BOOK I. The inhabitants of the country, difperfed in diftant places, cannot eafily combine together. They have not only never been incorporated, but the corporation spirit never has prevailed among them. No apprenticeship has ever been thought neceffary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of the country. After what are called the fine arts, and the liberal profeffions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires fo great a variety of knowledge and experience. The innumerable volumes which have been written upon it in all languages, may fatisfy us, that among the wifest and most learned nations, it has never been regarded as a matter very eafily understood. And from all thofe volumes we fhall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge of its various and complicated operations, which is commonly poffeffed even by the common farmer; how contemptuously foever the very contemptible authors of fome of them may fometimes affect to speak of him. There is fcarce any common mechanic trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not be as com pletely and diftinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few pages, as it is poffible for words illuftrated by figures to explain them. In the history of the arts, now publishing by the French academy of fciences, feveral of them are actually explained in this manner. The direction of operations, besides, which must be varied with every change of the weather, as well as with many other accidents, requires much more judgment and difcretion, than that of those which are always the fame or very nearly the CHA P. fame. Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations of husbandry, but many inferior branches of country labour, require much more skill and experience than the greater part of mechanic trades. The man who works upon brafs and iron, works with inftruments and upon materials of which the temper is always the fame, or very nearly the fame. But the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horfes or oxen, works with inftruments of which the health, ftrength, and temper, are very dif ferent upon different occafions. The condition of the materials which he works upon too is as variable as that of the inftruments which he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment and difcretion. The common ploughman, though generally regarded as the pattern of ftupidity and ignorance, is feldom defective in this judgment and difcretion. He is lefs accuftomed, indeed, to focial intercourfe than the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice and language are more uncouth and more difficult to be understood by thofe who are not ufed to them. His understanding, however, being accustomed to confider a greater variety of objects, is generally much fuperior to that of the other, whofe whole attention from morning till night is commonly occupied in performing one or two very fimple operations. How much the lower ranks of people in the country are really fuperior to thofe of the town, is well known to every man whom either business or curiofity has X. BOOK led to converfe much with both. In China and I. Indoftan accordingly both the rank and the wages of country labourers are faid to be fuperior to thofe of the greater part of artificers and manufacturers. They would probably be fo every-where, if corporation laws and the corporation spirit did not prevent it. The fuperiority which the induftry of the towns has every-where in Europe over that of the country, is not altogether owing to corporations, and corporation laws. It is fupported by many other regulations. The high duties upon foreign manufactures and upon all goods imported by alien merchants, all tend to the fame purpose. Corporation laws enable the inhabitants of towns to raise their prices, without fearing to be under-fold by the free competition of their own countrymen. Thofe other regulations fecure them equally against that of foreigners. The enhancement of price occafioned by both is every-where finally paid by the landlords, farmers, and labourers of the country, who have feldom oppofed the establishment of fuch monopolies. They have commonly neither inclination nor fitnefs to enter into combinations; and the clamour and fophiftry of merchants and manufacturers eafily perfuade them that the private interest of a part, and of a fubordinate part of the fociety, is the general interest of the whole. In Great Britain the fuperiority of the industry of the towns over that of the country feems to have been greater formerly than in the prefent times. The wages of country labour approach nearer .X. nearer to those of manufacturing labour, and the CHA P. profits of flock employed in agriculture to thofe of trading and manufacturing stock, than they are faid to have done in the last century, or in the beginning of the prefent. This change may be regarded as the neceffary, though very late confequence of the extraordinary encouragement given to the industry of the towns. The flock accumulated in them comes in time to be fo great, that it can no longer be employed with the ancient profit in that fpecies of industry which is peculiar to them. That industry has its limits like every other; and the increase of ftock, by increafing the competition, neceffarily reduces the profit. The lowering of profit in the town forces out ftock to the country, where, by creating a new demand for country labour, it neceffarily raises its wages. It then fpreads itself, if I may fay fo, over the face of the land, and by being employed in agriculture is in part restored to the country, at the expence of which, in a great measure, it had originally been accumulated in the town. That everywhere in Europe the greatest improvements of the country have been owing to fuch overflowings of the flock originally accumulated in the towns, I fhall endeavour to fhow hereafter; and at the fame time to demonftrate, that though fome countries have by this courfe attained to a confiderable degree of opulence, it is in itfelf neceffarily flow, uncertain, liable to be difturbed and interrupted by innumerable accidents, and every respect contrary to the order of nature in BOOK and of reafon. The interefts, prejudices, laws I. and customs which have given occafion to it, I shall endeavour to explain as fully and diftinctly as I can in the third and fourth books of this. inquiry. People of the fame trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diverfion, but the converfation ends in a confpiracy against the public, or in fome contrivance to raise prices. It is impoffible indeed to prevent fuch meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be confiftent with liberty and juftice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the fame trade from fometimes affembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate fuch affemblies; much lefs to render them neceffary. A regulation which obliges all thofe of the fame trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates fuch affemblies. It connects individuals who might never otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it. A regulation which enables thofe of the fame trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their fick, their widows and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders fuch affemblies neceffary. An incorporation not only renders them neceffary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous confent of every fingle trader, and it cannot |