V.

every country, must always be in proportion to CHAP. the value of its annual produce, the fund from which all taxes muft ultimately be paid. But the great object of the political œconomy of every country, is to increase the riches and power of that country. It ought, therefore, to give no preference nor fuperior encouragement to the foreign trade of confumption above the hometrade, nor to the carrying trade above either of the other two. It ought neither to force nor to allure into either of those two channels, a greater fhare of the capital of the country than what would naturally flow into them of its own accord.

Each of thofe different branches of trade, however, is not only advantageous, but neceffary and unavoidable, when the course of things, without any constraint or violence, naturally introduces it.

When the produce of any particular branch of industry exceeds what the demand of the country requires, the furplus must be fent abroad, and exchanged for fomething for which there is a demand at home. Without fuch exportation, a part of the productive labour of the country must cease, and the value of its annual produce diminish. The land and labour of Great Britain produce generally more corn, woollens, and hard ware, than the demand of the homemarket requires. The furplus part of them, therefore, must be fent abroad, and exchanged for fomething for which there is a demand at home. It is only by means of fuch exportation, that this furplus can acquire a value sufficient to

II.

BOOK compenfate the labour and expence of producing it. The neighbourhood of the fea coaft, and the banks of all navigable rivers, are advantageous fituations for industry, only because they facilitate the exportation and exchange of fuch furplus produce for fomething else which is more in demand there.

When the foreign goods which are thus purchafed with the furplus produce of domestic induftry exceed the demand of the home-market, the furplus part of them must be fent abroad again, and exchanged for fomething more in demand at home. About ninety-fix thousand hogfheads of tobacco are annually purchased in Virginia and Maryland, with a part of the furplus produce of British induftry. But the demand of Great Britain does not require, perhaps, more than fourteen thoufand. If the remaining eighty-two thoufand, therefore, could not be fent abroad and exchanged for fomething more in demand at home, the importation of them must ceafe immediately, and with it the productive labour of all thofe inhabitants of Great Britain, who are at prefent employed in preparing the goods with which these eighty-two thousand hogfheads are annually purchased. Thofe goods, which are part of the produce of the land and labour of Great Britain, having no market at home, and being deprived of that which they had abroad, muft ceafe to be produced. The moft round-about foreign trade of confumption, therefore, may, upon fome occa`fions, be as neceffary for fupporting the produc

tive labour of the country, and the value of its CHAP. annual produce, as the most direct.

When the capital ftock of any country is increased to fuch a degree, that it cannot be all employed in fupplying the confumption, and fupporting the productive labour of that parti cular country, the furplus part of it naturally difgorges itself into the carrying trade, and is employed in performing the fame offices to other countries. The carrying trade is the natural effect and symptom of great national wealth; but it does not feem to be the natural cause of it. Thofe ftatefinen who have been difpofed to favour it with particular eacouragements, feem to have mistaken the effect and fymptom for the caufe. Holland, in proportion to the extent of the land and the number of its inhabitants, by far the richest country in Europe, has, accordingly, the greatest share of the carrying trade of Europe. England, perhaps the fecond richest country of Europe, is likewife fuppofed to have a confiderable fhare of it; though what commonly paffes for the carrying trade of England, will frequently, perhaps, be found to be no more than a round-about foreign trade of confumption. Such are, in a great measure, the trades which carry the goods of the Eaft and Weft Indies, and of America, to different European markets. Thofe goods are generally purchased either immediately with the produce of British industry, or with fomething else which had been purchased with that produce, and the final returns of thofe trades are generally ufed or confumed

F 3

V.

BOOK fumed in Great Britain. The trade which is

II.

carried on in British bottoms between the dif ferent ports of the Mediterranean, and fome trade of the fame kind carried on by British merchants between the different ports of India, make, perhaps, the principal branches of what is properly the carrying trade of Great Britain.

The extent of the home-trade and of the capital which can be employed in it, is neceffarily limited by the value of the furplus produce of all thofe diftant places within the country which have occafion to exchange their refpective productions with one another. That of the foreign trade of confumption, by the value of the furplus produce of the whole country and of what can be purchased with it. That of the carrying trade, by the value of the furplus produce of all the different countries in the world. Its poffible extent, therefore, is in a manner infinite in comparison of that of the other two, and is capable of absorbing the greateft capitals.

The confideration of his own private profit, is the fole motive which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in fome particular branch of the wholefale or retail trade. The different quantities of productive labour which it may put into motion, and the different values which it may add to the annual produce of the land and labour of the fociety, according as it is employed in one or other of thofe different ways, never enter into his thoughts. In countries, therefore, where agriculture is the most profitable of

all

V.

all employments, and farming and improving the CHA P. moft direct roads to a fplendid fortune, the capitals of individuals will naturally be employed in the manner moft advantageous to the whole fociety. The profits of agriculture, however, seem to have no fuperiority over thofe of other employments in any part of Europe. Projectors, indeed, in every corner of it, have within thefe few years amufed the public with moft magnificent accounts of the profits to be made by the cultivation and improvement of land. Without entering into any particular difcuffion of their calculations, a very fimple obfervation may fatisfy us that the refult of them must be falfe. We fee every day the moft fplendid fortunes that have been acquired in the courfe of a fingle life by trade and manufactures, frequently from a very finall capital, fometimes from no capital. A fingle inftance of fuch a fortune acquired by agriculture in the fame time, and from fuch a capital, has not, perhaps, occurred in Europe during the course of the prefent century. In all the great countries of Europe, however, much good land ftill remains uncultivated, and the greater part of what is cultivated, is far from being improved to the degree of which it is capable. Agriculture, therefore, is almost everywhere capable of abforbing a much greater capital than has ever yet been employed in it. What circumftances in the policy of Europe have given the trades which are carried on in towns fo great an advantage over that which is carried on in the