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

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