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II.

BOOK country, that private perfons frequently find it more for their advantage to employ their capitals in the most distant carrying trades of Afia and America, than in the improvement and cultivation of the most fertile fields in their own neighbourhood, I fhall endeavour to explain at full length in the two following books,

BOOK III.

Of the different Progrefs of Opulence in

different Nations.

CHAP. I.

Of the natural Progress of Opulence.

TH

III.

HE great commerce of every civilized fo- в OOK ciety, is that carried on between the inhabitants of the town and thofe of the country. It confists in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce, either immediately, or by the intervention of money, or of fome fort of paper which represents money. The country fupplies the town with the means of fubfiftence, and the materials of manufacture. The town repays this supply by fending back a part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country. The town, in which there neither is nor can be any reproduction of fubftances, may very properly be faid to gain its whole wealth and fubfiftence from the country. We must not, however, upon this account, imagine that the gain. of the town is the lofs of the country. The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the divifion of labour is in this, as in all other cafes, advantageous to all the different perfons employed in the various occupations into which it is fubdi

2

BOOK fubdivided.

III.

The inhabitants of the country

purchase of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods, with the produce of a much fmaller quantity of their own labour, than they must have employed had they attempted to prepare them themfelves. The town affords a market for the furplus produce of the country, or what is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, and it is there that the inhabitants of the country exchange it for fomething. elfe which is in demand among them.

The

greater the number and revenue of the inhabit-
ants of the town, the more extenfive is the market
which it affords to thofe of the country; and the
more extenfive that market, it is always the more
advantageous to a great number.
The corn

which grows within a mile of the town, fells
there for the fame price with that which comes
from twenty miles diftance. But the price of
the latter muft generally, not only pay the ex-
pence of raifing and bringing it to market, but
afford too the ordinary profits of agriculture to
the farmer. The proprietors and cultivators of
the country, therefore, which lies in the neigh-
bourhood of the town, over and above the or-
dinary profits of agriculture, gain, in the price
of what they fell, the whole, value of the car-
riage of the like produce that is brought from
more diftant parts, and they fave, befides, the
whole value of this carriage in the price of what
they buy. Compare the cultivation of the lands
in the neighbourhood of any confiderable town,
with that of thofe which lie at fome diftance

· from

from it, and you will easily fatisfy yourself how CHAP. much the country is benefited by the commerce of the town. Among all the abfurd fpeculations that have been propagated concerning the balance of trade, it has never been pretended that either the country lofes by its commerce with the town, or the town by that with the country which maintains it.

As fubfiftence is, in the nature of things, prior to conveniency and luxury, fo the industry which procures the former, muft neceffarily be prior to that which minifters to the latter. The cultivation and improvement of the country, therefore, which affords fubfiftence, muft, neceffarily, be prior to the increase of the town, which furnishes only the means of conveniency and luxury. It is the furplus produce of the country only, or what is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, that conftitutes the fubfiftence of the town, which can therefore increase only with the increase of this furplus produce. The town, indeed, may not always derive its whole fubfiftence from the country in its neighbourhood, or even from the territory to which it belongs, but from very diftant countries; and this, though it forms no exception from the general rule, has occafioned confiderable variations in the progrefs of opulence in different ages and nations.

THAT order of things which neceffity impofes in general, though not in every particular country, is, in every particular country, promoted by the natural inclinations of man. If human infti

tutions

BOOK tutions had never thwarted thofe natural incli

111. nations, the towns could no-where have increased

beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which they were fituated could support; till fuch time, at least, as the whole of that territory was completely cultivated and improved. Upon equal, or nearly equal profits, moft men will chufe to employ their capitals rather in the improvement and cultivation of land, than either in manufactures or in foreign trade. The man who employs his capital in land, has it more under his view and command, and his fortune is much lefs liable to accidents, than that of the trader, who is obliged frequently. to commit it, not only to the winds and the waves, but to the more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving great credits in diftant countries to men, with whofe character and fituation he can feldom be thoroughly acquainted. The capital of the landlord, on the. contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, feems to be as well fecured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The beauty of the country befides, the pleasures of a country life, the tranquillity of mind which it promifes, and wherever the injuftice of human laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really affords, have charms that more or lefs attract every body; and as to cultivate the ground was the original destination of man, so in every stage of his exiftence he feems to retain a predilection for this primitive employment.

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