BOOK price, and fells it for a much higher. That IV. this extraordinary profit, however, is no more than fufficient to put his trade upon a fair level with other trades, and to compenfate the many loffes which he fuftains upon other occafions, both from the perishable nature of the commodity itself, and from the frequent and unforeseen fluctuations of its price, feems evident enough, from this fingle circumftance, that great fortunes are as feldom made in this as in any other trade. The popular odium, however, which attends it in years of fcarcity, the only years in which it can be very profitable, renders people of character and fortune averfe to enter into it. It is abandoned to an inferior fet of dealers; and millers, bakers, mealmen, 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 confumer. The ancient policy of Europe, instead of dif countenancing this popular odium against a trade fo beneficial to the public, feems, 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 fell it again, fhould be reputed an unlawful engroffer, and should, for the first fault, fuffer two months imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the corn; for the fecond, fuffer fix months imprisonment, and forfeit double the value; and for the third, be fet in the pillory, fuffer imprisonment during the king's pleasure, V. pleasure, and forfeit all his goods and chattels. CHA P. The ancient policy of moft other parts of Europe was no better than that of England. Our ancestors feem 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 poffible any middle man of any kind from coming in between the grower and the confumer; and this was the meaning of the many restraints which they impofed upon the trade of those whom they called kidders or carriers of corn, a trade which nobody was allowed to exercife without a licence afcertaining his qualifications as a man of pro-. bity and fair dealing. The authority of three justices of the peace was, by the ftatute of Edward VI. neceffary, in order to grant this licence. But even this reftraint was afterwards thought infufficient, and by a ftatute of Elizabeth, the privilege of granting it was confined to the quarter-feffions. The ancient policy of Europe endeavoured in this manner to regulate agriculture, the great trade of the country, by maxims quite different from thofe which it established with regard to manufactures, the great trade of the towns. By leaving the farmer no other cuftomers but either the confumers or their immediate factors, the kidders and carriers of corn, it endeavoured to IV. BOOK 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 exercifing the trade of a shop. keeper, or from felling his own goods by retail. It meant by the one law to promote the general intereft 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 fhopkeepers, who would be fo much underfold by the manufacturer, it was fuppofed, 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 fhop, and to fell his own goods by retail, could not have underfold the common fhopkeeper. Whatever part of his capital he might have placed in his fhop, he muft have withdrawn it from his manufacture. In order to carry on his bufinefs on a level with that of other people, as he must have had the profit of a manufacturer on the one part, fo he muft have had that of a fhopkeeper upon the other. Let us fuppofe, for example, that in the particular town where he lived, ten per cent. was the ordinary profit both of manufacturing and fhopkeeping stock; he muft in this cafe have charged upon every piece of his own goods which he fold in his fhop, a profit of twenty per cent. When he carried them from his workhoufe to his fhop, he must have valued them at the price for which he could have fold them to a dealer V. dealer or fhopkeeper, who would have bought CHAP. them by wholesale. If he valued them lower, he loft a part of the profit of his manufacturing capital. When again he fold them from his shop, unless he got the fame price at which a shopkeeper would have fold them, he loft a part of the profit of his fhopkeeping capital. Though he might appear, therefore, to make a double profit upon the fame piece of goods, yet as thefe goods made fucceffively a part of two diftinct capitals, he made but a fingle profit upon the whole capital employed about them; and if he made lefs than his profit, he was a loser, or did not employ his whole capital with the fame advantage as the greater part of his neighbours. What the manufacturer was prohibited to do, the farmer was in fome measure enjoined to do; to divide his capital between two different employments; to keep one part of it in his granaries and ftack yard, for fupplying the occafional 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 lefs than the ordinary profits of farming flock, fo he could as little afford to employ the former for lefs than the ordinary profits of mercantile flock. Whether the flock which really carried on the bufinefs of the corn merchant belonged to the perfon who was called a farmer, or to the perfon who was called a corn merchant, an equal profit was in both cafes requifite, in order to indemnify its owner for employing it in this manner; in order to put his business upon a level with other trades, BOOK trades, and in order to hinder him from having IV. an intereft to change it as foon as poffible for fome other. The farmer, therefore, who was thus forced to exercife the trade of a corn merchant, could not afford to fell his corn cheaper than any other corn merchant would have been obliged to do in the cafe of a free competition. The dealer who can employ his whole stock in one fingle branch of bufinefs, has an advantage of the fame kind with the workman who can employ his whole labour in one fingle operation. As the latter acquires a dexterity which enables him, with the fame two hands, to perform a much greater quantity of work; so the former acquires fo eafy and ready a method of tranfacting his business, of buying and difpofing of his goods, that with the fame capital he can tranfact a much greater quantity of business. As the one can commonly afford his work a good deal cheaper, fo the other can commonly afford his goods fomewhat 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 fo cheap as a vigilant and active shopkeeper, whofe fole business it was to buy them by wholefale, and to retail them again. The greater part of farmers could ftill lefs afford to retail their own. corn, to fupply the inhabitants of a town, at perhaps four or five miles diftance from the greater part of them, fo cheap as a vigilant and active corn merchant, whofe fole |