An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

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 twentyseven 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

kindoms into which Indostan has,