BOOK duals, but the public extravagance of govern

II.

ment. The uniform, conftant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progrefs of things toward improvement, in fpite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently reftores health and vigour to the constitution, in fpite, not only of the disease, but of the abfurd prefcriptions of the doctor.

THE annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increafing either the num. ber of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of thofe labourers who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never be much increased, but in confequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds deftined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the fame number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence either of fome addition and improvement to thofe machines and inftruments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a more proper divifion and diftribution of employment. In either cafe an additional capital is almost always required. It is by means of an additional capital only, that the undertaker of any work can either provide his workmen with better machinery, or

make

make a more proper diftribution of employment CHAP. among them. When the work to be done confifts of a number of parts, to keep every man conftantly employed in one way, requires a much greater capital than where every man is occafionally employed in every different part of the work. When we compare, therefore, the state of a nation at two different periods, and find, that the annual produce of its land and labour is evidently greater at the latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactures more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade more extenfive, we may be affured that its capital must have increased during the interval between those two periods, and that more must have been added to it by the good conduct of fome, than had been taken from it either by the private mifconduct of others, or by the public extravagance of government. But we fhall find this to have been the cafe of almost all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of those who have not enjoyed the most prudent and parfimonious governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the ftate of the country at periods fomewhat diftant from one another. The progrefs is frequently fo gradual, that, at near periods, the improvement is not only not fenfible, but from the declenfion either of certain branches of industry, or of certain diftricts of the country, things which fometimes happen though the country in general be in great profperity, there frequently arifes a fufpicion,

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BOOK fufpicion, that the riches and induftry of the whole are decaying.

THE annual produce of the land and labour of England, for example, is certainly much greater than it was, a little more than a century ago, at the restoration of Charles II. Though, at prefent, few people, I believe, doubt of this, yet during this period, five years have feldom paffed away in which fome book or pamphlet has not been published, written too with fuch abilities as to gain fome authority with the public, and pretending to demonstrate that the wealth of the nation was faft declining, that the country was depopulated, agriculture neglected, manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have these publications been all party pamphlets, the wretched offspring of falfehood and venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very intelligent people; who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no other reafon but because they believed it.

THE annual produce of the land and labour of England again, was certainly much greater at the restoration, than we can fuppofe it to have been about an hundred years before, at the acceffion of Elizabeth. At this period too, we have all reafon to believe, the country was much more. advanced in improvement, than it had been about a century before, towards the clofe of the diffentions between the houfes of York and Lancaster. Even then it was, probably, in a better condition than it had been at the Norman conqueft, and at the Norman conqueft, than during the confufion

of

1

of the Saxon Heptarchy. Even at this early period, it was certainly a more improved country than at the invafion of Julius Cæfar, when its inhabitants were nearly in the fame state with the favages in North America.

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In each of those periods, however, there was, not only much private and public profufion, many expensive and unneceffary wars, great perverfion of the annual produce from maintaining productive to maintain unproductive hands; but fometimes, in the confufion of civil difcord, fuch abfolute waste and deftruction of stock, as might be fuppofed, not only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural accumulation of riches, but to have left the country, at the end of the period, poorer than at the beginning. Thus, in the happiest and most fortunate period of them all, that which has paffed fince the restoration, how many disorders and misfortunes have occurred, which, could they have been foreseen, not only the impoverishment, but the total ruin of the country would have been expected from them? The fire and the plague of London, the two Dutch wars, the diforders of the revolution, the war in Ireland, the four expensive French wars of 1688, 1702, 1742, and 1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the courfe of the four French wars, the nation has contracted more than a hundred and forty-five millions of debt, over and above all the other extraordinary annual expence which they occafioned, fo that the whole cannot be computed at lefs than two hundred millions. So great a fhare of the annual producę

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BOOK produce of the land and labour of the country, has, fince the revolution, been employed upon different occafions, in maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive hands. But had not those wars given this particular direction to fo large a capital, the greater part of it would naturally have been employed in maintaining productive hands, whofe labour would have replaced, with a profit, the whole value of their confumption. The value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, would have been confiderably increased by it every year, and every year's increase would have augmented ftill more that of the following year. More houfes would have been built, more lands would have been improved, and those which had been improved before would have been better cultivated, more manufactures would have been established, and those which had been established before would have been more extended; and to what height the real wealth and revenue of the country might, by this time, have been raised, it is not perhaps very eafy even to imagine.

BUT though the profufion of government muft, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to ftop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is, undoubtedly, much greater at prefent than it was either at the restoration or at the revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewife be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions