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other countries; while, on the contrary, a country "without trade and manufactures is generally obliged "to purchase, at the expence of a great part of its "rude produce, a very small part of the manufac"tured produce of other countries. The one exports what can subsist and accommodate but a

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very few, and imports the subsistence and accom❝modation of a great number. The other exports "the accommodation and subsistence of a great number, and imports that of a very few only. The inhabitants of the one must always enjoy a much greater quantity of subsistence than what their own lands, in the actual state of their cultivation, "could afford. The inhabitants of the other must always enjoy a much smaller quantity." *

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His French translator, whom I have mentioned before, far from combating this part of his theory, has strengthened it by still more forcible and decisive

considerations.

"An industrious people," says he, "enjoys such a "superiority over many other nations with regard to "manufactural industry and commercial operations, "that they may draw to themselves a considerable portion of the raw produce of other countries.— Thus, let us suppose an article of household furni

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ture, a convenient implement, manufactured with a "material uncommonly cheap, and almost of no value, "the manufacture of which, by the help of machines. "and particular methods, required only one single

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day of labour, represented by eight or ten pounds

* Wealth of Nations, Edition of 1805. Vol. iii. b. iv. c. 9, p. 26.

"of wheat; this piece of furniture, if carried to a

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country which enjoys none of the advantages of "the industrious country, will naturally be valued

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by the purchasers, not according to the quantity of "labour which it may have really cost, but according to the quantity of labour which they would be obliged to pay for in their own country for an article "so convenient and so agreeable. They will there"fore gladly offer in exchange for this commodity a "value representing four or five days of labour in "their own country, or a quantity of raw produce corresponding to this value: consequently, such au exchange will bring to the manufacturing country, "over and above the value of the provisions consumed

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by the labourers who were the manufacturers and "carriers of that commodity, double the quantity of "those provisions at least, or what is the same, "double their price.” *

After having so positively acknowledged the superiority of manufactures and trade over agriculture, how could Adam Smith and his French translator assert that agricultural labour is the most productive of labours, and contributes most efficaciously to the progress of public and private wealth? To account for this contradiction is impossible.

The French translator of Adam Smith observes, it is true," that a source of wealth and power which pro"ceeds only from a superiority of industry is, by its

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nature, temporary and precarious; that it can last

* French translation of the Wealth of Nations, by the Senator Germain Garnier, Paris, 1802. Vol. v. note xxix. p. 272, 273.

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only as long as other nations remain in a state of ignorance and unskilfulness, a state from which they will be so much the more disposed to emerge, "the more they use the manufactured commodities "of the industrious nations; and that, in proportion as these other nations improve in skill, the manufacturing country will rapidly decline, and be exposed to the most fatal extremities."

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But is this reflection as solid and well grounded as it is specious and captivating? Have manufactures and commerce only a temporary and precarious superiority over agriculture? Is the progress of knowledge, sciences, and arts, calculated not only to re-establish the equilibrium between those different labours, but even to incline the scales in favour of agriculture? This is a question of the utmost importance, which deserves to be examined with the most scrupulous attention.

An agricultural nation cannot become a trading and manufacturing one but by the slow and uncertain progress of time, by the growth of local wealth, and the improvement of knowledge, sciences, and arts, or by a concurrence of circumstances over which they have no control, and on which they cannot rely.

If they attempt to force the natural order of things, to create prodigies, and all at once to appropriate to themselves the benefits of manufactures and commerce; they cannot accomplish this but by taking from agriculture part of the hands and capitals which caused it to flourish and prosper. Bereft of its usual means, agriculture languishes, its produce decreases, and this portion of public wealth withers and decays.

On the other hand, the unskilfulness and inexperience of new manufacturers and merchants yield for a long time none but productions inferior to those of manufacturing and trading nations, which cannot stand the competition in the general and particular market. The attempt of transforming all at once part of an agricultural nation into manufacturers and traders is therefore equally prejudicial to agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and necessarily produc tive of the decay of national wealth.

Of all agricultural countries, France is the only one that attempted to raise herself all at once to the rank of manufacturing and trading countries. Colbert wrought this wonder during his memorable administration, but not without injury to agriculture. Public opinion accused him of having sacrificed agriculture to manufactures and commerce; and the incalculable advantages, which have accrued to the French from this innovation in their system of political economy, have not yet cleared that great man of this unavoidable and transitory wrong. Contemporaries rarely forgive a statesman the privations which he imposes upon them for the purpose of ameliorating their future condition; and posterity, which reaps the fruit of his skilful combinations, is frequently ungrateful to its benefactor.

The bold enterprise of Colbert, which was so successful and yet so badly rewarded, had never been attempted before, and has not been repeated since. The annals of manufactures and commerce prove, in every page, that all ancient and modern nations which have ranked among manufacturing and trading nations,

have attained this rank but slowly, gradually, and as it were imperceptibly; most of them were indebted for their success to colonization, factories, or the emigration of manufacturing and trading people.

From Egypt and Phoenicia issued the numerous colonies which carried the benefits of industry and commerce into Greece, Africa, Italy, and part of the Gauls.

When, after eight centuries of oppression, rapine, and destruction, trade and manufactures revived in some cities of Italy, whence they were diffused throughout Europe; the circumstance was owing to the numerous factories which the Italian cities established in the North of Europe, and which proved as many schools that formed the creators of the manufactures of Flanders and of the commerce of the Baltic.

In modern times, the tyranny of Philip the Second, the persecutions of the Stuarts, and the blind intolerance of Louis XIV, carried the seeds of manufactures and commerce to Holland, England, the North of Germany, and the New World.

But the progress of manufactures and commerce, from the most remote period until our own times, shews, that, in all countries and among all nations, it has always been slow, toilsome, difficult, and generally the work of ages; and that it never proved prejudicial to manufacturing and trading nations, and consequently ought to give them no uneasiness. In proportion as they are obliged to renounce certain markets, they resort to others, or open new ones among less civilized people; and until the inhabitants of the

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