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

>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 pro�t 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