taxes upon luxuries are finally paid by
the consumers of the commodities taxed, without any retribution. They
fall indifferently upon every species of revenue, the wages of labour,
the profits of stock, and the rent of land. Taxes upon necessaries,
so far as they affect the labouring poor, are finally paid, partly by
landlords, in the diminished rent of their lands, and partly by rich
consumers, whether landlords or others, in the advanced price of
manufactured goods; and always with a considerable overcharge. The
advanced price of such manufactures as are real necessaries of life, and
are destined for the consumption of the poor, of coarse woollens, for
example, must be compensated to the poor by a farther advancement
of their wages. The middling and superior ranks of people, if they
understood their own interest, ought always to oppose all taxes upon the
necessaries of life, as well as all taxes upon the wages of labour.
The final payment of both the one and the other falls altogether
upon themselves, and always with a considerable overcharge. They fall
heaviest upon the landlords, who always pay in a double capacity; in
that of landlords, by the reduction, of their rent; and in that of rich
consumers, by the increase of their expense. The observation of Sir
Matthew Decker, that certain taxes are, in the price of certain goods,
sometimes repeated and accumulated four or five times, is perfectly
just with regard to taxes upon the necessaries of life. In the price of
leather, for example, you must pay not only for the tax upon the leather
of your own shoes, but for a part of that upon those of the shoemaker
and the tanner. You must pay, too, for the tax upon the salt, upon the
soap, and upon the candles which those workmen consume while employed in
your service; and for the tax upon the leather, which the saltmaker,
the soap-maker, and the candle-maker consume, while employed in their
service.

In Great Britain, the principal taxes upon the necessaries of life, are
those upon the four commodities just now mentioned, salt, leather, soap,
and candles.

Salt is a very ancient and a very universal subject of taxation. It was
taxed among the Romans, and it is so at present in, I believe, every
part of Europe. The quantity annually consumed by any individual is so
small, and may be purchased so gradually, that nobody, it seems to have
been thought, could feel very sensibly even a pretty heavy tax upon it.
It is in England taxed at three shillings and fourpence a bushel;
about three times the original price of the commodity. In some other
countries, the tax is still higher. Leather is a real necessary of life.
The use of linen renders soap such. In countries where the winter nights
are long, candles are a necessary instrument of trade. Leather and soap
are in Great Britain taxed at three halfpence a-pound; candles at a
penny; taxes which, upon the original price of leather, may amount to
about eight or ten per cent.; upon that of soap, to about twenty or
five-and-twenty per cent.; and upon that of candles to about fourteen or
fifteen per cent.; taxes which, though lighter than that upon salt, are
still very heavy. As all those four commodities are real necessaries of
life, such heavy taxes upon them must increase somewhat the expense of
the sober and industrious poor, and must consequently raise more or less
the wages of their labour.

In a country where the winters are so cold as in Great Britain, fuel is,
during that season, in the strictest sense of the word, a necessary
of life, not only for the purpose of dressing victuals, but for the
comfortable subsistence of many different sorts of workmen who work
within doors; and coals are the cheapest of all fuel. The price of fuel
has so important an influence upon that of labour, that all over Great
Britain, manufactures have confined themselves principally to the coal
counties; other parts of the country, on account of the high price
of this necessary article, not being able to work so cheap. In some
manufactures, besides, coal is a necessary instrument of trade; as in
those of glass, iron, and all other metals. If a bounty could in any
case be reasonable, it might perhaps be so upon the transportation of
coals from those parts of the country in which they abound, to those
in which they are wanted. But the legislature, instead of a bounty, has
imposed a tax of three shillings and threepence a-ton upon coals carried
coastways; which, upon most sorts of coal, is more than sixty per cent.
of the original price at the coal pit. Coals carried, either by land or
by inland navigation, pay no duty. Where they are naturally cheap, they
are consumed duty free; where they are naturally dear, they are loaded
with a heavy duty.

Such taxes, though they raise the price of subsistence, and consequently
the wages of labour, yet they afford a considerable revenue to
government, which it might not be easy to find in any other way. There
may, therefore, be good reasons for continuing them. The bounty upon the
exportation of corn, so far us it tends, in the actual state of tillage,
to raise the price of that necessary article, produces all the like bad
effects; and instead of affording any revenue, frequently occasions a
very great expense to government. The high duties upon the importation
of foreign corn, which, in years of moderate plenty, amount to a
prohibition; and the absolute prohibition of the importation, either of
live cattle, or of salt provisions, which takes place in the ordinary
state of the law, and which, on account of the scarcity, is at present
suspended for a limited time with regard to Ireland and the British
plantations, have all had the bad effects of taxes upon the necessaries
of life, and produce no revenue to government. Nothing seems necessary
for the repeal of such regulations, but to convince the public of
the futility of that system in consequence of which they have been
established.

Taxes upon the necessaries of life are much higher in many other
countries than in Great Britain. Duties upon flour and meal when ground
at the mill, and upon bread when baked at the oven, take place in many
countries. In Holland the money-price of the: bread consumed in towns
is supposed to be doubled by means of such taxes. In lieu of a part of
them, the people who live in the country, pay every year so much a-head,
according to the sort of bread they are supposed to consume. Those who
consume wheaten bread pay three guilders fifteen stivers; about six
shillings and ninepence halfpenny. Those, and some other taxes of the
same kind, by raising the price of labour, are said to have ruined the
greater part of the manufactures of Holland {Memoires concernant les
Droits, etc. p. 210, 211.}. Similar taxes, though not quite so heavy,
take place in the Milanese, in the states of Genoa, in the duchy of
Modena, in the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, and the
Ecclesiastical state. A French author {Le Reformateur} of some note, has
proposed to reform the finances of his country, by substituting in the
room of the greater part of other taxes, this most ruinous of all taxes.
There is nothing so absurd, says Cicero, which has not sometimes been
asserted by some philosophers.

Taxes upon butcher's meat are still more common than those upon
bread. It may indeed be doubted, whether butcher's meat is any where a
necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk,
cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, it is known
from experience, can, without any butcher's meat, afford the most
plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most
invigorating diet. Decency nowhere requires that any man should eat
butcher's meat, as it in most places requires that he should wear a
linen shirt or a pair of leather shoes.

Consumable commodities, whether necessaries or luxuries, may be taxed in
two different ways. The consumer may either pay an annual sum on account
of his using or consuming goods of a certain kind; or the goods may be
taxed while they remain in the hands of the dealer, and before they
are delivered to the consumer. The consumable goods which last a
considerable time before they are consumed altogether, are most properly
taxed in the one way; those of which the consumption is either immediate
or more speedy, in the other. The coach-tax and plate tax are examples
of the former method of imposing; the greater part of the other duties
of excise and customs, of the latter.

A coach may, with good management, last ten or twelve years. It might
be taxed, once for all, before it comes out of the hands of the
coach-maker. But it is certainly more convenient for the buyer to pay
four pounds a-year for the privilege of keeping a coach, than to pay all
at once forty or forty-eight pounds additional price to the coach-maker;
or a sum equivalent to what the tax is likely to cost him during the
time he uses the same coach. A service of plate in the same manner, may
last more than a century. It is certainly-easier for the consumer to pay
five shillings a-year for every hundred ounces of plate, near one per
cent. of the value, than to redeem this long annuity at five-and-twenty
or thirty years purchase, which would enhance the price at least
five-and-twenty or thirty per cent. The different taxes which affect
houses, are certainly more conveniently paid by moderate annual
payments, than by a heavy tax of equal value upon the first building or
sale of the house.

It was the well-known proposal of Sir Matthew Decker, that all
commodities, even those of which the consumption is either immediate or
speedy, should be taxed in this manner; the dealer advancing nothing,
but the consumer paying a certain annual sum for the licence to consume
certain goods. The object of his scheme was to promote all the different
branches of foreign trade, particularly the carrying trade, by taking
away all duties upon importation and exportation, and thereby enabling
the merchant to employ his whole capital and credit in the purchase of
goods and the freight of ships, no part of either being diverted towards
the advancing of taxes, The project, however, of taxing, in this manner,
goods of immediate or speedy consumption, seems liable to the four
following very important objections. First, the tax would be more
unequal, or not so well proportioned to the expense and consumption
of the different contributors, as in the way in which it is commonly
imposed. The taxes upon ale, wine, and spiritous liquors, which are
advanced by the dealers, are finally paid by the different consumers,
exactly in proportion to their respective consumption. But if the tax
were to be paid by purchasing a licence to drink those liquors, the
sober would, in proportion to his consumption, be taxed much more
heavily than the drunken consumer. A family which exercised great
hospitality, would be taxed much more lightly than one who entertained
fewer guests. Secondly, this mode of taxation, by paying for an annual,
half-yearly, or quarterly licence to consume certain goods, would
diminish very much one of the principal conveniences of taxes upon
goods of speedy consumption; the piece-meal payment. In the price of
threepence halfpenny, which is at present paid for a pot of porter,
the different taxes upon malt, hops, and beer, together with the
extraordinary profit which the brewer charges for having advanced
than, may perhaps amount to about three halfpence. If a workman can
conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If
he cannot, he contents himself with a pint; and, as a penny saved is a
penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance. He pays the tax
piece-meal, as he can afford to pay it, and when he can afford to pay
it, and every act of payment is perfectly voluntary, and what he can
avoid if he chuses to do so. Thirdly, such taxes would operate less
as sumptuary laws. When the licence was once purchased, whether the
purchaser drunk much or drunk little, his tax would be the same.
Fourthly, if a workman were to pay all at once, by yearly, half-yearly,
or quarterly payments, a tax equal to what he at present pays, with
little or no inconveniency, upon all the different pots and pints
of porter which he drinks in any such period of time, the sum might
frequently distress him very much. This mode of taxation, therefore,
it seems evident, could never, without the most grievous oppression,
produce a revenue nearly equal to what is derived from the present mode
without any oppression. In several countries, however, commodities of
an immediate or very speedy consumption are taxed in this manner. In
Holland, people pay so much a-head for a licence to drink tea. I have
already mentioned a tax upon bread, which, so far as it is consumed in
farm houses and country villages, is there levied in the same manner.

The duties of excise are imposed chiefly upon goods of home produce,
destined for home consumption. They are imposed only upon a few sorts
of goods of the most general use. There can never be any doubt, either
concerning the goods which are subject to those duties, or concerning
the particular duty which each species of goods is subject to. They fall
almost altogether upon what I call luxuries, excepting always the four
duties above mentioned, upon salt, soap, leather, candles, and perhaps
that upon green glass.

The duties of customs are much more ancient than those of excise. They
seem to have been called customs, as denoting customary payments, which
had been in use for time immemorial. They appear to have been originally
considered as taxes upon the profits of merchants. During the barbarous
times of feudal anarchy, merchants, like all the other inhabitants of
burghs, were considered as little better than emancipated bondmen, whose
persons were despised, and whose gains were envied. The great nobility,
who had consented that the king should tallage the profits of their own
tenants, were not unwilling that he should tallage likewise those of an
order of men whom it was much less their interest to protect. In those
ignorant times, it was not understood, that the profits of merchants are
a subject not taxable directly; or that the final payment of all such
taxes must fall, with a considerable overcharge, upon the consumers.

The gains of alien merchants were looked upon more unfavourably than
those of English merchants. It was natural, therefore, that those of
the former should be taxed more heavily than those of the latter.
This distinction between the duties upon aliens and those upon English
merchants, which was begun from ignorance, has been continued front the
spirit of monopoly, or in order to give our own merchants an advantage,
both in the home and in the foreign market.

With this distinction, the ancient duties of customs were imposed
equally upon all sorts of goods, necessaries as well its luxuries, goods
exported as well as goods imported. Why should the dealers in one sort
of goods, it seems to have been thought, be more favoured than those in
another? or why should the merchant exporter be more favoured than the
merchant importer?

The ancient customs were divided into three branches. The first, and,
perhaps, the most ancient of all those duties, was that upon wool and
leather. It seems to have been chiefly or altogether an exportation
duty. When the woollen manufacture came to be established in England,
lest the king should lose any part of his customs upon wool by the
exportation of woollen cloths, a like duty was imposed upon them. The
other two branches were, first, a duty upon wine, which being imposed
at so much a-ton, was called a tonnage; and, secondly, a duty upon all
other goods, which being imposed at so much a-pound of their supposed
value, was called a poundage. In the forty-seventh year of Edward III.,
a duty of sixpence in the pound was imposed upon all goods exported
and imported, except wools, wool-felts, leather, and wines which were
subject to particular duties. In the fourteenth of Richard II.,
this duty was raised to one shilling in the pound; but, three years
afterwards, it was again reduced to sixpence. It was raised to
eightpence in the second year of Henry IV.; and, in the fourth of
the same prince, to one shilling. From this time to the ninth year of
William III., this duty continued at one shilling in the pound. The
duties of tonnage and poundage were generally granted to the king by one
and the same act of parliament, and were called the subsidy of tonnage
and poundage. The subsidy of poundage having continued for so long a
time at one shilling in the pound, or at five per cent., a subsidy came,
in the language of the customs, to denote a general duty of this kind of
five per cent. This subsidy, which is now called the old subsidy, still
continues to be levied, according to the book of rates established by
the twelfth of Charles II. The method of ascertaining, by a book of
rates, the value of goods subject to this duty, is said to be older than
the time of James I. The new subsidy, imposed by the ninth and tenth of
William III., was an additional five per cent. upon the greater part
of goods. The one-third and the two-third subsidy made up between them
another five per cent. of which they were proportionable parts. The
subsidy of 1747 made a fourth five per cent. upon the greater part of
goods; and that of 1759, a fifth upon some particular sorts of goods.
Besides those five subsidies, a great variety of other duties have
occasionally been imposed upon particular sorts of goods, in order
sometimes to relieve the exigencie's of the state, and sometimes to
regulate the trade of the country, according to the principles of the
mercantile system.

That system has come gradually more and more into fashion. The
old subsidy was imposed indifferently upon exportation, as well as
importation. The four subsequent subsidies, as well as the other duties
which have since been occasionally imposed upon particular sorts
of goods, have, with a few exceptions, been laid altogether upon
importation. The greater part of the ancient duties which had
been imposed upon the exportation of the goods of home produce and
manufacture, have either been lightened or taken away altogether. In
most cases, they have been taken away. Bounties have even been given
upon the exportation of some of them. Drawbacks, too, sometimes of the
whole, and, in most cases, of a part of the duties which are paid
upon the importation of foreign goods, have been granted upon their
exportation. Only half the duties imposed by the old subsidy upon
importation, are drawn back upon exportation; but the whole of those
imposed by the latter subsidies and other imposts are, upon the greater
parts of the goods, drawn back in the same manner. This growing favour
of exportation, and discouragement of importation, have suffered only
a few exceptions, which chiefly concern the materials of some
manufactures. These our merchants and manufacturers are willing should
come as cheap as possible to themselves, and as dear as possible to
their rivals and competitors in other countries. Foreign materials are,
upon this account, sometimes allowed to be imported duty-free; spanish
wool, for example, flax, and raw linen yarn. The exportation of the
materials of home produce, and of those which are the particular produce
of our colonies, has sometimes been prohibited, and sometimes subjected
to higher duties. The exportation of English wool has been prohibited.
That of beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum-senega, has been
subjected to higher duties; Great Britain, by the conquests of Canada
and Senegal, having got almost the monopoly of those commodities.

That the mercantile system has not been very favourable to the revenue
of the great body of the people, to the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country, I have endeavoured to show in the fourth book of
this Inquiry. It seems not to have been more favourable to the revenue
of the sovereign; so far, at least, as that revenue depends upon the
duties of customs.

In consequence of that system, the importation of several sorts of goods
has been prohibited altogether. This prohibition has, in some cases,
entirely prevented, and in others has very much diminished, the
importation of those commodities, by reducing the importers to the
necessity of smuggling. It has entirely prevented the importation of
foreign wollens; and it has very much diminished that of foreign silks
and velvets, In both cases, it has entirely annihilated the revenue of
customs which might have been levied upon such importation.

The high duties which have been imposed upon the importation of
many different sorts of foreign goods in order to discourage their
consumption in Great Britain, have, in many cases, served only to
encourage smuggling, and, in all cases, have reduced the revenues of the
customs below what more moderate duties would have afforded. The saying
of Dr. Swift, that in the arithmetic of the customs, two and two,
instead of making four, make sometimes only one, holds perfectly true
with regard to such heavy duties, which never could have been imposed,
had not the mercantile system taught us, in many cases, to employ
taxation as an instrument, not of revenue, but of monopoly.

The bounties which are sometimes given upon the exportation of home
produce and manufactures, and the drawbacks which are paid upon the
re-exportation of the greater part of foreign goods, have given occasion
to many frauds, and to a species of smuggling, more destructive of
the public revenue than any other. In order to obtain the bounty or
drawback, the goods, it is well known, are sometimes shipped, and sent
to sea, but soon afterwards clandestinely re-landed in some other part
of the country. The defalcation of the revenue of customs occasioned by
bounties and drawbacks, of which a great part are obtained fraudulently,
is very great. The gross produce of the customs, in the year which ended
on the 5th of January 1755, amounted to £5,068,000. The bounties which
were paid out of this revenue, though in that year there was no bounty
upon corn, amounted to £167,806. The drawbacks which were paid upon
debentures and certificates, to £2,156,800. Bounties and drawbacks
together amounted to £2,324,600. In consequence of these deductions, the
revenue of the customs amounted only to £2,743,400; from which deducting
£287,900 for the expense of management, in salaries and other
incidents, the neat revenue of the customs for that year comes out to
be £2,455,500. The expense of management, amounts, in this manner, to
between five and six per cent. upon the gross revenue of the customs;
and to something more than ten per cent. upon what remains of that
revenue, after deducting what is paid away in bounties and drawbacks.

Heavy duties being imposed upon almost all goods imported, our merchant
importers smuggle as much, and make entry of as little as they can.
Our merchant exporters, on the contrary, make entry of more than they
export; sometimes out of vanity, and to pass for great dealers in goods
which pay no duty gain a bounty back. Our exports, in consequence of
these different frauds, appear upon the custom-house books greatly
to overbalance our imports, to the unspeakable comfort of those
politicians, who measure the national prosperity by what they call the
balance of trade.

All goods imported, unless particularly exempted, and such exemptions
are not very numerous, are liable to some duties of customs. If any
goods are imported, not mentioned in the book of rates, they are taxed
at 4s:9¾d. for every twenty shillings value, according to the oath
of the importer, that is, nearly at five subsidies, or five poundage
duties. The book of rates is extremely comprehensive, and enumerates a
great variety of articles, many of them little used, and, therefore, not
well known. It is, upon this account, frequently uncertain under
what article a particular sort of goods ought to be classed, and,
consequently what duty they ought to pay. Mistakes with regard to this
sometimes ruin the custom-house officer, and frequently occasion much
trouble, expense, and vexation to the importer. In point of perspicuity,
precision, and distinctness, therefore, the duties of customs are much
inferior to those of excise.

In order that the greater part of the members of any society should
contribute to the public revenue, in proportion to their respective
expense, it does not seem necessary that every single article of that
expense should be taxed. The revenue which is levied by the duties of
excise is supposed to fall as equally upon the contributors as that
which is levied by the duties of customs; and the duties of excise
are imposed upon a few articles only of the most general used and
consumption. It has been the opinion of many people, that, by proper
management, the duties of customs might likewise, without any loss
to the public revenue, and with great advantage to foreign trade, be
confined to a few articles only.

The foreign articles, of the most general use and consumption in
Great Britain, seem at present to consist chiefly in foreign wines and
brandies; in some of the productions of America and the West Indies,
sugar, rum, tobacco, cocoa-nuts, etc. and in some of those of the East
Indies, tea, coffee, china-ware, spiceries of all kinds, several sorts
of piece-goods, etc. These different articles afford, the greater part
of the perhaps, at present, revenue which is drawn from the duties of
customs. The taxes which at present subsist upon foreign manufactures,
if you except those upon the few contained in the foregoing enumeration,
have, the greater part of them, been imposed for the purpose, not of
revenue, but of monopoly, or to give our own merchants an advantage in
the home market. By removing all prohibitions, and by subjecting all
foreign manufactures to such moderate taxes, as it was found from
experience, afforded upon each article the greatest revenue to the
public, our own workmen might still have a considerable advantage in
the home market; and many articles, some of which at present afford
no revenue to government, and others a very inconsiderable one, might
afford a very great one.

High taxes, sometimes by diminishing the consumption of the taxed
commodities, and sometimes by encouraging smuggling frequently afford
a smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from more
moderate taxes.

When the diminution of revenue is the effect of the diminution of
consumption, there can be but one remedy, and that is the lowering
of the tax. When the diminution of revenue is the effect of the
encouragement given to smuggling, it may, perhaps, be remedied in two
ways; either by diminishing the temptation to smuggle, or by increasing
the difficulty of smuggling. The temptation to smuggle can be diminished
only by the lowering of the tax; and the difficulty of smuggling can be
increased only by establishing that system of administration which is
most proper for preventing it.

The excise laws, it appears, I believe, from experience, obstruct and
embarrass the operations of the smuggler much more effectually than
those of the customs. By introducing into the customs a system of
administration as similar to that of the excise as the nature of the
different duties will admit, the difficulty of smuggling might be very
much increased. This alteration, it has been supposed by many people,
might very easily be brought about.

The importer of commodities liable to any duties of customs, it has been
said, might, at his option, be allowed either to carry them to his own
private warehouse; or to lodge them in a warehouse, provided either
at his own expense or at that of the public, but under the key of the
custom-house officer, and never to be opened but in his presence. If
the merchant carried them to his own private warehouse, the duties to
be immediately paid, and never afterwards to be drawn back; and that
warehouse to be at all times subject to the visit and examination of
the custom-house officer, in order to ascertain how far the quantity
contained in it corresponded with that for which the duty had been paid.
If he carried them to the public warehouse, no duty to be paid till they
were taken out for home consumption. If taken out for exportation, to
be duty-free; proper security being always given that they should be
so exported. The dealers in those particular commodities, either
by wholesale or retail, to be at all times subject to the visit and
examination of the custom-house officer; and to be obliged to justify,
by proper certificates, the payment of the duty upon the whole quantity
contained in their shops or warehouses. What are called the excise
duties upon rum imported, are at present levied in this manner; and the
same system of administration might, perhaps, be extended to all duties
upon goods imported; provided always that those duties were, like the
duties of excise, confined to a few sorts of goods of the most general
use and consumption. If they were extended to almost all sorts of goods,
as at present, public warehouses of sufficient extent could not easily
be provided; and goods of a very delicate nature, or of which the
preservation required much care and attention, could not safely be
trusted by the merchant in any warehouse but his own.

If, by such a system of administration, smuggling to any considerable
extent could be prevented, even under pretty high duties; and if every
duty was occasionally either heightened or lowered according as it was
most likely, either the one way or the other, to afford the greatest
revenue to the state; taxation being always employed as an instrument of
revenue, and never of monopoly; it seems not improbable that a revenue,
at least equal to the present neat revenue of the customs, might be
drawn from duties upon the importation of only a few sorts of goods of
the most general use and consumption; and that the duties of customs
might thus be brought to the same degree of simplicity, certainty, and
precision, as those of excise. What the revenue at present loses by
drawbacks upon the re-exportation of foreign goods, which are afterwards
re-landed and consumed at home, would, under this system, be saved
altogether. If to this saving, which would alone be very considerable,
were added the abolition of all bounties upon the exportation of home
produce; in all cases in which those bounties were not in reality
drawbacks of some duties of excise which had before been advanced; it
cannot well be doubted, but that the neat revenue of customs might,
after an alteration of this kind, be fully equal to what it had ever
been before.

If, by such a change of system, the public revenue suffered no loss,
the trade and manufactures of the country would certainly gain a very
considerable advantage. The trade in the commodities not taxed, by far
the greatest number would be perfectly free, and might be carried on
to and from all parts of the world with every possible advantage. Among
those commodities would be comprehended all the necessaries of life, and
all the materials of manufacture. So far as the free importation of
the necessaries of life reduced their average money price in the home
market, it would reduce the money price of labour, but without reducing
in any respect its real recompence. The value of money is in proportion
to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase. That
of the necessaries of life is altogether independent of the quantity
of money which can be had for them. The reduction in the money price of
labour would necessarily be attended with a proportionable one in that
of all home manufactures, which would thereby gain some advantage in all
foreign markets. The price of some manufactures would be reduced, in a
still greater proportion, by the free importation of the raw materials.
If raw silk could be imported from China and Indostan, duty-free, the
silk manufacturers in England could greatly undersell those of both
France and Italy. There would be no occasion to prohibit the importation
of foreign silks and velvets. The cheapness of their goods would secure
to our own workmen, not only the possession of a home, but a very great
command of the foreign market. Even the trade in the commodities taxed,
would be carried on with much more advantage than at present. If those
commodities were delivered out of the public warehouse for foreign
exportation, being in this case exempted from all taxes, the trade in
them would be perfectly free. The carrying trade, in all sorts of goods,
would, under this system, enjoy every possible advantage. If these
commodities were delivered out for home consumption, the importer not
being obliged to advance the tax till he had an opportunity of selling
his goods, either to some dealer, or to some consumer, he could always
afford to sell them cheaper than if he had been obliged to advance it
at the moment of importation. Under the same taxes, the foreign trade
of consumption, even in the taxed commodities, might in this manner be
carried on with much more advantage than it is at present.

It was the object of the famous excise scheme of Sir Robert Walpole,
to establish, with regard to wine and tobacco, a system not very unlike
that which is here proposed. But though the bill which was then brought
into Parliament, comprehended those two commodities only, it was
generally supposed to be meant as an introduction to a more extensive
scheme of the same kind. Faction, combined with the interest of
smuggling merchants, raised so violent, though so unjust a clamour,
against that bill, that the minister thought proper to drop it; and,
from a dread of exciting a clamour of the same kind, none of his
successors have dared to resume the project.

The duties upon foreign luxuries, imported for home consumption, though
they sometimes fall upon the poor, fall principally upon people of
middling or more than middling fortune. Such are, for example, the
duties upon foreign wines, upon coffee, chocolate, tea, sugar, etc.

The duties upon the cheaper luxuries of home produce, destined for home
consumption, fall pretty equally upon people of all ranks, in proportion
to their respective expense. The poor pay the duties upon malt, hops,
beer, and ale, upon their own consumption; the rich, upon both their own
consumption and that of their servants.

The whole consumption of the inferior ranks of people, or of those
below the middling rank, it must be observed, is, in every country, much
greater, not only in quantity, but in value, than that of the middling,
and of those above the middling rank. The whole expense of the inferior
is much greater titan that of the superior ranks. In the first place,
almost the whole capital of every country is annually distributed
among the inferior ranks of people, as the wages of productive labour.
Secondly, a great part of the revenue, arising from both the rent of
land and the profits of stock, is annually distributed among the
same rank, in the wages and maintenance of menial servants, and other
unproductive labourers. Thirdly, some part of the profits of stock
belongs to the same rank, as a revenue arising from the employment of
their small capitals. The amount of the profits annually made by small
shopkeepers, tradesmen, and retailers of all kinds, is everywhere
very considerable, and makes a very considerable portion of the annual
produce. Fourthly and lastly, some part even of the rent of land belongs
to the same rank; a considerable part to those who are somewhat below
the middling rank, and a small part even to the lowest rank; common
labourers sometimes possessing in property an acre or two of land.
Though the expense of those inferior ranks of people, therefore, taking
them individually, is very small, yet the whole mass of it, taking them
collectively, amounts always to by much the largest portion of the whole
expense of the society; what remains of the annual produce of the land
and labour of the country, for the consumption of the superior ranks,
being always much less, not only in quantity, but in value. The taxes
upon expense, therefore, which fall chiefly upon that of the superior
ranks of people, upon the smaller portion of the annual produce,
are likely to be much less productive than either those which fall
indifferently upon the expense of all ranks, or even those which fall
chiefly upon that of the inferior ranks, than either those which fall
indifferently upon the whole annual produce, or those which fall
chiefly upon the larger portion of it. The excise upon the materials
and manufacture of home-made fermented and spirituous liquors, is,
accordingly, of all the different taxes upon expense, by far the most
productive; and this branch of the excise falls very much, perhaps
principally, upon the expense of the common people. In the year which
ended on the 5th of July 1775, the gross produce of this branch of the
excise amounted to £3,341,837:9:9.

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not
the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever
to be taxed. The final payment of any tax upon their necessary expense,
would fall altogether upon the superior ranks of people; upon the
smaller portion of the annual produce, and not upon the greater. Such a
tax must, in all cases, either raise the wages of labour, or lessen the
demand for it. It could not raise the wages of labour, without throwing
the final payment of the tax upon the superior ranks of people. It could
not lessen the demand for labour, without lessening the annual produce
of the land and labour of the country, the fund upon which all taxes
must be finally paid. Whatever might be the state to which a tax of this
kind reduced the demand for labour, it must always raise wages higher
than they otherwise would be in that state; and the final payment of
this enhancement of wages must, in all cases, fall upon the superior
ranks of people.

Fermented liquors brewed, and spiritous liquors distilled, not for sale,
but for private use, are not in Great Britain liable to any duties of
excise. This exemption, of which the object is to save private families
from the odious visit and examination of the tax-gatherer, occasions
the burden of those duties to fall frequently much lighter upon the rich
than upon the poor. It is not, indeed, very common to distil for private
use, though it is done sometimes. But in the country, many middling and
almost all rich and great families, brew their own beer. Their strong
beer, therefore, costs them eight shillings a-barrel less than it costs
the common brewer, who must have his profit upon the tax, as well as
upon all the other expense which he advances. Such families, therefore,
must drink their beer at least nine or ten shillings a-barrel cheaper
than any liquor of the same quality can be drank by the common people,
to whom it is everywhere more convenient to buy their beer, by little
and little, from the brewery or the ale-house. Malt, in the same manner,
that is made for the use of a private family, is not liable to the visit
or examination of the tax-gatherer but, in this case the family must
compound at seven shillings and sixpence a-head for the tax. Seven
shillings and sixpence are equal to the excise upon ten bushels of malt;
a quantity fully equal to what all the different members of any sober
family, men, women, and children, are, at an average, likely to consume.
But in rich and great families, where country hospitality is much
practised, the malt liquors consumed by the members of the family make
but a small part of the consmnption of the house. Either on account
of this composition, however, or for other reasons, it is not near so
common to malt as to brew for private use. It is difficult to imagine
any equitable reason, why those who either brew or distil for private
use should not be subject to a composition of the same kind.

A greater revenue than what is at present drawn from all the heavy taxes
upon malt, beer, and ale, might be raised, it has frequently been said,
by a much lighter tax upon malt; the opportunities of defrauding the
revenue being much greater in a brewery than in a malt-house; and those
who brew for private use being exempted from all duties or composition
for duties, which is not the case with those who malt for private use.

In the porter brewery of London, a quarter of malt is commonly brewed
into more than two barrels and a-half, sometimes into three barrels of
porter. The different taxes upon malt amount to six shillings a-quarter;
those upon strong ale and beer to eight shillings a-barrel. In the
porter brewery, therefore, the different taxes upon malt, beer, and ale,
amount to between twenty-six and thirty shillings upon the produce of
a quarter of malt. In the country brewery for common country sale, a
quarter of malt is seldom brewed into less than two barrels of strong,
and one barrel of small beer; frequently into two barrels and a-half of
strong beer. The different taxes upon small beer amount to one shilling
and fourpence a-barrel. In the country brewery, therefore, the different
taxes upon malt, beer, and ale, seldom amount to less than twenty-three
shillings and fourpence, frequently to twenty-six shillings, upon the
produce of a quarter of malt. Taking the whole kingdom at an average,
therefore, the whole amount of the duties upon malt, beer, and ale,
cannot be estimated at less than twenty-four or twenty-five shillings
upon the produce of a quarter of malt. But by taking off all the
different duties upon beer and ale, and by trebling the malt tax, or by
raising it from six to eighteen shilling's upon the quarter of malt, a
greater revenue, it is said, might be raised by this single tax, than
what is at present drawn from all those heavier taxes.


  In 1772, the old malt tax produced.........  £722,023: 11: 11
                             The additional... £356,776:  7:  9¾
  In 1775, the old tax produced............... £561,627:  3:  7½
                             The additional... £278,650: 15:  3¾
  In 1774, the old tax  produced ............ £624,614: 17:  5¾
                             The additional....£310,745:  2:  8½
  In 1775, the old tax produced  ............£657,357:  0:  8¼
                             The additional....£323,785: 12:  6¼
                                             £5,855,580: 12:  0¾
  Average of these four years ..............  £958,895:  3:  0

  In 1772, the country excise produced.......£1,243,120:  5:  3
                    The London brewery          408,260:  7:  2¾
  In 1773, the country excise................£1,245,808:  3:  3
                    The London brewery          405,406: 17: 10½
  In 1774, the country excise................£1,246,373: 14:  5½
                    The London brewery          320,601: 18:  0¼
  In 1775, the country excise................£1,214,583:  6:  1¼
                    The London brewery          463,670:  7:  0¼
                                           4)£6,547,832: 19:  2¼
  Average of these four years ..............£1,636,958:  4:  9½
  To which adding the average malt tax........  958,895:  3:  0¼

  The whole amount of those different
                taxes comes out to be........£2,595,835:  7: 10

  But, by trebling the malt tax,
  or by raising it from six to
  eighteen shillings upon the quarter
  of malt, that single tax would produce.....£2,876,685:  9:  0
  A sum which exceeds the
                         foregoing by....       280,832:  1:  3

Under the old malt tax, indeed, is comprehended a tax of four shillings
upon the hogshead of cyder, and another of ten shillings upon the
barrel of mum. In 1774, the tax upon cyder produced only £3,083:6:8.
It probably fell somewhat short of its usual amount; all the different
taxes upon cyder, having, that year, produced less than ordinary. The
tax upon mum, though much heavier, is still less productive, on account
of the smaller consumption of that liquor. But to balance whatever may
be the ordinary amount of those two taxes, there is comprehended
under what is called the country excise, first, the old excise of six
shillings and eightpence upon the hogshead of cyder; secondly, a like
tax of six shillings and eightpence upon the hogshead of verjuice;
thirdly, another of eight shillings and ninepence upon the hogshead of
vinegar; and, lastly, a fourth tax of elevenpence upon the gallon of
mead or metheglin. The produce of those different taxes will probably
much more than counterbalance that of the duties imposed, by what is
called the annual malt tax, upon cyder and mum.

Malt is consumed, not only in the brewery of beer and ale, but in the
manufacture of low wines and spirits. If the malt tax were to be raised
to eighteen shillings upon the quarter, it might be necessary to make
some abatement in the different excises which are imposed upon those
particular sorts of low wines and spirits, of which malt makes any part
of the materials. In what are called malt spirits, it makes commonly
but a third part of the materials; the other two-thirds being either raw
barley, or one-third barley and one-third wheat. In the distillery of
malt spirits, both the opportunity and the temptation to smuggle
are much greater than either in a brewery or in a malt-house; the
opportunity, on account of the smaller bulk and greater value of the
commodity, and the temptation, on account of the superior height of
the duties, which amounted to 3s. 10 2/3d. upon the gallon of spirits.
{Though the duties directly imposed upon proof spirits amount only to
2s. 6d per gallon, these, added to the duties upon the low wines, from
which they are distilled, amount to 3s 10 2/3d. Both low wines and proof
spirits are, to prevent frauds, now rated according to what they gauge
in the wash.}

By increasing the duties upon malt, and reducing those upon the
distillery, both the opportunities and the temptation to smuggle would
be diminished, which might occasion a still further augmentation of
revenue.

It has for some time past been the policy of Great Britain to discourage
the consumption of spiritous liquors, on account of their supposed
tendency to ruin the health and to corrupt the morals of the common
people. According to this policy, the abatement of the taxes upon the
distillery ought not to be so great as to reduce, in any respect, the
price of those liquors. Spiritous liquors might remain as dear as ever;
while, at the same time, the wholesome and invigorating liquors of beer
and ale might be considerably reduced in their price. The people might
thus be in part relieved from one of the burdens of which they at
present complain the most; while, at the same time, the revenue might be
considerably augmented.

The objections of Dr. Davenant to this alteration in the present system
of excise duties, seem to be without foundation. Those objections are,
that the tax, instead of dividing itself, as at present, pretty equally
upon the profit of the maltster, upon that of the brewer and upon that
of the retailer, would so far as it affected profit, fall altogether
upon that of the maltster; that the maltster could not so easily get
back the amount of the tax in the advanced price of his malt, as the
brewer and retailer in the advanced price of their liquor; and that so
heavy a tax upon malt might reduce the rent and profit of barley land.

No tax can ever reduce, for any considerable time, the rate of profit in
any particular trade, which must always keep its level with other trades
in the neighbourhood. The present duties upon malt, beer, and ale, do
not affect the profits of the dealers in those commodities, who all get
back the tax with an additional profit, in the enhanced price of their
goods. A tax, indeed, may render the goods upon which it is imposed so
dear, as to diminish the consumption of them. But the consumption
of malt is in malt liquors; and a tax of eighteen shillings upon the
quarter of malt could not well render those liquors dearer than the
different taxes, amounting to twenty-four or twenty-five shillings,
do at present. Those liquors, on the contrary, would probably become
cheaper, and the consumption of them would be more likely to increase
than to diminish.

It is not very easy to understand why it should be more difficult for
the maltster to get back eighteen shillings in the advanced price of his
malt, than it is at present for the brewer to get back twenty-four or
twenty-five, sometimes thirty shillings, in that of his liquor. The
maltster, indeed, instead of a tax of six shillings, would be obliged
to advance one of eighteen shilling upon every quarter of malt. But
the brewer is at present obliged to advance a tax of twenty-four or
twenty-five, sometimes thirty shillings, upon every quarter of malt which
he brews. It could not be more inconvenient for the maltster to advance
a lighter tax, than it is at present for the brewer to advance a heavier
one. The maltster does not always keep in his granaries a stock of malt,
which it will require a longer time to dispose of than the stock of beer
and ale which the brewer frequently keeps in his cellars. The former,
therefore, may frequently get the returns of his money as soon as the
latter. But whatever inconveniency might arise to the maltster from
being obliged to advance a heavier tax, it could easily be remedied,
by granting him a few months longer credit than is at present commonly
given to the brewer.

Nothing could reduce the rent and profit of barley land, which did not
reduce the demand for barley. But a change of system, which reduced the
duties upon a quarter of malt brewed into beer and ale, from twentyfour
and twenty-five shillings to eighteen shillings, would be more likely to
increase than diminish that demand. The rent and profit of barley land,
besides, must always be nearly equal to those of other equally fertile
and equally well cultivated land. If they were less, some part of the
barley land would soon be turned to some other purpose; and if they were
greater, more land would soon be turned to the raising of barley. When
the ordinary price of any particular produce of land is at what may be
called a monopoly price, a tax upon it necessarily reduces the rent
and profit of the land which grows it. A tax upon the produce of
those precious vineyards, of which the wine falls so much short of the
effectual demand, that its price is always above the natural proportion
to that of the produce of other equally fertile and equally well
cultivated land, would necessarily reduce the rent and profit of those
vineyards. The price of the wines being already the highest that could
be got for the quantity commonly sent to market, it could not be raised
higher without diminishing that quantity; and the quantity could not be
diminished without still greater loss, because the lands could not be
turned to any other equally valuable produce. The whole weight of the
tax, therefore, would fall upon the rent and profit; properly upon the
rent of the vineyard. When it has been proposed to lay any new tax upon
sugar, our sugar planters have frequently complained that the whole
weight of such taxes fell not upon the consumer, but upon the producer;
they never having been able to raise the price of their sugar after the
tax higher than it was before. The price had, it seems, before the tax,
been a monopoly price; and the arguments adduced to show that sugar
was an improper subject of taxation, demonstrated perhaps that it was
a proper one; the gains of monopolists, whenever they can be come at,
being certainly of all subjects the most proper. But the ordinary price
of barley has never been a monopoly price; and the rent and profit of
barley land have never been above their natural proportion to those of
other equally fertile and equally well cultivated land. The different
taxes which have been imposed upon malt, beer, and ale, have never
lowered the price of barley; have never reduced the rent and profit of
barley land. The price of malt to the brewer has constantly risen in
proportion to the taxes imposed upon it; and those taxes, together with
the different duties upon beer and ale, have constantly either raised
the price, or, what comes to the same thing, reduced the quality of
those commodities to the consumer. The final payment of those taxes has
fallen constantly upon the consumer, and not upon the producer.

The only people likely to suffer by the change of system here proposed,
are those who brew for their own private use. But the exemption, which
this superior rank of people at present enjoy, from very heavy taxes
which are paid by the poor labourer and artificer, is surely most unjust
and unequal, and ought to be taken away, even though this change was
never to take place. It has probably been the interest of this superior
order of people, however, which has hitherto prevented a change of
system that could not well fail both to increase the revenue and to
relieve the people.

Besides such duties as those of custom and excise above mentioned, there
are several others which affect the price of goods more unequally and
more indirectly. Of this kind are the duties, which, in French, are
called peages, which in old Saxon times were called the duties of
passage, and which seem to have been originally established for the
same purpose as our turnpike tolls, or the tolls upon our canals and
navigable rivers, for the maintenance of the road or of the navigation.
Those duties, when applied to such purposes, are most properly imposed
according to the bulk or weight of the goods. As they were originally
local and provincial duties, applicable to local and provincial
purposes, the administration of them was, in most cases, entrusted to
the particular town, parish, or lordship, in which they were levied;
such communities being, in some way or other, supposed to be accountable
for the application. The sovereign, who is altogether unaccountable, has
in many countries assumed to himself the administration of those duties;
and though he has in most cases enhanced very much the duty, he has in
many entirely neglected the application. If the turnpike tolls of Great
Britain should ever become one of the resources of government, we may
learn, by the example of many other nations, what would probably be the
consequence. Such tolls, no doubt, are finally paid by the consumer; but
the consumer is not taxed in proportion to his expense, when he pays,
not according to the value, but according to the bulk or weight of what
he consumes. When such duties are imposed, not according to the bulk or
weight, but according to the supposed value of the goods, they become
properly a sort of inland customs or excise, which obstruct very much
the most important of all branches of commerce, the interior commerce of
the country.

In some small states, duties similar to those passage duties are imposed
upon goods carried across the territory, either by land or by water,
from one foreign country to another. These are in some countries called
transit-duties. Some of the little Italian states which are situated
upon the Po, and the rivers which run into it, derive some revenue from
duties of this kind, which are paid altogether by foreigners, and which,
perhaps, are the only duties that one state can impose upon the subjects
of another, without obstruction in any respect, the industry or commerce
of its own. The most important transit-duty in the world, is that levied
by the king of Denmark upon all merchant ships which pass through the
Sound.

Such taxes upon luxuries, as the greater part of the duties of customs
and excise, though they all fall indifferently upon every different
species of revenue, and are paid finally, or without any retribution, by
whoever consumes the commodities upon which they are imposed; yet they
do not always fall equally or proportionally upon the revenue of
every individual. As every man's humour regulates the degree of his
consumption, every man contributes rather according to his humour, than
proportion to his revenue: the profuse contribute more, the parsimonious
less, than their proper proportion. During the minority of a man of
great fortune, he contributes commonly very little, by his consumption,
towards the support of that state from whose protection he derives a
great revenue. Those who live in another country, contribute nothing by
their consumption towards the support of the government of that country,
in which is situated the source of their revenue. If in this latter
country there should be no land tax, nor any considerable duty upon the
transference either of moveable or immoveable property, as is the
case in Ireland, such absentees may derive a great revenue from
the protection of a government, to the support of which they do not
contribute a single shilling. This inequality is likely to be greatest
in a country of which the government is, in some respects, subordinate
and dependant upon that of some other. The people who possess the most
extensive property in the dependant, will, in this case, generally
chuse to live in the governing country. Ireland is precisely in this
situation; and we cannot therefore wonder, that the proposal of a tax
upon absentees should be so very popular in that country. It might,
perhaps, be a little difficult to ascertain either what sort, or what
degree of absence, would subject a man to be taxed as an absentee, or
at what precise time the tax should either begin or end. If you
except, however, this very peculiar situation, any inequality in the
contribution of individuals which can arise from such taxes, is much
more than compensated by the very circumstance which occasions that
inequality; the circumstance that every man's contribution is altogether
voluntary; it being altogether in his power, either to consume, or
not to consume, the commodity taxed. Where such taxes, therefore, are
properly assessed, and upon proper commodities, they are paid with less
grumbling than any other. When they are advanced by the merchant
or manufacturer, the consumer, who finally pays them, soon comes to
confound them with the price of the commodities, and almost forgets that
he pays any tax. Such taxes are, or may be, perfectly certain; or may
be assessed, so as to leave no doubt concerning either what ought to be
paid, or when it ought to be paid; concerning either the quantity or the
time of payment. What ever uncertainty there may sometimes be, either in
the duties of customs in Great Britain, or in other duties of the
same kind in other countries, it cannot arise from the nature of those
duties, but from the inaccurate or unskilful manner in which the law
that imposes them is expressed.

Taxes upon luxuries generally are, and always may be, paid piece-meal,
or in proportion as the contributors have occasion to purchase the goods
upon which they are imposed. In the time and mode of payment, they are,
or may be, of all taxes the most convenient. Upon the whole, such taxes,
therefore, are perhaps as agreeable to the three first of the four
general maxims concerning taxation, as any other. They offend in every
respect against the fourth.

Such taxes, in proportion to what they bring into the public treasury of
the state, always take out, or keep out, of the pockets of the people,
more than almost any other taxes. They seem to do this in all the four
different ways in which it is possible to do it.

First, the levying of such taxes, even when imposed in the most
judicious manner, requires a great number of custom-house and excise
officers, whose salaries and perquisites are a real tax upon the people,
which brings nothing into the treasury of the state. This expense,
however, it must be acknowledged, is more moderate in Great Britain than
in most other countries. In the year which ended on the 5th of July,
1775, the gross produce of the different duties, under the management
of the commissioners of excise in England, amounted to £5,507,308:18:8¼,
which was levied at an expense of little more than five and a-half per
cent. From this gross produce, however, there must be deducted what was
paid away in bounties and drawbacks upon the exportation of exciseable
goods, which will reduce the neat produce below five millions. {The
neat produce of that year, after deducting all expenses and allowances,
amounted to £4,975,652:19:6.} The levying of the salt duty, and excise
duty, but under a different management, is much more expensive. The neat
revenue of the customs does not amount to two millions and a-half, which
is levied at an expense of more than ten per cent., in the salaries
of officers and other incidents. But the perquisites of custom-house
officers are everywhere much greater than their salaries; at some ports
more than double or triple those salaries. If the salaries of officers,
and other incidents, therefore, amount to more than ten per cent. upon
the neat revenue of the customs, the whole expense of levying that
revenue may amount, in salaries and perquisites together, to more than
twenty or thirty per cent. The officers of excise receive few or no
perquisites; and the administration of that branch of the revenue being
of more recent establishment, is in general less corrupted than that
of the customs, into which length of time has introduced and authorised
many abuses. By charging upon malt the whole revenue which is at present
levied by the different duties upon malt and malt liquors, a saving, it
is supposed, of more than £50,000, might be made in the annual expense
of the excise. By confining the duties of customs to a few sorts of
goods, and by levying those duties according to the excise laws, a
much greater saving might probably be made in the annual expense of the
customs.

Secondly, such taxes necessarily occasion some obstruction or
discouragement to certain branches of industry. As they always raise the
price of the commodity taxed, they so far discourage its consumption,
and consequently its production. If it is a commodity of home growth or
manufacture, less labour comes to be employed in raising and producing
it. If it is a foreign commodity of which the tax increases in this
manner the price, the commodities of the same kind which are made at
home may thereby, indeed, gain some advantage in the home market, and
a greater quantity of domestic industry may thereby be turned toward
preparing them. But though this rise of price in a foreign commodity,
may encourage domestic industry in one particular branch, it necessarily
discourages that industry in almost every other. The dearer the
Birmingham manufacturer buys his foreign wine, the cheaper he
necessarily sells that part of his hardware with which, or, what comes
to the same thing, with the price of which, he buys it. That part of
his hardware, therefore, becomes of less value to him, and he has less
encouragement to work at it. The dearer the consumers in one country pay
for the surplus produce of another, the cheaper they necessarily sell
that part of their own surplus produce with which, or, what comes to the
same thing, with the price of which, they buy it. That part of their
own surplus produce becomes of less value to them, and they have less
encouragement to increase its quantity. All taxes upon consumable
commodities, therefore, tend to reduce the quantity of productive labour
below what it otherwise would be, either in preparing the commodities
taxed, if they are home commodities, or in preparing those with which
they are purchased, if they are foreign commodities. Such taxes, too,
always alter, more or less, the natural direction of national industry,
and turn it into a channel always different from, and generally less
advantageous, than that in which it would have run of its own accord.

Thirdly, the hope of evading such taxes by smuggling, gives frequent
occasion to forfeitures and other penalties, which entirely ruin the
smuggler; a person who, though no doubt highly blameable for violating
the laws of his country, is frequently incapable of violating those of
natural justice, and would have been, in every respect, an excellent
citizen, had not the laws of his country made that a crime which nature
never meant to be so. In those corrupted governments, where there is
at least a general suspicion of much unnecessary expense, and great
misapplication of the public revenue, the laws which guard it are little
respected. Not many people are scrupulous about smuggling, when, without
perjury, they can find an easy and safe opportunity of doing so. To
pretend to have any scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a
manifest encouragement to the violation of the revenue laws, and to the
perjury which almost always attends it, would, in most countries, be
regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hypocrisy which, instead of
gaining credit with anybody, serve only to expose the person who affects
to practise them to the suspicion of being a greater knave than most of
his neighbours. By this indulgence of the public, the smuggler is often
encouraged to continue a trade, which he is thus taught to consider as
in some measure innocent; and when the severity of the revenue laws
is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently disposed to defend with
violence, what he has been accustomed to regard as his just property.
From being at first, perhaps, rather imprudent than criminal, he at last
too often becomes one of the hardiest and most determined violators of
the laws of society. By the ruin of the smuggler, his capital, which
had before been employed in maintaining productive labour, is absorbed
either in the revenue of the state, or in that of the revenue officer;
and is employed in maintaining unproductive, to the diminution of the
general capital of the society, and of the useful industry which it
might otherwise have maintained.

Fourthly, such taxes, by subjecting at least the dealers in the taxed
commodities, to the frequent visits and odious examination of the
tax-gatherers, expose them sometimes, no doubt, to some degree of
oppression, and always to much trouble and vexation; and though
vexation, as has already been said, is not strictly speaking expense,
it is certainly equivalent to the expense at which every man would
be willing to redeem himself from it. The laws of excise, though more
effectual for the purpose for which they were instituted, are, in this
respect, more vexatious than those of the customs. When a merchant has
imported goods subject to certain duties of customs; when he has paid
those duties, and lodged the goods in his warehouse; he is not, in most
cases, liable to any further trouble or vexation from the custom-house
officer. It is otherwise with goods subject to duties of excise. The
dealers have no respite from the continual visits and examination of
the excise officers. The duties of excise are, upon this account, more
unpopular than those of the customs; and so are the officers who levy
them. Those officers, it is pretended, though in general, perhaps, they
do their duty fully as well as those of the customs; yet, as that
duty obliges them to be frequently very troublesome to some of their
neighbours, commonly contract a certain hardness of character, which the
others frequently have not. This observation, however, may very probably
be the mere suggestion of fraudulent dealers, whose smuggling is either
prevented or detected by their diligence.

The inconveniencies, however, which are, perhaps, in some degree
inseparable from taxes upon consumable communities, fall as light upon
the people of Great Britain as upon those of any other country of which
the government is nearly as expensive. Our state is not perfect, and
might be mended; but it is as good, or better, than that of most of our
neighbours.

In consequence of the notion, that duties upon consumable goods
were taxes upon the profits of merchants, those duties have, in some
countries, been repeated upon every successive sale of the goods. If the
profits of the merchant-importer or merchant-manufacturer were taxed,
equality seemed to require that those of all the middle buyers, who
intervened between either of them and the consumer, should likewise be
taxed. The famous alcavala of Spain seems to have been established upon
this principle. It was at first a tax of ten per cent. afterwards of
fourteen per cent. and it is at present only six per cent. upon the
sale of every sort of property whether moveable or immoveable; and it
is repeated every time the property is sold. {Memoires concernant les
Droits, etc. tom. i, p. 15} The levying of this tax requires a multitude
of revenue officers, sufficient to guard the transportation of goods,
not only from one province to another, but from one shop to another. It
subjects, not only the dealers in some sorts of goods, but those in all
sorts, every farmer, every manufacturer, every merchant and shopkeeper,
to the continual visit and examination of the tax-gatherers. Through the
greater part of the country in which a tax of this kind is established,
nothing can be produced for distant sale. The produce of every part
of the country must be proportioned to the consumption of the
neighbourhood. It is to the alcavala, accordingly, that Ustaritz imputes
the ruin of the manufactures of Spain. He might have imputed to it,
likewise, the declension of agriculture, it being imposed not only upon
manufactures, but upon the rude produce of the land.

In the kingdom of Naples, there is a similar tax of three per cent. upon
the value of all contracts, and consequently upon that of all contracts
of sale. It is both lighter than the Spanish tax, and the greater part
of towns and parishes are allowed to pay a composition in lieu of it.
They levy this composition in what manner they please, generally in a
way that gives no interruption to the interior commerce of the place.
The Neapolitan tax, therefore, is not near so ruinous as the Spanish
one.

The uniform system of taxation, which, with a few exception of no
great consequence, takes place in all the different parts of the united
kingdom of Great Britain, leaves the interior commerce of the country,
the inland and coasting trade, almost entirely free. The inland trade is
almost perfectly free; and the greater part of goods may be carried from
one end of the kingdom to the other, without requiring any permit or
let-pass, without being subject to question, visit or examination, from
the revenue officers. There are a few exceptions, but they are such as
can give no interruption to any important branch of inland commerce of
the country. Goods carried coastwise, indeed, require certificates or
coast-cockets. If you except coals, however, the rest are almost
all duty-free. This freedom of interior commerce, the effect of the
uniformity of the system of taxation, is perhaps one of the principal
causes of the prosperity of Great Britain; every great country being
necessarily the best and most extensive market for the greater part of
the productions of its own industry. If the same freedom in consequence
of the same uniformity, could be extended to Ireland and the
plantations, both the grandeur of the state, and the prosperity of every
part of the empire, would probably be still greater than at present.

In France, the different revenue laws which take place in the different
provinces, require a multitude of revenue officers to surround, not
only the frontiers of the kingdom, but those of almost each particular
province, in order either to prevent the importation of certain goods,
or to subject it to the payment of certain duties, to the no small
interruption of the interior commerce of the country. Some provinces are
allowed to compound for the gabelle, or salt tax; others are exempted
from it altogether. Some provinces are exempted from the exclusive sale
of tobacco, which the farmers-general enjoy through the greater part of
the kingdom. The aides, which correspond to the excise in England, are
very different in different provinces. Some provinces are exempted from
them, and pay a composition or equivalent. In those in which they take
place, and are in farm, there are many local duties which do not extend
beyond a particular town or district. The traites, which correspond
to our customs, divide the kingdom into three great parts; first, the
provinces subject to the tariff of 1664, which are called the provinces
of the five great farms, and under which are comprehended Picardy,
Normandy, and the greater part of the interior provinces of the kingdom;
secondly, the provinces subject to the tariff of 1667, which are called
the provinces reckoned foreign, and under which are comprehended the
greater part of the frontier provinces; and, thirdly, those provinces
which are said to be treated as foreign, or which, because they are
allowed a free commerce with foreign countries, are, in their commerce
with the other provinces of France, subjected to the same duties as
other foreign countries. These are Alsace, the three bishoprics of
Mentz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities of Dunkirk, Bayonne, and
Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the five great farms (called so on
account of an ancient division of the duties of customs into five great
branches, each of which was originally the subject of a particular farm,
though they are now all united into one), and in those which are said
to be reckoned foreign, there are many local duties which do not extend
beyond a particular town or district. There are some such even in the
provinces which are said to be treated as foreign, particularly in
the city of Marseilles. It is unnecessary to observe how much both the
restraints upon the interior commerce of the country, and the number
of the revenue officers, must be multiplied, in order to guard the
frontiers of those different provinces and districts which are subject
to such different systems of taxation.

Over and above the general restraints arising from this complicated
system of revenue laws, the commerce of wine (after corn, perhaps, the
most important production of France) is, in the greater part of the
provinces, subject to particular restraints arising from the favour
which has been shown to the vineyards of particular provinces and
districts above those of others. The provinces most famous for their
wines, it will be found, I believe, are those in which the trade in that
article is subject to the fewest restraints of this kind. The extensive
market which such provinces enjoy, encourages good management both in
the cultivation of their vineyards, and in the subsequent preparation of
their wines.

Such various and complicated revenue laws are not peculiar to France.
The little duchy of Milan is divided into six provinces, in each of
which there is a different system of taxation, with regard to several
different sorts of consumable goods. The still smaller territories of
the duke of Parma are divided into three or four, each of which has,
in the same manner, a system of its own. Under such absurd management,
nothing but the great fertility of the soil, and happiness of the
climate, could preserve such countries from soon relapsing into the
lowest state of poverty and barbarism.

Taxes upon consumable commodities may either he levied by an
administration, of which the officers are appointed by govermnent, and
are immediately accountable to government, of which the revenue must,
in this case, vary from year to year, according to the occasional
variations in the produce of the tax; or they may be let in farm for a
rent certain, the farmer being allowed to appoint his own officers, who,
though obliged to levy the tax in the manner directed by the law, are
under his immediate inspection, and are immediately accountable to him.
The best and most frugal way of levying a tax can never be by farm. Over
and above what is necessary for paying the stipulated rent, the salaries
of the officers, and the whole expense of administration, the farmer
must always draw from the produce of the tax a certain profit,
proportioned at least to the advance which he makes, to the risk which
he runs, to the trouble which he is at, and to the knowledge and skill
which it requires to manage so very complicated a concern. Government,
by establishing an administration under their own immediate inspection,
of the same kind with that which the farmer establishes, might at
least save this profit, which is almost always exorbitant. To farm
any considerable branch of the public revenue requires either a great
capital, or a great credit; circumstances which would alone restrain the
competition for such an undertaking to a very small number of people. Of
the few who have this capital or credit, a still smaller number have the
necessary knowledge or experience; another circumstance which restrains
the competition still further. The very few who are in condition to
become competitors, find it more for their interest to combine together;
to become copartners, instead of competitors; and, when the farm is set
up to auction, to offer no rent but what is much below the real value.
In countries where the public revenues are in farm, the farmers are
generally the most opulent people. Their wealth would alone excite the
public indignation; and the vanity which almost always accompanies
such upstart fortunes, the foolish ostentation with which they commonly
display that wealth, excite that indignation still more.

The farmers of the public revenue never find the laws too severe, which
punish any attempt to evade the payment of a tax. They have no bowels
for the contributors, who are not their subjects, and whose universal
bankruptcy, if it should happen the day after the farm is expired, would
not much affect their interest. In the greatest exigencies of the state,
when the anxiety of the sovereign for the exact payment of his revenue
is necessarily the greatest, they seldom fail to complain, that without
laws more rigorous than those which actually took place, it will be
impossible for them to pay even the usual rent. In those moments of
public distress, their commands cannot be disputed. The revenue laws,
therefore, become gradually more and more severe. The most sanguinary
are always to be found in countries where the greater part of the public
revenue is in farm; the mildest, in countries where it is levied under
the immediate inspection of the sovereign. Even a bad sovereign feels
more compassion for his people than can ever be expected from the
farmers of his revenue. He knows that the permanent grandeur of his
family depends upon the prosperity of his people, and he will never
knowingly ruin that prosperity for the sake of any momentary interest of
his own. It is otherwise with the farmers of his revenue, whose grandeur
may frequently be the effect of the ruin, and not of the prosperity, of
his people.

A tax is sometimes not only farmed for a certain rent, but the farmer
has, besides, the monopoly of the commodity taxed. In France, the duties
upon tobacco and salt are levied in this manner. In such cases, the
farmer, instead of one, levies two exorbitant profits upon the people;
the profit of the farmer, and the still more exorbitant one of the
monopolist. Tobacco being a luxury, every man is allowed to buy or not
to buy as he chuses; but salt being a necessary, every man is obliged to
buy of the farmer a certain quantity of it; because, if he did not buy
this quantity of the farmer, he would, it is presumed, buy it of some
smuggler. The taxes upon both commodities are exorbitant. The temptation
to smuggle, consequently, is to many people irresistible; while, at
the same time, the rigour of the law, and the vigilance of the farmer's
officers, render the yielding to the temptation almost certainly
ruinous. The smuggling of salt and tobacco sends every year several
hundred people to the galleys, besides a very considerable number whom
it sends to the gibbet. Those taxes, levied in this manner, yield a very
considerable revenue to government. In 1767, the farm of tobacco was let
for twenty-two millions five hundred and forty-one thousand two hundred
and seventy-eight livres a-year; that of salt for thirty-six millions
four hundred and ninety-two thousand four hundred and four livres. The
farm, in both cases, was to commence in 1768, and to last for six years.
Those who consider the blood of the people as nothing, in comparison
with the revenue of the prince, may, perhaps, approve of this method
of levying taxes. Similar taxes and monopolies of salt and tobacco have
been established in many other countries, particularly in the Austrian
and Prussian dominions, and in the greater part of the states of Italy.

In France, the greater part of the actual revenue of the crown is
derived from eight different sources; the taille, the capitation, the
two vingtiemes, the gabelles, the aides, the traites, the domaine,
and the farm of tobacco. The live last are, in the greater part of
the provinces, under farm. The three first are everywhere levied by
an administration, under the immediate inspection and direction of
government; and it is universally acknowledged, that in proportion to
what they take out of the pockets of the people, they bring more
into the treasury of the prince than the other five, of which the
administration is much more wasteful and expensive.

The finances of France seem, in their present state, to admit of three
very obvious reformations. First, by abolishing the taille and the
capitation, and by increasing the number of the vingtiemes, so as to
produce an additional revenue equal to the amount of those other taxes,
the revenue of the crown might be preserved; the expense of collection
might be much diminished; the vexation of the inferior ranks of people,
which the taille and capitation occasion, might be entirely prevented;
and the superior ranks might not be more burdened than the greater part
of them are at present. The vingtieme, I have already observed, is a
tax very nearly of the same kind with what is called the land tax of
England. The burden of the taille, it is acknowledged, falls finally
upon the proprietors of land; and as the greater part of the capitation
is assessed upon those who are subject to the taille, at so much a-pound
of that other tax, the final payment of the greater part of it must
likewise fall upon the same order of people. Though the number of the
vingtiemes, therefore, was increased, so as to produce an additional
revenue equal to the amount of both those taxes, the superior ranks
of people might not be more burdened than they are at present; many
individuals, no doubt, would, on account of the great inequalities with
which the taille is commonly assessed upon the estates and tenants of
different individuals. The interest and opposition of such favoured
subjects, are the obstacles most likely to prevent this, or any other
reformation of the same kind. Secondly, by rendering the gabelle, the
aides, the traites, the taxes upon tobacco, all the different customs
and excises, uniform in all the different parts of the kingdom, those
taxes might be levied at much less expense, and the interior commerce of
the kingdom might be rendered as free as that of England. Thirdly, and
lastly, by subjecting all those taxes to an administration under the
immediate inspection and direction or government, the exorbitant profits
of the farmers-general might be added to the revenue of the state. The
opposition arising from the private interest of individuals, is likely
to be as effectual for preventing the two last as the first-mentioned
scheme of reformation.

The French system of taxation seems, in every respect, inferior to the
British. In Great Britain, ten millions sterling are annually levied
upon less than eight millions of people, without its being possible to
say that any particular order is oppressed. From the Collections of the
Abbé Expilly, and the observations of the author of the Essay upon
the Legislation and Commerce of Corn, it appears probable that France,
including the provinces of Lorraine and Bar, contains about twenty-three
or twenty-four millions of people; three times the number, perhaps,
contained in Great Britain. The soil and climate of France are better
than those of Great Britain. The country has been much longer in a
state of improvement and cultivation, and is, upon that account, better
stocked with all those things which it requires a long time to raise
up and accumulate; such as great towns, and convenient and well-built
houses, both in town and country. With these advantages, it might be
expected, that in France a revenue of thirty millions might be levied
for the support of the state, with as little inconvenience as a revenue
of ten millions is in Great Britain. In 1765 and 1766, the whole revenue
paid into the treasury of France, according to the best, though, I
acknowledge, very imperfect accounts which I could get of it, usually
run between 308 and 325 millions of livres; that is, it did not amount
to fifteen millions sterling; not the half of what might have been
expected, had the people contributed in the same proportion to their
numbers as the people of Great Britain. The people of France, however,
it is generally acknowledged, are much more oppressed by taxes than the
people of Great Britain. France, however, is certainly the great empire
in Europe, which, after that of Great Britain, enjoys the mildest and
most indulgent government.

In Holland, the heavy taxes upon the necessaries of life have ruined,
it is said, their principal manufacturers, and are likely to discourage,
gradually, even their fisheries and their trade in ship-building. The
taxes upon the necessaries of life are inconsiderable in Great Britain,
and no manufacture has hitherto been ruined by them. The British taxes
which bear hardest on manufactures, are some duties upon the importation
of raw materials, particularly upon that of raw silk. The revenue of the
States-General and of the different cities, however, is said to amount
to more than five millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
sterling; and as the inhabitants of the United Provinces cannot well be
supposed to amount to more than a third part of those of Great Britain,
they must, in proportion to their number, be much more heavily taxed.

After all the proper subjects of taxation have been exhausted, if the
exigencies of the state still continue to require new taxes, they must
be imposed upon improper ones. The taxes upon the necessaries of life,
therefore, may be no impeachment of the wisdom of that republic, which,
in order to acquire and to maintain its independency, has, in spite of
its meat frugality, been involved in such expensive wars as have obliged
it to contract great debts. The singular countries of Holland and
Zealand, besides, require a considerable expense even to preserve their
existence, or to prevent their being swallowed up by the sea, which must
have contributed to increase considerably the load of taxes in those two
provinces. The republican form of government seems to be the principal
support of the present grandeur of Holland. The owners of great
capitals, the great mercantile families, have generally either some
direct share, or some indirect influence, in the administration of that
government. For the sake of the respect and authority which they derive
from this situation, they are willing to live in a country where their
capital, if they employ it themselves, will bring them less profit, and
if they lend it to another, less interest; and where the very
moderate revenue which they can draw from it will purchase less of the
necessaries and conveniencies of life than in any other part of Europe.
The residence of such wealthy people necessarily keeps alive, in spite
of all disadvantages, a certain degree of industry in the country. Any
public calamity which should destroy the republican form of government,
which should throw the whole administration into the hands of nobles and
of soldiers, which should annihilate altogether the importance of those
wealthy merchants, would soon render it disagreeable to them to live in
a country where they were no longer likely to be much respected. They
would remove both their residence and their capital to some other
country, and the industry and commerce of Holland would soon follow the
capitals which supported them.



CHAPTER III. OF PUBLIC DEBTS.

In that rude state of society which precedes the extension of commerce
and the improvement of manufactures; when those expensive luxuries,
which commerce and manufactures can alone introduce, are altogether
unknown; the person who possesses a large revenue, I have endeavoured to
show in the third book of this Inquiry, can spend or enjoy that revenue
in no other way than by maintaining nearly as many people as it can
maintain. A large revenue may at all times be said to consist in the
command of a large quantity of the necessaries of life. In that rude
state of things, it is commonly paid in a large quantity of those
necessaries, in the materials of plain food and coarse clothing, in
corn and cattle, in wool and raw hides. When neither commerce nor
manufactures furnish any thing for which the owner can exchange the
greater part of those materials which are over and above his own
consumption, he can do nothing with the surplus, but feed and clothe
nearly as many people as it will feed and clothe. A hospitality in which
there is no luxury, and a liberality in which there is no ostentation,
occasion, in this situation of things, the principal expenses of the
rich and the great. But these I have likewise endeavoured to show, in
the same book, are expenses by which people are not very apt to ruin
themselves. There is not, perhaps, any selfish pleasure so frivolous, of
which the pursuit has not sometimes ruined even sensible men. A passion
for cock-fighting has ruined many. But the instances, I believe, are
not very numerous, of people who have been ruined by a hospitality
or liberality of this kind; though the hospitality of luxury, and the
liberality of ostentation have ruined many. Among our feudal ancestors,
the long time during which estates used to continue in the same family,
sufficiently demonstrates the general disposition of people to live
within their income. Though the rustic hospitality, constantly exercised
by the great landholders, may not, to us in the present times, seem
consistent with that order which we are apt to consider as inseparably
connected with good economy; yet we must certainly allow them to have
been at least so far frugal, as not commonly to have spent their whole
income. A part of their wool and raw hides, they had generally an
opportunity of selling for money. Some part of this money, perhaps, they
spent in purchasing the few objects of vanity and luxury, with which the
circumstances of the times could furnish them; but some part of it they
seem commonly to have hoarded. They could not well, indeed, do any thing
else but hoard whatever money they saved. To trade, was disgraceful to
a gentleman; and to lend money at interest, which at that time was
considered as usury, and prohibited bylaw, would have been still more
so. In those times of violence and disorder, besides, it was convenient
to have a hoard of money at hand, that in case they should be driven
from their own home, they might have something of known value to carry
with them to some place of safety. The same violence which made it
convenient to hoard, made it equally convenient to conceal the hoard.
The frequency of treasure-trove, or of treasure found, of which no owner
was known, sufficiently demonstrates the frequency, in those times,
both of hoarding and of concealing the hoard. Treasure-trove was then
considered as an important branch of the revenue of the sovereign. All
the treasure-trove of the kingdom would scarce, perhaps, in the present
times, make an important branch of the revenue of a private gentleman of
a good estate.

The same disposition, to save and to hoard, prevailed in the sovereign,
as well as in the subjects. Among nations, to whom commerce and
manufacture are little known, the sovereign, it has already been
observed in the Fourth book, is in a situation which naturally disposes
him to the parsimony requisite for accumulation. In that situation, the
expense, even of a sovereign, cannot be directed by that vanity which
delights in the gaudy finery of a court. The ignorance of the times
affords but few of the trinkets in which that finery consists. Standing
armies are not then necessary; so that the expense, even of a sovereign,
like that of any other great lord can be employed in scarce any thing
but bounty to his tenants, and hospitality to his retainers. But bounty
and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost
always does. All the ancient sovereigns of Europe, accordingly, it has
already been observed, had treasures. Every Tartar chief, in the present
times, is said to have one.

In a commercial country, abounding with every sort of expensive luxury,
the sovereign, in the same manner as almost all the great proprietors
in his dominions, naturally spends a great part of his revenue in
purchasing those luxuries. His own and the neighbouring countries supply
him abundantly with all the costly trinkets which compose the splendid,
but insignificant, pageantry of a court. For the sake of an inferior
pageantry of the same kind, his nobles dismiss their retainers,
make their tenants independent, and become gradually themselves as
insignificant as the greater part of the wealthy burghers in his
dominions. The same frivolous passions, which influence their conduct,
influence his. How can it be supposed that he should be the only rich
man in his dominions who is insensible to pleasures of this kind? If he
does not, what he is very likely to do, spend upon those pleasures so
great a part of his revenue as to debilitate very much the defensive
power of the state, it cannot well be expected that he should not spend
upon them all that part of it which is over and above what is necessary
for supporting that defensive power. His ordinary expense becomes equal
to his ordinary revenue, and it is well if it does not frequently
exceed it. The amassing of treasure can no longer be expected; and
when extraordinary exigencies require extraordinary expenses, he must
necessarily call upon his subjects for an extraordinary aid. The present
and the late king of Prussia are the only great princes of Europe, who,
since the death of Henry IV. of France, in 1610, are supposed to
have amassed any considerable treasure. The parsimony which leads to
accumulation has become almost as rare in republican as in monarchical
governments. The Italian republics, the United Provinces of the
Netherlands, are all in debt. The canton of Berne is the single republic
in Europe which has amassed any considerable treasure. The other Swiss
republics have not. The taste for some sort of pageantry, for splendid
buildings, at least, and other public ornaments, frequently prevails as
much in the apparently sober senate-house of a little republic, as in
the dissipated court of the greatest king.

The want of parsimony, in time of peace, imposes the necessity of
contracting debt in time of war. When war comes, there is no money in
the treasury, but what is necessary for carrying on the ordinary expense
of the peace establishment. In war, an establishment of three or four
times that expense becomes necessary for the defence of the state;
and consequently, a revenue three or four times greater than the peace
revenue. Supposing that the sovereign should have, what he scarce ever
has, the immediate means of augmenting his revenue in proportion to the
augmentation of his expense; yet still the produce of the taxes, from
which this increase of revenue must be drawn, will not begin to come
into the treasury, till perhaps ten or twelve months after they are
imposed. But the moment in which war begins, or rather the moment in
which it appears likely to begin, the army must be augmented, the fleet
must be fitted out, the garrisoned towns must be put into a posture
of defence; that army, that fleet, those garrisoned towns, must be
furnished with arms, ammunition, and provisions. An immediate and great
expense must be incurred in that moment of immediate danger, which will
not wait for the gradual and slow returns of the new taxes. In this
exigency, government can have no other resource but in borrowing.

The same commercial state of society which, by the operation of
moral causes, brings government in this manner into the necessity of
borrowing, produces in the subjects both an ability and an inclination
to lend. If it commonly brings along with it the necessity of borrowing,
it likewise brings with it the facility of doing so.

A country abounding with merchants and manufacturers, necessarily
abounds with a set of people through whose hands, not only their own
capitals, but the capitals of all those who either lend them money, or
trust them with goods, pass as frequently, or more frequently, than the
revenue of a private man, who, without trade or business, lives upon
his income, passes through his hands. The revenue of such a man can
regularly pass through his hands only once in a year. But the whole
amount of the capital and credit of a merchant, who deals in a trade of
which the returns are very quick, may sometimes pass through his hands
two, three, or four times in a year. A country abounding with merchants
and manufacturers, therefore, necessarily abounds with a set of people,
who have it at all times in their power to advance, if they chuse to do
so, a very large sum of money to government. Hence the ability in the
subjects of a commercial state to lend.

Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which
does not enjoy a regular administration of justice; in which the people
do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property; in
which the faith of contracts is not supported by law; and in which
the authority of the state is not supposed to be regularly employed
in enforcing the payment of debts from all those who are able to pay.
Commerce and manufactures, in short, can seldom flourish in any state,
in which there is not a certain degree of confidence in the justice
of government. The same confidence which disposes great merchants and
manufacturers upon ordinary occasions, to trust their property to the
protection of a particular government, disposes them, upon extraordinary
occasions, to trust that government with the use of their property.
By lending money to government, they do not even for a moment diminish
their ability to carry on their trade and manufactures; on the
contrary, they commonly augment it. The necessities of the state render
government, upon most occasions willing to borrow upon terms extremely
advantageous to the lender. The security which it grants to the original
creditor, is made transferable to any other creditor; and from the
universal confidence in the justice of the state, generally sells in the
market for more than was originally paid for it. The merchant or
monied man makes money by lending money to government, and instead of
diminishing, increases his trading capital. He generally considers it
as a favour, therefore, when the administration admits him to a share
in the first subscription for a new loan. Hence the inclination or
willingness in the subjects of a commercial state to lend.

The government of such a state is very apt to repose itself upon this
ability and willingness of its subjects to lend it their money on
extraordinary occasions. It foresees the facility of borrowing, and
therefore dispenses itself from the duty of saving.

In a rude state of society, there are no great mercantile or
manufacturing capitals. The individuals, who hoard whatever money they
can save, and who conceal their hoard, do so from a distrust of the
justice of government; from a fear, that if it was known that they had
a hoard, and where that hoard was to be found, they would quickly be
plundered. In such a state of things, few people would be able,
and nobody would be willing to lend their money to government on
extraordinary exigencies. The sovereign feels that he must provide
for such exigencies by saving, because he foresees the absolute
impossibility of borrowing. This foresight increases still further his
natural disposition to save.

The progress of the enormous debts which at present oppress, and will
in the long-run probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe, has
been pretty uniform. Nations, like private men, have generally begun
to borrow upon what may be called personal credit, without assigning
or mortgaging any particular fund for the payment of the debt; and
when this resource has failed them, they have gone on to borrow upon
assignments or mortgages of particular funds.

What is called the unfunded debt of Great Britain, is contracted in the
former of those two ways. It consists partly in a debt which bears, or
is supposed to bear, no interest, and which resembles the debts that
a private man contracts upon account; and partly in a debt which bears
interest, and which resembles what a private man contracts upon his bill
or promissory-note. The debts which are due, either for extraordinary
services, or for services either not provided for, or not paid at the
time when they are performed; part of the extraordinaries of the army,
navy, and ordnance, the arrears of subsidies to foreign princes, those
of seamen's wages, etc. usually constitute a debt of the first kind.
Navy and exchequer bills, which are issued sometimes in payment of a
part of such debts, and sometimes for other purposes, constitute a debt
of the second kind; exchequer bills bearing interest from the day on
which they are issued, and navy bills six months after they are issued.
The bank of England, either by voluntarily discounting those bills
at their current value, or by agreeing with government for certain
considerations to circulate exchequer bills, that is, to receive them
at par, paying the interest which happens to be due upon them, keeps up
their value, and facilitates their circulation, and thereby frequently
enables government to contract a very large debt of this kind. In
France, where there is no bank, the state bills (billets d'etat {See
Examen des Reflections Politiques sur les Finances.}) have sometimes
sold at sixty and seventy per cent. discount. During the great recoinage
in king William's time, when the bank of England thought proper to put a
stop to its usual transactions, exchequer bills and tallies are said to
have sold from twenty-five to sixty per cent. discount; owing partly, no
doubt, to the supposed instability of the new government established by
the Revolution, but partly, too, to the want of the support of the bank
of England.

When this resource is exhausted, and it becomes necessary, in order to
raise money, to assign or mortgage some particular branch of the public
revenue for the payment of the debt, government has, upon different
occasions, done this in two different ways. Sometimes it has made this
assignment or mortgage for a short period of time only, a year, or a few
years, for example; and sometimes for perpetuity. In the one case,
the fund was supposed sufficient to pay, within the limited time, both
principal and interest of the money borrowed. In the other, it was
supposed sufficient to pay the interest only, or a perpetual annuity
equivalent to the interest, government being at liberty to redeem, at
any time, this annuity, upon paying back the principal sum borrowed.
When money was raised in the one way, it was said to be raised by
anticipation; when in the other, by perpetual funding, or, more shortly,
by funding.

In Great Britain, the annual land and malt taxes are regularly
anticipated every year, by virtue of a borrowing clause constantly
inserted into the acts which impose them. The bank of England generally
advances at an interest, which, since the Revolution, has varied from
eight to three per cent., the sums of which those taxes are granted,
and receives payment as their produce gradually comes in. If there is a
deficiency, which there always is, it is provided for in the supplies
of the ensuing year. The only considerable branch of the public revenue
which yet remains unmortgaged, is thus regularly spent before it comes
in. Like an improvident spendthrift, whose pressing occasions will not
allow him to wait for the regular payment of his revenue, the state is
in the constant practice of borrowing of its own factors and agents, and
of paying interest for the use of its own money.

In the reign of king William, and during a great part of that of queen
Anne, before we had become so familiar as we are now with the practice
of perpetual funding, the greater part of the new taxes were imposed but
for a short period of time (for four, five, six, or seven years only),
and a great part of the grants of every year consisted in loans
upon anticipations of the produce of those taxes. The produce being
frequently insufficient for paying, within the limited term, the
principal and interest of the money borrowed, deficiencies arose; to
make good which, it became necessary to prolong the term.

In 1697, by the 8th of William III., c. 20, the deficiencies of several
taxes were charged upon what was then called the first general mortgage
or fund, consisting of a prolongation to the first of August 1706, of
several different taxes, which would have expired within a shorter term,
and of which the produce was accumulated into one general fund. The
deficiencies charged upon this prolonged term amounted to £5,160,459:
14: 9½.

In 1701, those duties, with some others, were still further prolonged,
for the like purposes, till the first of August 1710, and were called
the second general mortgage or fund. The deficiencies charged upon it
amounted to £2,055,999: 7: 11½.

In 1707, those duties were still further prolonged, as a fund for new
loans, to the first of August 1712, and were called the third general
mortgage or fund. The sum borrowed upon it was £983,254:11:9¼.

In 1708, those duties were all (except the old subsidy of tonnage and
poundage, of which one moiety only was made a part of this fund, and a
duty upon the importation of Scotch linen, which had been taken off by
the articles of union) still further continued, as a fund for new loans,
to the first of August 1714, and were called the fourth general mortgage
or fund. The sum borrowed upon it was £925,176:9:2¼.

In 1709, those duties were all ( except the old subsidy of tonnage and
poundage, which was now left out of this fund altogether ) still further
continued, for the same purpose, to the first of August 1716, and were
called the fifth general mortgage or fund. The sum borrowed upon it was
£922,029:6s.

In 1710, those duties were again prolonged to the first of August 1720,
and were called the sixth general mortgage or fund. The sum borrowed
upon it was £1,296,552:9:11¾.

In 1711, the same duties (which at this time were thus subject to four
different anticipations), together with several others, were continued
for ever, and made a fund for paying the interest of the capital of
the South-sea company, which had that year advanced to government, for
paying debts, and making good deficiencies, the sum of £9,177,967:15:4d,
the greatest loan which at that time had ever been made.

Before this period, the principal, so far as I have been able to
observe, the only taxes, which, in order to pay the interest of a debt,
had been imposed for perpetuity, were those for paying the interest
of the money which had been advanced to government by the bank and
East-India company, and of what it was expected would be advanced, but
which was never advanced, by a projected land bank. The bank fund at
this time amounted to £3,375,027:17:10½, for which was paid an
annuity or interest of £206,501:15:5d. The East-India fund amounted to
£3,200,000, for which was paid an annuity or interest of £160,000; the
bank fund being at six per cent., the East-India fund at five per cent.
interest.

In 1715, by the first of George I., c. 12, the different taxes which
had been mortgaged for paying the bank annuity, together with several
others, which, by this act, were likewise rendered perpetual, were
accumulated into one common fund, called the aggregate fund, which was
charged not only with the payment of the bank annuity, but with several
other annuities and burdens of different kinds. This fund was afterwards
augmented by the third of George I., c.8., and by the fifth of George
I., c. 3, and the different duties which were then added to it were
likewise rendered perpetual.

In 1717, by the third of George I., c. 7, several other taxes were
rendered perpetual, and accumulated into another common fund, called
the general fund, for the payment of certain annuities, amounting in the
whole to £724,849:6:10½.

In consequence of those different acts, the greater part of the taxes,
which before had been anticipated only for a short term of years were
rendered perpetual, as a fund for paying, not the capital, but the
interest only, of the money which had been borrowed upon them by
different successive anticipations.

Had money never been raised but by anticipation, the course of a
few years would have liberated the public revenue, without any other
attention of government besides that of not overloading the fund, by
charging it with more debt than it could pay within the limited term,
and not of anticipating a second time before the expiration of the first
anticipation. But the greater part of European governments have been
incapable of those attentions. They have frequently overloaded the fund,
even upon the first anticipation; and when this happened not to be the
case, they have generally taken care to overload it, by anticipating
a second and a third time, before the expiration of the first
anticipation. The fund becoming in this manner altogether insufficient
for paying both principal and interest of the money borrowed upon it,
it became necessary to charge it with the interest only, or a perpetual
annuity equal to the interest; and such improvident anticipations
necessarily gave birth to the more ruinous practice of perpetual
funding. But though this practice necessarily puts off the liberation of
the public revenue from a fixed period, to one so indefinite that it is
not very likely ever to arrive; yet, as a greater sum can, in all cases,
be raised by this new practice than by the old one of anticipation, the
former, when men have once become familiar with it, has, in the great
exigencies of the state, been universally preferred to the latter. To
relieve the present exigency, is always the object which principally
interests those immediately concerned in the administration of public
affairs. The future liberation of the public revenue they leave to the
care of posterity.

During the reign of queen Anne, the market rate of interest had fallen
from six to five per cent.; and, in the twelfth year of her reign, five
per cent. was declared to be the highest rate which could lawfully be
taken for money borrowed upon private security. Soon after the
greater part of the temporary taxes of Great Britain had been rendered
perpetual, and distributed into the aggregate, South-sea, and general
funds, the creditors of the public, like those of private persons, were
induced to accept of five per cent. for the interest of their money,
which occasioned a saving of one per cent. upon the capital of the
greater part or the debts which had been thus funded for perpetuity, or
of one-sixth of the greater part of the annuities which were paid out of
the three great funds above mentioned. This saving left a considerable
surplus in the produce of the different taxes which had been accumulated
into those funds, over and above what was necessary for paying the
annuities which were now charged upon them, and laid the foundation of
what has since been called the sinking fund. In 1717, it amounted to
£523,454:7:7½. In 1727, the interest of the greater part of the public
debts was still further reduced to four per cent.; and, in 1753 and
1757, to three and a-half, and three per cent., which reductions still
further augmented the sinking fund.

A sinking fund, though instituted for the payment of old, facilitates
very much the contracting of new debts. It is a subsidiary fund, always
at hand, to be mortgaged in aid of any other doubtful fund, upon which
money is proposed to be raised in any exigency of the state. Whether the
sinking fund of Great Britain has been more frequently applied to the
one or to other of those two purposes, will sufficiently appear by and
by.

Besides those two methods of borrowing, by anticipations and by a
perpetual funding, there are two other methods, which hold a sort of
middle place between them; these are, that of borrowing upon annuities
for terms of years, and that of borrowing upon annuities for lives.

During the reigns of king William and queen Anne, large sums were
frequently borrowed upon annuities for terms of years, which were
sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. In 1695, an act was passed for
borrowing one million upon an annuity of fourteen per cent., or £140,000
a-year, for sixteen years. In 1691, an act was passed for borrowing
a million upon annuities for lives, upon terms which, in the present
times, would appear very advantageous; but the subscription was not
filled up. In the following year, the deficiency was made good, by
borrowing upon annuities for lives, at fourteen per cent. or a little
more than seven years purchase. In 1695, the persons who had purchased
those annuities were allowed to exchange them for others of ninety-six
years, upon paying into the exchequer sixty-three pounds in the hundred;
that is, the difference between fourteen per cent. for life, and
fourteen per cent. for ninety-six years, was sold for sixty-three
pounds, or for four and a-half years purchase. Such was the supposed
instability of government, that even these terms procured few
purchasers. In the reign of queen Anne, money was, upon different
occasions, borrowed both upon annuities for lives, and upon annuities
for terms of thirty-two, of eighty-nine, of ninety-eight, and of
ninety-nine years. In 1719, the proprietors of the annuities for
thirty-two years were induced to accept, in lieu of them, South-sea
stock to the amount of eleven and a-half years purchase of the
annuities, together with an additional quantity of stock, equal to the
arrears which happened then to be due upon them. In 1720, the greater
part of the other annuities for terms of years, both long and short,
were subscribed into the same fund. The long annuities, at that time,
amounted to £666,821: 8:3½ a-year. On the 5th of January 1775, the
remainder of them, or what was not subscribed at that time, amounted
only to £136,453:12:8d.

During the two wars which began in 1739 and in 1755, little money was
borrowed, either upon annuities for terms of years, or upon those for
lives. An annuity for ninety-eight or ninety-nine years, however, is
worth nearly as much as a perpetuity, and should therefore, one might
think, be a fund for borrowing nearly as much. But those who, in order
to make family settlements, and to provide for remote futurity, buy
into the public stocks, would not care to purchase into one of which
the value was continually diminishing; and such people make a very
considerable proportion, both of the proprietors and purchasers of
stock. An annuity for a long term of years, therefore, though its
intrinsic value may be very nearly the same with that of a perpetual
annuity, will not find nearly the same number of purchasers. The
subscribers to a new loan, who mean generally to sell their subscription
as soon as possible, prefer greatly a perpetual annuity, redeemable by
parliament, to an irredeemable annuity, for a long term of years, of
only equal amount. The value of the former may be supposed always
the same, or very nearly the same; and it makes, therefore, a more
convenient transferable stock than the latter.

During the two last-mentioned wars, annuities, either for terms of years
or for lives, were seldom granted, but as premiums to the subscribers of
a new loan, over and above the redeemable annuity or interest, upon the
credit of which the loan was supposed to be made. They were granted,
not as the proper fund upon which the money was borrowed, but as an
additional encouragement to the lender.

Annuities for lives have occasionally been granted in two different
ways; either upon separate lives, or upon lots of lives, which, in
French, are called tontines, from the name of their inventor. When
annuities are granted upon separate lives, the death of every individual
annuitant disburdens the public revenue, so far as it was affected by
his annuity. When annuities are granted upon tontines, the liberation
of the public revenue does not commence till the death of all the
annuitants comprehended in one lot, which may sometimes consist of
twenty or thirty persons, of whom the survivors succeed to the annuities
of all those who die before them; the last survivor succeeding to the
annuities of the whole lot. Upon the same revenue, more money can always
be raised by tontines than by annuities for separate lives. An annuity,
with a right of survivorship, is really worth more than an equal annuity
for a separate life; and, from the confidence which every man naturally
has in his own good fortune, the principle upon which is founded the
success of all lotteries, such an annuity generally sells for something
more than it is worth. In countries where it is usual for government
to raise money by granting annuities, tontines are, upon this account,
generally preferred to annuities for separate lives. The expedient
which will raise most money, is almost always preferred to that which
is likely to bring about, in the speediest manner, the liberation of the
public revenue.

In France, a much greater proportion of the public debts consists in
annuities for lives than in England. According to a memoir presented by
the parliament of Bourdeaux to the king, in 1764, the whole public debt
of France is estimated at twenty-four hundred millions of livres; of
which the capital, for which annuities for lives had been granted, is
supposed to amount to three hundred millions, the eighth part of the
whole public debt. The annuities themselves are computed to amount
to thirty millions a-year, the fourth part of one hundred and twenty
millions, the supposed interest of that whole debt. These estimations,
I know very well, are not exact; but having been presented by so
very respectable a body as approximations to the truth, they may, I
apprehend, be considered as such. It is not the different degrees of
anxiety in the two governments of France and England for the liberation
of the public revenue, which occasions this difference in their
respective modes of borrowing; it arises altogether from the different
views and interests of the lenders.

In England, the seat of government being in the greatest mercantile city
in the world, the merchants are generally the people who advance money
to government. By advancing it, they do not mean to diminish, but, on
the contrary, to increase their mercantile capitals; and unless they
expected to sell, with some profit, their share in the subscription
for a new loan, they never would subscribe. But if, by advancing their
money, they were to purchase, instead of perpetual annuities, annuities
for lives only, whether their own or those of other people, they would
not always be so likely to sell them with a profit. Annuities upon their
own lives they would always sell with loss; because no man will give for
an annuity upon the life of another, whose age and state of health are
nearly the same with his own, the same price which he would give for one
upon his own. An annuity upon the life of a third person, indeed, is,
no doubt, of equal value to the buyer and the seller; but its real value
begins to diminish from the moment it is granted, and continues to do
so, more and more, as long as it subsists. It can never, therefore, make
so convenient a transferable stock as a perpetual annuity, of which the
real value may be supposed always the same, or very nearly the same.

In France, the seat of government not being in a great mercantile city,
merchants do not make so great a proportion of the people who advance
money to government. The people concerned in the finances, the
farmers-general, the receivers of the taxes which are not in farm, the
court-bankers, etc. make the greater part of those who advance their
money in all public exigencies. Such people are commonly men of mean
birth, but of great wealth, and frequently of great pride. They are too
proud to marry their equals, and women of quality disdain to marry
them. They frequently resolve, therefore, to live bachelors; and having
neither any families of their own, nor much regard for those of their
relations, whom they are not always very fond of acknowledging, they
desire only to live in splendour during their own time, and are not
unwilling that their fortune should end with themselves. The number of
rich people, besides, who are either averse to marry, or whose condition
of life renders it either improper or inconvenient for them to do so, is
much greater in France than in England. To such people, who have
little or no care for posterity, nothing can be more convenient than to
exchange their capital for a revenue, which is to last just as long, and
no longer, than they wish it to do.

The ordinary expense of the greater part of modern governments, in time
of peace, being equal, or nearly equal, to their ordinary revenue, when
war comes, they are both unwilling and unable to increase their revenue
in proportion to the increase of their expense. They are unwilling, for
fear of offending the people, who, by so great and so sudden an increase
of taxes, would soon be disgusted with the war; and they are unable,
from not well knowing what taxes would be sufficient to produce the
revenue wanted. The facility of borrowing delivers them from the
embarrassment which this fear and inability would otherwise occasion. By
means of borrowing, they are enabled, with a very moderate increase of
taxes, to raise, from year to year, money sufficient for carrying on the
war; and by the practice of perpetual funding, they are enabled, with
the smallest possible increase of taxes, to raise annually the largest
possible sum of money. In great empires, the people who live in the
capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel,
many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war, but enjoy, at their
ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their
own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small
difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and
those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are
commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to
their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and
national glory, from a longer continuance of the war.

The return of peace, indeed, seldom relieves them from the greater
part of the taxes imposed during the war. These are mortgaged for the
interest of the debt contracted, in order to carry it on. If, over
and above paying the interest of this debt, and defraying the ordinary
expense of government, the old revenue, together with the new taxes,
produce some surplus revenue, it may, perhaps, be converted into a
sinking fund for paying off the debt. But, in the first place, this
sinking fund, even supposing it should be applied to no other purpose,
is generally altogether inadequate for paying, in the course of any
period during which it can reasonably be expected that peace should
continue, the whole debt contracted during the war; and, in the second
place, this fund is almost always applied to other purposes.

The new taxes were imposed for the sole purpose of paying the interest
of the money borrowed upon them. If they produce more, it is generally
something which was neither intended nor expected, and is, therefore,
seldom very considerable. Sinking funds have generally arisen, not so
much from any surplus of the taxes which was over and above what was
necessary for paying the interest or annuity originally charged upon
them, as from a subsequent reduction of that interest; that of Holland
in 1655, and that of the ecclesiastical state in 1685, were both formed
in this manner. Hence the usual insufficiency of such funds.

During the most profound peace, various events occur, which require an
extraordinary expense; and government finds it always more convenient to
defray this expense by misapplying the sinking fund, than by imposing a
new tax. Every new tax is immediately felt more or less by the people.
It occasions always some murmur, and meets with some opposition. The
more taxes may have been multiplied, the higher they may have been
raised upon every different subject of taxation; the more loudly the
people complain of every new tax, the more difficult it becomes, too,
either to find out new subjects of taxation, or to raise much higher
the taxes already imposed upon the old. A momentary suspension of the
payment of debt is not immediately felt by the people, and occasions
neither murmur nor complaint. To borrow of the sinking fund is always
an obvious and easy expedient for getting out of the present difficulty.
The more the public debts may have been accumulated, the more necessary
it may have become to study to reduce them; the more dangerous, the more
ruinous it may be to misapply any part of the sinking fund; the less
likely is the public debt to be reduced to any considerable degree, the
more likely, the more certainly, is the sinking fund to be misapplied
towards defraying all the extraordinary expenses which occur in time of
peace. When a nation is already overburdened with taxes, nothing but the
necessities of a new war, nothing but either the animosity of national
vengeance, or the anxiety for national security, can induce the people
to submit, with tolerable patience, to a new tax. Hence the usual
misapplication of the sinking fund.

In Great Britain, from the time that we had first recourse to the
ruinous expedient of perpetual funding, the reduction of the public
debt, in time of peace, has never borne any proportion to its
accumulation in time of war. It was in the war which began in 1668, and
was concluded by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, that the foundation of
the present enormous debt of Great Britain was first laid.

On the 31st of December 1697, the public debts of Great Britain, funded
and unfunded, amounted to £21,515,742:13:8½. A great part of those
debts had been contracted upon short anticipations, and some part upon
annuities for lives; so that, before the 31st of December 1701, in less
than four years, there had partly been paid off; and partly reverted
to the public, the sum of £5,121,041:12:0¾d; a greater reduction of the
public debt than has ever since been brought about in so short a
period of time. The remaining debt, therefore, amounted only to
£16,394,701:1:7¼d.

In the war which began in 1702, and which was concluded by the treaty
of Utrecht, the public debts were still more accumulated. On the 31st of
December 1714, they amounted to £53,681,076:5:6½. The subscription
into the South-sea fund, of the short and long annuities, increased the
capital of the public debt; so that, on the 31st of December 1722, it
amounted to £55,282,978:1:3 5/6. The reduction of the debt began in
1723, and went on so slowly, that, on the 31st of December 1739, during
seventeen years-of profound peace, the whole sum paid off was no more
than £8,328,554:17:11 3/12, the capital of the public debt, at that
time, amounting to £46,954,623:3:4 7/12.

The Spanish war, which began in 1739, and the French war which soon
followed it, occasioned a further increase of the debt, which, on the
31st of December 1748, after the war had been concluded by the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, amounted to £78,293,313:1:10¾. The most profound peace,
of 17 years continuance, had taken no more than £8,328,354, 17:11¼ from
it. A war, of less than nine years continuance, added £31,338,689:18: 6
1/6 to it. {See James Postlethwaite's History of the Public Revenue.}

During the administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest of the public debt
was reduced, or at least measures were taken for reducing it, from four
to three per cent.; the sinking fund was increased, and some part of the
public debt was paid off. In 1755, before the breaking out of the late
war, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to £72,289,675. On the
5th of January 1763, at the conclusion of the peace, the funded debt
amounted debt to £122,603,336:8:2¼. The unfunded debt has been stated at
£13,927,589:2:2. But the expense occasioned by the war did not end with
the conclusion of the peace; so that, though on the 5th of January
1764, the funded debt was increased (partly by a new loan, and partly by
funding a part of the unfunded debt) to £129,586,789:10:1¾, there still
remained (according to the very well informed author of Considerations
on the Trade and Finances of Great Britain) an unfunded debt, which was
brought to account in that and the following year, of £9,975,017: 12:2
15/44d. In 1764, therefore, the public debt of Great Britain, funded
and unfunded together, amounted, according to this author, to
£139,561,807:2:4. The annuities for lives, too, which had been granted
as premiums to the subscribers to the new loans in 1757, estimated at
fourteen years purchase, were valued at £472,500; and the annuities for
long terms of years, granted as premiums likewise, in 1761 and 1762,
estimated at twenty-seven and a-half years purchase, were valued at
£6,826,875. During a peace of about seven years continuance, the prudent
and truly patriotic administration of Mr. Pelham was not able to pay
off an old debt of six millions. During a war of nearly the same
continuance, a new debt of more than seventy-five millions was
contracted.

On the 5th of January 1775, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to
£124,996,086, 1:6¼d. The unfunded, exclusive of a large civil-list debt,
to £4,150,236:3:11 7/8. Both together, to £129,146,322:5:6. According to
this account, the whole debt paid off, during eleven years of profound
peace, amounted only to £10,415,476:16:9 7/8. Even this small reduction
of debt, however, has not been all made from the savings out of the
ordinary revenue of the state. Several extraneous sums, altogether
independent of that ordinary revenue, have contributed towards it.
Amongst these we may reckon an additional shilling in the pound land
tax, for three years; the two millions received from the East-India
company, as indemnification for their territorial acquisitions; and
the one hundred and ten thousand pounds received from the bank for the
renewal of their charter. To these must be added several other sums,
which, as they arose out of the late war, ought perhaps to be considered
as deductions from the expenses of it. The principal are,

   The produce of French prizes..............    £690,449: 18: 9
   Composition for French prisoners.........      670,000:  0: 0

   What has been received from the sale
   of the ceded islands.........................   95,500:  0: 0

   Total, .....................................£1,455,949: 18: 9

If we add to this sum the balance of the earl of Chatham's and Mr.
Calcraft's accounts, and other army savings of the same kind, together
with what has been received from the bank, the East-India company, and
the additional shilling in the pound land tax, the whole must be a good
deal more than five millions. The debt, therefore, which, since the
peace, has been paid out of the savings from the ordinary revenue of
the state, has not, one year with another, amounted to half a million
a-year. The sinking fund has, no doubt, been considerably augmented
since the peace, by the debt which had been paid off, by the reduction
of the redeemable four per cents to three per cents, and by the
annuities for lives which have fallen in; and, if peace were to
continue, a million, perhaps, might now be annually spared out of it
towards the discharge of the debt. Another million, accordingly,
was paid in the course of last year; but at the same time, a large
civil-list debt was left unpaid, and we are now involved in a new war,
which, in its progress, may prove as expensive as any of our former
wars. {It has proved more expensive than any one of our former wars, and
has involved us in an additional debt of more than one hundred millions.
During a profound peace of eleven years, little more than ten millions
of debt was paid; during a war of seven years, more than one hundred
millions was contracted.} The new debt which will probably be contracted
before the end of the next campaign, may, perhaps, be nearly equal to
all the old debt which has been paid off from the savings out of the
ordinary revenue of the state. It would be altogether chimerical,
therefore, to expect that the public debt should ever be completely
discharged, by any savings which are likely to be made from that
ordinary revenue as it stands at present.

The public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe,
particularly those of England, have, by one author, been represented as
the accumulation of a great capital, superadded to the other capital of
the country, by means of which its trade is extended, its manufactures
are multiplied, and its lands cultivated and improved, much beyond what
they could have been by means of that other capital only. He does
not consider that the capital which the first creditors of the public
advanced to government, was, from the moment in which he advanced it, a
certain portion of the annual produce, turned away from serving in the
function of a capital, to serve in that of a revenue; from maintaining
productive labourers, to maintain unproductive ones, and to be spent and
wasted, generally in the course of the year, without even the hope of
any future reproduction. In return for the capital which they advanced,
they obtained, indeed, an annuity of the public funds, in most cases,
of more than equal value. This annuity, no doubt, replaced to them their
capital, and enabled them to carry on their trade and business to the
same, or, perhaps, to a greater extent than before; that is, they were
enabled, either to borrow of other people a new capital, upon the
credit of this annuity or, by selling it, to get from other people a
new capital of their own, equal, or superior, to that which they had
advanced to government. This new capital, however, which they in this
manner either bought or borrowed of other people, must have existed in
the country before, and must have been employed, as all capitals are, in
maintaining productive labour. When it came into the hands of those who
had advanced their money to government, though it was, in some respects,
a new capital to them, it was not so to the country, but was only
a capital withdrawn from certain employments, in order to be turned
towards others. Though it replaced to them what they had advanced to
government, it did not replace it to the country. Had they not advanced
this capital to government, there would have been in the country two
capitals, two portions of the annual produce, instead of one, employed
in maintaining productive labour.

When, for defraying the expense of government, a revenue is raised
within the year, from the produce of free or unmortgaged taxes, a
certain portion of the revenue of private people is only turned away
from maintaining one species of unproductive labour, towards maintaining
another. Some part of what they pay in those taxes, might, no doubt,
have been accumulated into capital, and consequently employed in
maintaining productive labour; but the greater part would probably
have been spent, and consequently employed in maintaining unproductive
labour. The public expense, however, when defrayed in this manner, no
doubt hinders, more or less, the further accumulation of new
capital; but it does not necessarily occasion the destruction of any
actually-existing capital.

When the public expense is defrayed by funding, it is defrayed by the
annual destruction of some capital which had before existed in the
country; by the perversion of some portion of the annual produce which
had before been destined for the maintenance of productive labour,
towards that of unproductive labour. As in this case, however, the taxes
are lighter than they would have been, had a revenue sufficient for
defraying the same expense been raised within the year; the private
revenue of individuals is necessarily less burdened, and consequently
their ability to save and accumulate some part of that revenue into
capital, is a good deal less impaired. If the method of funding destroys
more old capital, it, at the same time, hinders less the accumulation or
acquisition of new capital, than that of defraying the public expense
by a revenue raised within the year. Under the system of funding, the
frugality and industry of private people can more easily repair the
breaches which the waste and extravagance of government may occasionally
make in the general capital of the society.

It is only during the continuance of war, however, that the system of
funding has this advantage over the other system. Were the expense of
war to be defrayed always by a revenue raised within the year, the taxes
from which that extraordinary revenue was drawn would last no longer
than the war. The ability of private people to accumulate, though less
during the war, would have been greater during the peace, than under
the system of funding. War would not necessarily have occasioned the
destruction of any old capitals, and peace would have occasioned the
accumulation of many more new. Wars would, in general, be more speedily
concluded, and less wantonly undertaken. The people feeling, during
continuance of war, the complete burden of it, would soon grow weary
of it; and government, in order to humour them, would not be under the
necessity of carrying it on longer than it was necessary to do so. The
foresight of the heavy and unavoidable burdens of war would hinder the
people from wantonly calling for it when there was no real or solid
interest to fight for. The seasons during which the ability of private
people to accumulate was somewhat impaired, would occur more rarely,
and be of shorter continuance. Those, on the contrary, during which that
ability was in the highest vigour would be of much longer duration than
they can well be under the system of funding.

When funding, besides, has made a certain progress, the multiplication
of taxes which it brings along with it, sometimes impairs as much the
ability of private people to accumulate, even in time of peace, as the
other system would in time of war. The peace revenue of Great Britain
amounts at present to more than ten millions a-year. If free and
unmortgaged, it might be sufficient, with proper management, and without
contracting a shilling of new debt, to carry on the most vigorous war.
The private revenue of the inhabitants of Great Britain is at present as
much incumbered in time of peace, their ability to accumulate is as much
impaired, as it would have been in the time of the most expensive war,
had the pernicious system of funding never been adopted.

In the payment of the interest of the public debt, it has been said, it
is the right hand which pays the left. The money does not go out of the
country. It is only a part of the revenue of one set of the inhabitants
which is transferred to another; and the nation is not a farthing the
poorer. This apology is founded altogether in the sophistry of the
mercantile system; and, after the long examination which I have already
bestowed upon that system, it may, perhaps, be unnecessary to say
anything further about it. It supposes, besides, that the whole public
debt is owing to the inhabitants of the country, which happens not to be
true; the Dutch, as well as several other foreign nations, having a very
considerable share in our public funds. But though the whole debt
were owing to the inhabitants of the country, it would not, upon that
account, be less pernicious.

Land and capital stock are the two original sources of all revenue, both
private and public. Capital stock pays the wages of productive labour,
whether employed in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce. The
management of those two original sources of revenue belongs to two
different sets of people; the proprietors of land, and the owners or
employers of capital stock.

The proprietor of land is interested, for the sake of his own revenue,
to keep his estate in as good condition as he can, by building and
repairing his tenants houses, by making and maintaining the necessary
drains and inclosures, and all those other expensive improvements
which it properly belongs to the landlord to make and maintain. But,
by different land taxes, the revenue of the landlord may be so
much diminished, and, by different duties upon the necessaries and
conveniencies of life, that diminished revenue may be rendered of so
little real value, that he may find himself altogether unable to make
or maintain those expensive improvements. When the landlord, however,
ceases to do his part, it is altogether impossible that the tenant
should continue to do his. As the distress of the landlord increases,
the agriculture of the country must necessarily decline.

When, by different taxes upon the necessaries and conveniencies of life,
the owners and employers of capital stock find, that whatever revenue
they derive from it, will not, in a particular country, purchase the
same quantity of those necessaries and conveniencies which an equal
revenue would in almost any other, they will be disposed to remove to
some other. And when, in order to raise those taxes, all or the greater
part of merchants and manufacturers, that is, all or the greater part of
the employers of great capitals, come to be continually exposed to the
mortifying and vexatious visits of the tax-gatherers, this disposition
to remove will soon be changed into an actual removing. The industry of
the country will necessarily fall with the removal of the capital which
supported it, and the ruin of trade and manufactures will follow the
declension of agriculture.

To transfer from the owners of those two great sources of revenue, land,
and capital stock, from the persons immediately interested in the
good condition of every particular portion of land, and in the good
management of every particular portion of capital stock, to another set
of persons (the creditors of the public, who have no such particular
interest ), the greater part of the revenue arising from either, must,
in the long-run, occasion both the neglect of land, and the waste or
removal of capital stock. A creditor of the public has, no doubt, a
general interest in the prosperity of the agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce of the country; and consequently in the good condition of its
land, and in the good management of its capital stock. Should there be
any general failure or declension in any of these things, the produce of
the different taxes might no longer be sufficient to pay him the
annuity or interest which is due to him. But a creditor of the public,
considered merely as such, has no interest in the good condition of any
particular portion of land, or in the good management of any particular
portion of capital stock. As a creditor of the public, he has no
knowledge of any such particular portion. He has no inspection of it. He
can have no care about it. Its ruin may in some cases be unknown to him,
and cannot directly affect him.

The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every state which has
adopted it. The Italian republics seem to have begun it. Genoa and
Venice, the only two remaining which can pretend to an independent
existence, have both been enfeebled by it. Spain seems to have learned
the practice from the Italian republics, and (its taxes being probably
less judicious than theirs) it has, in proportion to its natural
strength, been-still more enfeebled. The debts of Spain are of very old
standing. It was deeply in debt before the end of the sixteenth
century, about a hundred years before England owed a shilling.
France, notwithstanding all its natural resources, languishes under an
oppressive load of the same kind. The republic of the United Provinces
is as much enfeebled by its debts as either Genoa or Venice. Is it
likely that, in Great Britain alone, a practice, which has brought
either weakness or dissolution into every other country, should prove
altogether innocent?

The system of taxation established in those different countries, it
may be said, is inferior to that of England. I believe it is so. But it
ought to be remembered, that when the wisest government has exhausted
all the proper subjects of taxation, it must, in cases of urgent
necessity, have recourse to improper ones. The wise republic of Holland
has, upon some occasions, been obliged to have recourse to taxes as
inconvenient as the greater part of those of Spain. Another war, begun
before any considerable liberation of the public revenue had been
brought about, and growing in its progress as expensive as the last war,
may, from irresistible necessity, render the British system of taxation
as oppressive as that of Holland, or even as that of Spain. To the
honour of our present system of taxation, indeed, it has hitherto given
so little embarrassment to industry, that, during the course even of the
most expensive wars, the frugality and good conduct of individuals
seem to have been able, by saving and accumulation, to repair all the
breaches which the waste and extravagance of government had made in the
general capital of the society. At the conclusion of the late war, the
most expensive that Great Britain ever waged, her agriculture was as
flourishing, her manufacturers as numerous and as fully employed, and
her commerce as extensive, as they had ever been before. The capital,
therefore, which supported all those different branches of industry,
must have been equal to what it had ever been before. Since the peace,
agriculture has been still further improved; the rents of houses
have risen in every town and village of the country, a proof of the
increasing wealth and revenue of the people; and the annual amount of
the greater part of the old taxes, of the principal branches of the
excise and customs, in particular, has been continually increasing, an
equally clear proof of an increasing consumption, and consequently of
an increasing produce, which could alone support that consumption. Great
Britain seems to support with ease, a burden which, half a century ago,
nobody believed her capable of supporting, Let us not, however, upon
this account, rashly conclude that she is capable of supporting any
burden; nor even be too confident that she could support, without great
distress, a burden a little greater than what has already been laid upon
her.

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree,
there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been
fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it
has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by a
bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, though frequently by a pretended
payment.

The raising of the denomination of the coin has been the most usual
expedient by which a real public bankruptcy has been disguised under the
appearance of a pretended payment. If a sixpence, for example, should,
either by act of parliament or royal proclamation, be raised to the
denomination of a shilling, and twenty sixpences to that of a pound
sterling; the person who, under the old denomination, had borrowed
twenty shillings, or near four ounces of silver, would, under the new,
pay with twenty sixpences, or with something less than two ounces. A
national debt of about a hundred and twenty-eight millions, near the
capital of the funded and unfunded debt of Great Britain, might, in this
manner, be paid with about sixty-four millions of our present money.
It would, indeed, be a pretended payment only, and the creditors of the
public would really be defrauded of ten shillings in the pound of what
was due to them. The calamity, too, would extend much further than to
the creditors of the public, and those of every private person would
suffer a proportionable loss; and this without any advantage, but in
most cases with a great additional loss, to the creditors of the public.
If the creditors of the public, indeed, were generally much in debt to
other people, they might in some measure compensate their loss by paying
their creditors in the same coin in which the public had paid them. But
in most countries, the creditors of the public are, the greater part of
them, wealthy people, who stand more in the relation of creditors
than in that of debtors, towards the rest of their fellow citizens.
A pretended payment of this kind, therefore, instead of alleviating,
aggravates, in most cases, the loss of the creditors of the public; and,
without any advantage to the public, extends the calamity to a great
number of other innocent people. It occasions a general and most
pernicious subversion of the fortunes of private people; enriching,
in most cases, the idle and profuse debtor, at the expense of the
industrious and frugal creditor; and transporting a great part of
the national capital from the hands which were likely to increase and
improve it, to those who are likely to dissipate and destroy it. When
it becomes necessary for a state to declare itself bankrupt, in the same
manner as when it becomes necessary for an individual to do so, a fair,
open, and avowed bankruptcy, is always the measure which is both least
dishonourable to the debtor, and least hurtful to the creditor. The
honour of a state is surely very poorly provided for, when, in order to
cover the disgrace of a real bankruptcy, it has recourse to a juggling
trick of this kind, so easily seen through, and at the same time so
extremely pernicious.

Almost all states, however, ancient as well as modern, when reduced to
this necessity, have, upon some occasions, played this very juggling
trick. The Romans, at the end of the first Punic war, reduced the As,
the coin or denomination by which they computed the value of all their
other coins, from containing twelve ounces of copper, to contain only
two ounces; that is, they raised two ounces of copper to a denomination
which had always before expressed the value of twelve ounces. The
republic was, in this manner, enabled to pay the great debts which it
had contracted with the sixth part of what it really owed. So sudden and
so great a bankruptcy, we should in the present times be apt to imagine,
must have occasioned a very violent popular clamour. It does not appear
to have occasioned any. The law which enacted it was, like all other
laws relating to the coin, introduced and carried through the assembly
of the people by a tribune, and was probably a very popular law. In
Rome, as in all other ancient republics, the poor people were constantly
in debt to the rich and the great, who, in order to secure their votes
at the annual elections, used to lend them money at exorbitant interest,
which, being never paid, soon accumulated into a sum too great either
for the debtor to pay, or for any body else to pay for him. The debtor,
for fear of a very severe execution, was obliged, without any further
gratuity, to vote for the candidate whom the creditor recommended. In
spite of all the laws against bribery and corruption, the bounty of the
candidates, together with the occasional distributions of coin which
were ordered by the senate, were the principal funds from which, during
the latter times of the Roman republic, the poorer citizens derived
their subsistence. To deliver themselves from this subjection to their
creditors, the poorer citizens were continually calling out, either for
an entire abolition of debts, or for what they called new tables; that
is, for a law which should entitle them to a complete acquittance, upon
paying only a certain proportion of their accumulated debts. The law
which reduced the coin of all denominations to a sixth part of its
former value, as it enabled them to pay their debts with a sixth part
of what they really owed, was equivalent to the most advantageous new
tables. In order to satisfy the people, the rich and the great were,
upon several different occasions, obliged to consent to laws, both for
abolishing debts, and for introducing new tables; and they probably were
induced to consent to this law, partly for the same reason, and partly
that, by liberating the public revenue, they might restore vigour to
that government, of which they themselves had the principal direction.
An operation of this kind would at once reduce a debt of £128,000,000 to
£21,333,333:6:8. In the course of the second Punic war, the As was still
further reduced, first, from two ounces of copper to one ounce,
and afterwards from one ounce to half an ounce; that is, to the
twenty-fourth part of its original value. By combining the three Roman
operations into one, a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions of
our present money, might in this manner be reduced all at once to a debt
of £5,333,333:6:8. Even the enormous debt of Great Britain might in this
manner soon be paid.

By means of such expedients, the coin of, I believe, all nations, has
been gradually reduced more and more below its original value, and the
same nominal sum has been gradually brought to contain a smaller and a
smaller quantity of silver.

Nations have sometimes, for the same purpose, adulterated the standard
of their coin; that is, have mixed a greater quantity of alloy in it. If
in the pound weight of our silver coin, for example, instead of eighteen
penny-weight, according to the present standard, there were mixed eight
ounces of alloy; a pound sterling, or twenty shillings of such coin,
would be worth little more than six shillings and eightpence of our
present money. The quantity of silver contained in six shillings and
eightpence of our present money, would thus be raised very nearly to the
denomination of a pound sterling. The adulteration of the standard has
exactly the same effect with what the French call an augmentation, or a
direct raising of the denomination of the coin.

An augmentation, or a direct raising of the denomination of the coin,
always is, and from its nature must be, an open and avowed operation. By
means of it, pieces of a smaller weight and bulk are called by the same
name, which had before been given to pieces of a greater weight and
bulk. The adulteration of the standard, on the contrary, has generally
been a concealed operation. By means of it, pieces are issued from the
mint, of the same denomination, and, as nearly as could be contrived,
of the same weight, bulk, and appearance, with pieces which had been
current before of much greater value. When king John of France, {See Du
Cange Glossary, voce Moneta; the Benedictine Edition.} in order to pay
his debts, adulterated his coin, all the officers of his mint were sworn
to secrecy. Both operations are unjust. But a simple augmentation is an
injustice of open violence; whereas an adulteration is an injustice of
treacherous fraud. This latter operation, therefore, as soon as it has
been discovered, and it could never be concealed very long, has always
excited much greater indignation than the former. The coin, after any
considerable augmentation, has very seldom been brought back to its
former weight; but after the greatest adulterations, it has almost
always been brought back to its former fineness. It has scarce ever
happened, that the fury and indignation of the people could otherwise be
appeased.

In the end of the reign of Henry VIII., and in the beginning of that of
Edward VI., the English coin was not only raised in its denomination,
but adulterated in its standard. The like frauds were practised in
Scotland during the minority of James VI. They have occasionally been
practised in most other countries.

That the public revenue of Great Britain can never be completely
liberated, or even that any considerable progress can ever be made
towards that liberation, while the surplus of that revenue, or what is
over and above defraying the annual expense of the peace establishment,
is so very small, it seems altogether in vain to expect. That
liberation, it is evident, can never be brought about, without either
some very considerable augmentation of the public revenue, or some
equally considerable reduction of the public expense.

A more equal land tax, a more equal tax upon the rent of houses, and
such alterations in the present system of customs and excise as those
which have been mentioned in the foregoing chapter, might, perhaps,
without increasing the burden of the greater part of the people, but
only distributing the weight of it more equally upon the whole, produce
a considerable augmentation of revenue. The most sanguine projector,
however, could scarce flatter himself, that any augmentation of this
kind would be such as could give any reasonable hopes, either of
liberating the public revenue altogether, or even of making such
progress towards that liberation in time of peace, as either to prevent
or to compensate the further accumulation of the public debt in the next
war.

By extending the British system of taxation to all the different
provinces of the empire, inhabited by people either of British or
European extraction, a much greater augmentation of revenue might be
expected. This, however, could scarce, perhaps, be done, consistently
with the principles of the British constitution, without admitting into
the British parliament, or, if you will, into the states-general of the
British empire, a fair and equal representation of all those different
provinces; that of each province bearing the same proportion to the
produce of its taxes, as the representation of Great Britain might
bear to the produce of the taxes levied upon Great Britain. The private
interest of many powerful individuals, the confirmed prejudices of great
bodies of people, seem, indeed, at present, to oppose to so great a
change, such obstacles as it may be very difficult, perhaps altogether
impossible, to surmount. Without, however, pretending to determine
whether such a union be practicable or impracticable, it may not,
perhaps, be improper, in a speculative work of this kind, to consider
how far the British system of taxation might be applicable to all the
different provinces of the empire; what revenue might be expected from
it, if so applied; and in what manner a general union of this kind
might be likely to affect the happiness and prosperity of the differrent
provinces comprehended within it. Such a speculation, can, at worst,
be regarded but as a new Utopia, less amusing, certainly, but no more
useless and chimerical than the old one.

The land-tax, the stamp duties, and the different duties of customs and
excise, constitute the four principal branches of the British taxes.

Ireland is certainly as able, and our American and West India
plantations more able, to pay a land tax, than Great Britain. Where the
landlord is subject neither to tythe nor poor's rate, he must certainly
be more able to pay such a tax, than where he is subject to both those
other burdens. The tythe, where there is no modus, and where it is
levied in kind, diminishes more what would otherwise be the rent of the
landlord, than a land tax which really amounted to five shillings in the
pound. Such a tythe will be found, in most cases, to amount to more than
a fourth part of the real rent of the land, or of what remains after
replacing completely the capital of the farmer, together with his
reasonable profit. If all moduses and all impropriations were taken
away, the complete church tythe of Great Britain and Ireland could not
well be estimated at less than six or seven millions. If there was no
tythe either in Great Britain or Ireland, the landlords could afford
to pay six or seven millions additional land tax, without being more
burdened than a very great part of them are at present. America pays
no tythe, and could, therefore, very well afford to pay a land tax.
The lands in America and the West Indies, indeed, are, in general,
not tenanted nor leased out to farmers. They could not, therefore, be
assessed according to any rent roll. But neither were the lands of Great
Britain, in the 4th of William and Mary, assessed according to any rent
roll, but according to a very loose and inaccurate estimation. The lands
in America might be assessed either in the same manner, or according to
an equitable valuation, in consequence of an accurate survey, like that
which was lately made in the Milanese, and in the dominions of Austria,
Prussia, and Sardinia.

Stamp duties, it is evident, might be levied without any variation, in
all countries where the forms of law process, and the deeds by which
property, both real and personal, is transferred, are the same, or
nearly the same.

The extension of the custom-house laws of Great Britain to Ireland and
the plantations, provided it was accompanied, as in justice it ought to
be, with an extension of the freedom of trade, would be in the highest
degree advantageous to both. All the invidious restraints which at
present oppress the trade of Ireland, the distinction between the
enumerated and non-enumerated commodities of America, would be entirely
at an end. The countries north of Cape Finisterre would be as open to
every part of the produce of America, as those south of that cape are
to some parts of that produce at present. The trade between all the
different parts of the British empire would, in consequence of this
uniformity in the custom-house laws, be as free as the coasting trade
of Great Britain is at present. The British empire would thus afford,
within itself, an immense internal market for every part of the produce
of all its different provinces. So great an extension of market would
soon compensate, both to Ireland and the plantations, all that they
could suffer from the increase of the duties of customs.

The excise is the only part of the British system of taxation, which
would require to be varied in any respect, according as it was applied
to the different provinces of the empire. It might be applied to Ireland
without any variation; the produce and consumption of that kingdom
being exactly of the same nature with those of Great Britain. In its
application to America and the West Indies, of which the produce and
consumption are so very different from those of Great Britain,
some modification might be necessary, in the same manner as in its
application to the cyder and beer counties of England.

A fermented liquor, for example, which is called beer, but which, as it
is made of molasses, bears very little resemblance to our beer, makes
a considerable part of the common drink of the people in America. This
liquor, as it can be kept only for a few days, cannot, like our beer,
be prepared and stored up for sale in great breweries; but every private
family must brew it for their own use, in the same manner as they cook
their victuals. But to subject every private family to the odious visits
and examination of the tax-gatherers, in the same manner as we subject
the keepers of ale-houses and the brewers for public sale, would be
altogether inconsistent with liberty. If, for the sake of equality, it
was thought necessary to lay a tax upon this liquor, it might be taxed
by taxing the material of which it is made, either at the place of
manufacture, or, if the circumstances of the trade rendered such an
excise improper, by laying a duty upon its importation into the colony
in which it was to be consumed. Besides the duty of one penny a-gallon
imposed by the British parliament upon the importation of molasses into
America, there is a provincial tax of this kind upon their importation
into Massachusetts Bay, in ships belonging to any other colony, of
eight-pence the hogshead; and another upon their importation from the
northern colonies into South Carolina, of five-pence the gallon. Or,
if neither of these methods was found convenient, each family might
compound for its consumption of this liquor, either according to the
number of persons of which it consisted, in the same manner as private
families compound for the malt tax in England; or according to the
different ages and sexes of those persons, in the same manner as several
different taxes are levied in Holland; or, nearly as Sir Matthew Decker
proposes, that all taxes upon consumable commodities should be levied
in England. This mode of taxation, it has already been observed, when
applied to objects of a speedy consumption, is not a very convenient
one. It might be adopted, however, in cases where no better could be
done.

Sugar, rum, and tobacco, are commodities which are nowhere necessaries
of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and
which are, therefore, extremely proper subjects of taxation. If a union
with the colonies were to take place, those commodities might be taxed,
either before they go out of the hands of the manufacturer or grower;
or, if this mode of taxation did not suit the circumstances of those
persons, they might be deposited in public warehouses, both at the place
of manufacture, and at all the different ports of the empire, to which
they might afterwards be transported, to remain there, under the joint
custody of the owner and the revenue officer, till such time as
they should be delivered out, either to the consumer, to the
merchant-retailer for home consumption, or to the merchant-exporter;
the tax not to be advanced till such delivery. When delivered out for
exportation, to go duty-free, upon proper security being given, that
they should really be exported out of the empire. These are, perhaps,
the principal commodities, with regard to which the union with the
colonies might require some considerable change in the present system of
British taxation.

What might be the amount of the revenue which this system of taxation,
extended to all the different provinces of the empire, might produce,
it must, no doubt, be altogether impossible to ascertain with tolerable
exactness. By means of this system, there is annually levied in Great
Britain, upon less than eight millions of people, more than ten millions
of revenue. Ireland contains more than two millions of people,
and, according to the accounts laid before the congress, the twelve
associated provinces of America contain more than three. Those accounts,
however, may have been exaggerated, in order, perhaps, either to
encourage their own people, or to intimidate those of this country; and
we shall suppose, therefore, that our North American and West Indian
colonies, taken together, contain no more than three millions; or that
the whole British empire, in Europe and America, contains no more than
thirteen millions of inhabitants. If, upon less than eight millions of
inhabitants, this system of taxation raises a revenue of more than ten
millions sterling; it ought, upon thirteen millions of inhabitants,
to raise a revenue of more than sixteen millions two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds sterling. From this revenue, supposing that this system
could produce it, must be deducted the revenue usually raised in Ireland
and the plantations, for defraying the expense of the respective civil
governments. The expense of the civil and military establishment of
Ireland, together with the interest of the public debt, amounts, at a
medium of the two years which ended March 1775, to something less than
seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year. By a very exact account
of the revenue of the principal colonies of America and the West Indies,
it amounted, before the commencement of the present disturbances, to a
hundred and forty-one thousand eight hundred pounds. In this account,
however, the revenue of Maryland, of North Carolina, and of all our late
acquisitions, both upon the continent, and in the islands, is omitted;
which may, perhaps, make a difference of thirty or forty thousand
pounds. For the sake of even numbers, therefore, let us suppose that the
revenue necessary for supporting the civil government of Ireland and the
plantations may amount to a million. There would remain, consequently, a
revenue of fifteen millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to be
applied towards defraying the general expense of the empire, and towards
paying the public debt. But if, from the present revenue of Great
Britain, a million could, in peaceable times, be spared towards the
payment of that debt, six millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
could very well be spared from this improved revenue. This great sinking
fund, too, might be augmented every year by the interest of the debt
which had been discharged the year before; and might, in this manner,
increase so very rapidly, as to be sufficient in a few years to
discharge the whole debt, and thus to restore completely the at-present
debilitated and languishing vigour of the empire. In the meantime, the
people might be relieved from some of the most burdensome taxes; from
those which are imposed either upon the necessaries of life, or upon the
materials of manufacture. The labouring poor would thus be enabled to
live better, to work cheaper, and to send their goods cheaper to market.
The cheapness of their goods would increase the demand for them, and
consequently for the labour of those who produced them. This increase in
the demand for labour would both increase the numbers, and improve the
circumstances of the labouring poor. Their consumption would increase,
and, together with it, the revenue arising from all those articles of
their consumption upon which the taxes might be allowed to remain.

The revenue arising from this system of taxation, however, might not
immediately increase in proportion to the number of people who were
subjected to it. Great indulgence would for some time be due to those
provinces of the empire which were thus subjected to burdens to which
they had not before been accustomed; and even when the same taxes
came to be levied everywhere as exactly as possible, they would not
everywhere produce a revenue proportioned to the numbers of the people.
In a poor country, the consumption of the principal commodities subject
to the duties of customs and excise, is very small; and in a thinly
inhabited country, the opportunities of smuggling are very great.
The consumption of malt liquors among the inferior ranks of people
in Scotland is very small; and the excise upon malt, beer, and ale,
produces less there than in England, in proportion to the numbers of
the people and the rate of the duties, which upon malt is different,
on account of a supposed difference of quality. In these particular
branches of the excise, there is not, I apprehend, much more smuggling
in the one country than in the other. The duties upon the distillery,
and the greater part of the duties of customs, in proportion to the
numbers of people in the respective countries, produce less in Scotland
than in England, not only on account of the smaller consumption of the
taxed commodities, but of the much greater facility of smuggling. In
Ireland, the inferior ranks of people are still poorer than in Scotland,
and many parts of the country are almost as thinly inhabited. In
Ireland, therefore, the consumption of the taxed commodities might, in
proportion to the number of the people, be still less than in Scotland,
and the facility of smuggling nearly the same. In America and the West
Indies, the white people, even of the lowest rank, are in much better
circumstances than those of the same rank in England; and their
consumption of all the luxuries in which they usually indulge
themselves, is probably much greater. The blacks, indeed, who make the
greater part of the inhabitants, both of the southern colonies upon
the continent and of the West India islands, as they are in a state of
slavery, are, no doubt, in a worse condition than the poorest people
either in Scotland or Ireland. We must not, however, upon that account,
imagine that they are worse fed, or that their consumption of articles
which might be subjected to moderate duties, is less than that even of
the lower ranks of people in England. In order that they may work well,
it is the interest of their master that they should be fed well, and
kept in good heart, in the same manner as it is his interest that
his working cattle should be so. The blacks, accordingly, have almost
everywhere their allowance of rum, and of molasses or spruce-beer, in
the same manner as the white servants; and this allowance would not
probably be withdrawn, though those articles should be subjected to
moderate duties. The consumption of the taxed commodities, therefore, in
proportion to the number of inhabitants, would probably be as great in
America and the West Indies as in any part of the British empire. The
opportunities of smuggling, indeed, would be much greater; America,
in proportion to the extent of the country, being much more thinly
inhabited than either Scotland or Ireland. If the revenue, however,
which is at present raised by the different duties upon malt and malt
liquors, were to be levied by a single duty upon malt, the opportunity
of smuggling in the most important branch of the excise would be almost
entirely taken away; and if the duties of customs, instead of being
imposed upon almost all the different articles of importation, were
confined to a few of the most general use and consumption, and if
the levying of those duties were subjected to the excise laws, the
opportunity of smuggling, though not so entirely taken away, would be
very much diminished. In consequence of those two apparently very simple
and easy alterations, the duties of customs and excise might probably
produce a revenue as great, in proportion to the consumption of the most
thinly inhabited province, as they do at present, in proportion to that
of the most populous.

The Americans, it has been said, indeed, have no gold or silver money,
the interior commerce of the country being carried on by a paper
currency; and the gold and silver, which occasionally come among them,
being all sent to Great Britain, in return for the commodities which
they receive from us. But without gold and silver, it is added, there is
no possibility of paying taxes. We already get all the gold and silver
which they have. How is it possible to draw from them what they have
not?

The present scarcity of gold and silver money in America, is not the
effect of the poverty of that country, or of the inability of the people
there to purchase those metals. In a country where the wages of labour
are so much higher, and the price of provisions so much lower than in
England, the greater part of the people must surely have wherewithal to
purchase a greater quantity, if it were either necessary or convenient
for them to do so. The scarcity of those metals, therefore, must be the
effect of choice, and not of necessity.

It is for transacting either domestic or foreign business, that gold or
silver money is either necessary or convenient.

The domestic business of every country, it has been shewn in the second
book of this Inquiry, may, at least in peaceable times, be transacted by
means of a paper currency, with nearly the same degree of conveniency as
by gold and silver money. It is convenient for the Americans, who could
always employ with profit, in the improvement of their lands, a greater
stock than they can easily get, to save as much as possible the expense
of so costly an instrument of commerce as gold and silver; and rather to
employ that part of their surplus produce which would be necessary for
purchasing those metals, in purchasing the instruments of trade, the
materials of clothing, several parts of household furniture, and the
iron work necessary for building and extending their settlements and
plantations; in purchasing not dead stock, but active and productive
stock. The colony governments find it for their interest to supply the
people with such a quantity of paper money as is fully sufficient, and
generally more than sufficient, for transacting their domestic business.
Some of those governments, that of Pennsylvania, particularly, derive a
revenue from lending this paper money to their subjects, at an interest
of so much per cent. Others, like that of Massachusetts Bay, advance,
upon extraordinary emergencies, a paper money of this kind for defraying
the public expense; and afterwards, when it suits the conveniency of the
colony, redeem it at the depreciated value to which it gradually falls.
In 1747, {See Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay vol. ii. page
436 et seq.} that colony paid in this manner the greater part of its
public debts, with the tenth part of the money for which its bills had
been granted. It suits the conveniency of the planters, to save
the expense of employing gold and silver money in their domestic
transactions; and it suits the conveniency of the colony governments,
to supply them with a medium, which, though attended with some very
considerable disadvantages, enables them to save that expense. The
redundancy of paper money necessarily banishes gold and silver from the
domestic transactions of the colonies, for the same reason that it has
banished those metals from the greater part of the domestic transactions
in Scotland; and in both countries, it is not the poverty, but the
enterprizing and projecting spirit of the people, their desire of
employing all the stock which they can get, as active and productive
stock, which has occasioned this redundancy of paper money.

In the exterior commerce which the different colonies carry on with
Great Britain, gold and silver are more or less employed, exactly in
proportion as they are more or less necessary. Where those metals are
not necessary, they seldom appear. Where they are necessary, they are
generally found.

In the commerce between Great Britain and the tobacco colonies, the
British goods are generally advanced to the colonists at a pretty long
credit, and are afterwards paid for in tobacco, rated at a certain
price. It is more convenient for the colonists to pay in tobacco than in
gold and silver. It would be more convenient for any merchant to pay for
the goods which his correspondents had sold to him, in some other
sort of goods which he might happen to deal in, than in money. Such a
merchant would have no occasion to keep any part of his stock by him
unemployed, and in ready money, for answering occasional demands. He
could have, at all times, a larger quantity of goods in his shop or
warehouse, and he could deal to a greater extent. But it seldom happens
to be convenient for all the correspondents of a merchant to receive
payment for the goods which they sell to him, in goods of some other
kind which he happens to deal in. The British merchants who trade to
Virginia and Maryland, happen to be a particular set of correspondents,
to whom it is more convenient to receive payment for the goods which
they sell to those colonies in tobacco, than in gold and silver. They
expect to make a profit by the sale of the tobacco; they could make none
by that of the gold and silver. Gold and silver, therefore, very seldom
appear in the commerce between Great Britain and the tobacco colonies.
Maryland and Virginia have as little occasion for those metals in their
foreign, as in their domestic commerce. They are said, accordingly, to
have less gold and silver money than any other colonies in America. They
are reckoned, however, as thriving, and consequently as rich, as any of
their neighbours.

In the northern colonies, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, the four
governments of New England, etc. the value of their own produce which
they export to Great Britain is not equal to that of the manufactures
which they import for their own use, and for that of some of the other
colonies, to which they are the carriers. A balance, therefore, must
be paid to the mother-country in gold and silver and this balance they
generally find.

In the sugar colonies, the value of the produce annually exported to
Great Britain is much greater than that of all the goods imported from
thence. If the sugar and rum annually sent to the mother-country were
paid for in those colonies, Great Britain would be obliged to send out,
every year, a very large balance in money; and the trade to the West
Indies would, by a certain species of politicians, be considered as
extremely disadvantageous. But it so happens, that many of the principal
proprietors of the sugar plantations reside in Great Britain. Their
rents are remitted to them in sugar and rum, the produce of their
estates. The sugar and rum which the West India merchants purchase in
those colonies upon their own account, are not equal in value to
the goods which they annually sell there. A balance, therefore, must
necessarily be paid to them in gold and silver, and this balance, too,
is generally found.

The difficulty and irregularity of payment from the different colonies
to Great Britain, have not been at all in proportion to the greatness
or smallness of the balances which were respectively due from them.
Payments have, in general, been more regular from the northern than from
the tobacco colonies, though the former have generally paid a pretty
large balance in money, while the latter have either paid no balance, or
a much smaller one. The difficulty of getting payment from our different
sugar colonies has been greater or less in proportion, not so much
to the extent of the balances respectively due from them, as to the
quantity of uncultivated land which they contained; that is, to the
greater or smaller temptation which the planters have been under of
over-trading, or of undertaking the settlement and plantation of greater
quantities of waste land than suited the extent of their capitals. The
returns from the great island of Jamaica, where there is still much
uncultivated land, have, upon this account, been, in general, more
irregular and uncertain than those from the smaller islands of
Barbadoes, Antigua, and St. Christopher's, which have, for these many
years, been completely cultivated, and have, upon that account, afforded
less field for the speculations of the planter. The new acquisitions of
Grenada, Tobago, St. Vincent's, and Dominica, have opened a new field
for speculations of this kind; and the returns front those islands have
of late been as irregular and uncertain as those from the great island
of Jamaica.

It is not, therefore, the poverty of the colonies which occasions, in
the greater part of them, the present scarcity of gold and silver money.
Their great demand for active and productive stock makes it convenient
for them to have as little dead stock as possible, and disposes them,
upon that account, to content themselves with a cheaper, though less
commodious instrument of commerce, than gold and silver. They are
thereby enabled to convert the value of that gold and silver into the
instruments of trade, into the materials of clothing, into household
furniture, and into the iron work necessary for building and extending
their settlements and plantations. In those branches of business which
cannot be transacted without gold and silver money, it appears, that
they can always find the necessary quantity of those metals; and if they
frequently do not find it, their failure is generally the effect, not
of their necessary poverty, but of their unnecessary and excessive
enterprise. It is not because they are poor that their payments are
irregular and uncertain, but because they are too eager to become
excessively rich. Though all that part of the produce of the colony
taxes, which was over and above what was necessary for defraying the
expense of their own civil and military establishments, were to
be remitted to Great Britain in gold and silver, the colonies have
abundantly wherewithal to purchase the requisite quantity of those
metals. They would in this case be obliged, indeed, to exchange a
part of their surplus produce, with which they now purchase active
and productive stock, for dead stock. In transacting their domestic
business, they would be obliged to employ a costly, instead of a cheap
instrument of commerce; and the expense of purchasing this costly
instrument might damp somewhat the vivacity and ardour of their
excessive enterprise in the improvement of land. It might not, however,
be necessary to remit any part of the American revenue in gold and
silver. It might be remitted in bills drawn upon, and accepted by,
particular merchants or companies in Great Britain, to whom a part of
the surplus produce of America had been consigned, who would pay into
the treasury the American revenue in money, after having themselves
received the value of it in goods; and the whole business might
frequently be transacted without exporting a single ounce of gold or
silver from America.

It is not contrary to justice, that both Ireland and America should
contribute towards the discharge of the public debt of Great Britain.
That debt has been contracted in support of the government established
by the Revolution; a government to which the protestants of Ireland owe,
not only the whole authority which they at present enjoy in their own
country, but every security which they possess for their liberty, their
property, and their religion; a government to which several of the
colonies of America owe their present charters, and consequently their
present constitution; and to which all the colonies of America owe the
liberty, security, and property, which they have ever since enjoyed.
That public debt has been contracted in the defence, not of Great
Britain alone, but of all the different provinces of the empire. The
immense debt contracted in the late war in particular, and a great part
of that contracted in the war before, were both properly contracted in
defence of America.

By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the freedom
of trade, other advantages much more important, and which would much
more than compensate any increase of taxes that might accompany that
union. By the union with England, the middling and inferior ranks of
people in Scotland gained a complete deliverance from the power of an
aristocracy, which had always before oppressed them. By a union with
Great Britain, the greater part of people of all ranks in Ireland
would gain an equally complete deliverance from a much more oppressive
aristocracy; an aristocracy not founded, like that of Scotland, in the
natural and respectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in
the most odious of all distinctions, those of religious and political
prejudices; distinctions which, more than any other, animate both the
insolence of the oppressors, and the hatred and indignation of the
oppressed, and which commonly render the inhabitants of the same country
more hostile to one another than those of different countries ever are.
Without a union with Great Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are not
likely, for many ages, to consider themselves as one people.

No oppressive aristocracy has ever prevailed in the colonies. Even
they, however, would, in point of happiness and tranquillity, gain
considerably by a union with Great Britain. It would, at least, deliver
them from those rancourous and virulent factions which are inseparable
from small democracies, and which have so frequently divided the
affections of their people, and disturbed the tranquillity of their
governments, in their form so nearly democratical. In the case of a
total separation from Great Britain, which, unless prevented by a union
of this kind, seems very likely to take place, those factions would
be ten times more virulent than ever. Before the commencement of the
present disturbances, the coercive power of the mother-country had
always been able to restrain those factions from breaking out into any
thing worse than gross brutality and insult. If that coercive power
were entirely taken away, they would probably soon break out into open
violence and bloodshed. In all great countries which are united under
one uniform government, the spirit of party commonly prevails less in
the remote provinces than in the centre of the empire. The distance of
those provinces from the capital, from the principal seat of the great
scramble of faction and ambition, makes them enter less into the views
of any of the contending parties, and renders them more indifferent and
impartial spectators of the conduct of all. The spirit of party prevails
less in Scotland than in England. In the case of a union, it would
probably prevail less in Ireland than in Scotland; and the colonies
would probably soon enjoy a degree of concord and unanimity, at
present unknown in any part of the British empire. Both Ireland and the
colonies, indeed, would be subjected to heavier taxes than any which
they at present pay. In consequence, however, of a diligent and faithful
application of the public revenue towards the discharge of the national
debt, the greater part of those taxes might not be of long continuance,
and the public revenue of Great Britain might soon be reduced to what
was necessary for maintaining a moderate peace-establishment.

The territorial acquisitions of the East India Company, the undoubted
right of the Crown, that is, of the state and people of Great Britain,
might be rendered another source of revenue, more abundant, perhaps,
than all those already mentioned. Those countries are represented as
more fertile, more extensive, and, in proportion to their extent, much
richer and more populous than Great Britain. In order to draw a great
revenue from them, it would not probably be necessary to introduce any
new system of taxation into countries which are already sufficiently,
and more than sufficiently, taxed. It might, perhaps, be more proper to
lighten than to aggravate the burden of those unfortunate countries, and
to endeavour to draw a revenue from them, not by imposing new taxes, but
by preventing the embezzlement and misapplication of the greater part of
those which they already pay.

If it should be found impracticable for Great Britain to draw any
considerable augmentation of revenue from any of the resources above
mentioned, the only resource which can remain to her, is a diminution
of her expense. In the mode of collecting and in that of expending the
public revenue, though in both there may be still room for improvement,
Great Britain seems to be at least as economical as any of her
neighbours. The military establishment which she maintains for her own
defence in time of peace, is more moderate than that of any European
state, which can pretend to rival her either in wealth or in power.
None of these articles, therefore, seem to admit of any considerable
reduction of expense. The expense of the peace-establishment of the
colonies was, before the commencement of the present disturbances, very
considerable, and is an expense which may, and, if no revenue can be
drawn from them, ought certainly to be saved altogether. This constant
expense in time of peace, though very great, is insignificant in
comparison with what the defence of the colonies has cost us in time
of war. The last war, which was undertaken altogether on account of the
colonies, cost Great Britain, it has already been observed, upwards of
ninety millions. The Spanish war of 1739 was principally undertaken on
their account; in which, and in the French war that was the consequence
of it, Great Britain, spent upwards of forty millions; a great part of
which ought justly to be charged to the colonies. In those two wars,
the colonies cost Great Britain much more than double the sum which the
national debt amounted to before the commencement of the first of them.
Had it not been for those wars, that debt might, and probably would
by this time, have been completely paid; and had it not been for the
colonies, the former of those wars might not, and the latter certainly
would not, have been undertaken. It was because the colonies were
supposed to be provinces of the British Empire, that this expense was
laid out upon them. But countries which contribute neither revenue nor
military force towards the support of the empire, cannot be considered
as provinces. They may, perhaps, be considered as appendages, as a sort
of splendid and shewy equipage of the empire. But if the empire can
no longer support the expense of keeping up this equipage, it ought
certainly to lay it down; and if it cannot raise its revenue in
proportion to its expense, it ought at least to accommodate its expense
to its revenue. If the colonies, notwithstanding their refusal to submit
to British taxes, are still to be considered as provinces of the British
empire, their defence, in some future war, may cost Great Britain as
great an expense as it ever has done in any former war. The rulers of
Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with
the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of
the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination
only. It has hitherto been, not an empire, but the project of an empire;
not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine; a project which has
cost, which continues to cost, and which, if pursued in the same way as
it has been hitherto, is likely to cost, immense expense, without being
likely to bring any profit; for the effects of the monopoly of the
colony trade, it has been shewn, are to the great body of the people,
mere loss instead of profit. It is surely now time that our rulers
should either realize this golden dream, in which they have been
indulging themselves, perhaps, as well as the people; or that they
should awake from it themselves, and endeavour to awaken the people. If
the project cannot be completed, it ought to be given up. If any of the
provinces of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the
support of the whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should
free herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time of
war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishment
in time of peace; and endeavour to accommodate her future views and
designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances.





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