The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📖

société une augmentation de revenu, une création de richesses nouvelles, il n’est au contraire qu’un mouvement, qu’un changement de main.” —⁠Mercier de la Rivière, L’Ordre naturel et essentiel des Sociétés politiques, 12mo ed., 1767, vol. ii, p. 123, or in Daire’s Physiocrates, p. 487 ↩

But in bk. i, ch. x, the remuneration of improved dexterity is treated as wages. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “users and consumers” here and eleven lines lower. ↩

There seems no reason whatever for supposing that this is necessarily the “natural” action. ↩

In this paragraph the capital or stock of goods is confused with the goods themselves. The goods of which the stock consists may become revenue, but the stock itself cannot. The maintenance of a stock, even of perishable and consumable goods, does form a charge on the labour of the society. ↩

If it were not for the use of the old-fashioned term “circulation” instead of the newer “produce,” the explanation which follows would be unnecessary. No one could be suspected of a desire to add all the money to the annual produce. ↩

Ed. 1 does not contain “or.” ↩

Above, here through here. ↩

Petty’s estimate in Verbum Sapienti is £40,000,000 for the income and £6,000,000 for the coin. Gregory King’s estimate is £43,500,000 for the income and no less than £11,500,000 for the coin, in Geo. Chalmers, Estimate, 1802, pp. 423, 427. ↩

Below, here. ↩

Misprinted “contrary” in ed. 5. ↩

Adam Anderson, Commerce, AD 1695. ↩

See Ruddiman’s Preface to Anderson’s Diplomata, etc. Scotiæ. —⁠Smith

Pp. 84, 85. See this note. —⁠Cannan ↩

“The folly of a few misers or the fear that people might have of losing their money, or various other dangers and accidents, prevented very many of the old Scots coins from being brought in,” Ruddiman’s Preface to Anderson’s Diplomata, p. 175. Ruddiman in a note, op. cit., p. 231, says: “The English coin was also ordained to be called in,” but does not include it in his estimate of not less than £900,000, p. 176. ↩

From 1766 to 1772 inclusive the coinage averaged about £810,000 per annum. The amount for “ten years together” is stated below, vol. ii, pp. 51, 56, to have been upwards of £800,000 a year, though the average for the ten years 1763⁠–⁠1772 was only £760,000. But the inclusion of the large coinage of 1773, viz., £1,317,645, would raise these averages considerably. See the figures at the end of each year in Macpherson, Annals of Commerce. ↩

Misprinted “remain” in ed. 5. ↩

But as Playfair (ed. of Wealth of Nations, vol. i, p. 472) points out, the more customers a bank has the more it is likely to know the transactions of each of them. ↩

Above, here. ↩

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 percent 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 percent upon each repetition, must at that period have cost A at least fourteen percent in the year. At other times A would enable B 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 days 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 percent upon each repetition, together with the legal interest of five percent, this method of raising money, in the same manner as that described in the text, must have cost A something more than eight percent. 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. —⁠Smith

This note appears first in ed. 2. Playfair observes that the calculation of the loss of 14 percent by the first method is wrong, since “if A at Edinburgh negotiated his bills