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BOOK ftock of houfes, well built and properly taken care may laft many centuries. Though the period of their total confumption, however, is more dif tant, they are still as really a ftock referved for immediate confumption as either clothes or household furniture.

The Second of the three portions into which the general stock of the fociety divides itself, is the fixed capital; of which the characteristic is, that it affords a revenue or profit without circulating or changing mafters. It confifts chiefly of the four following articles:

Firft, of all useful machines and inftruments of trade which facilitate and abridge labour:

Secondly, of all those profitable buildings which are the means of procuring a revenue, not only to their proprietor who lets them for a rent, but to the person who poffeffes them and pays that rent for them; fuch as fhops, warehouses, workhouses, farmhouses, with all their neceffary buildings; ftables, granaries, &c. These are very different from mere dwelling houfes. They are a fort of inftruments of trade, and may be confidered in the fame light:

Thirdly, of the improvements of land, of what has been profitably laid out in clearing, draining, enclofing, manuring, and reducing it into the condition moft proper for tillage and culture. An improved farm may very justly be regarded in the fame light as thofe ufeful machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and by means of which, an equal circulating capital can afford a much greater revenue to its em

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ployer. An improved farm is equally advan- CHA P. tageous and more durable than any of thofe machines, frequently requiring no other repairs than the most profitable application of the farmer's capital employed in cultivating it :

Fourthly, of the acquired and ufeful abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the fociety. The acquifition of fuch talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, ftudy, or apprenticeship, always cofts a real expence, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his perfon. Those talents, as they make a part of his fortune, fo do they likewife of that of the fociety to which he belongs. The improved dexterity of a workman may be confidered in the fame light as a machine or inftrument of trade which facilitates and abridges labour, and which, though it cofts a certain expence, repays that expence with a profit.

The third and laft of the three portions into which the general stock of the fociety naturally divides itself, is the circulating capital; of which the characteristic is, that it affords a revenue only by circulating or changing mafters. It is com pofed likewife of four parts:

First, of the money by means of which all the other three are circulated and diftributed to their proper confumers:

Secondly, of the ftock of provifions which are in the poffeffion of the butcher, the grazier, the farmer, the corn-merchant, the brewer, &c. and from the fale of which they expect to derive a profit :

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Thirdly, of the materials, whether altogether rude, or more or lefs manufactured, of clothes, furniture and building, which are not yet made up into any of thofe three fhapes, but which remain in the hands of the growers, the manufacturers, the mercers, and drapers, the timbermerchants, the carpenters and joiners, the brick-makers, &c.

Fourthly, and laftly, of the work which is made up and completed, but which is ftill in the hands of the merchant or manufacturer, and not yet difpofed of or diftributed to the proper confumers; fuch as the finished work which we frequently find ready-made in the shops of the fmith, the cabinet-maker, the goldfmith, the jeweller, the china-merchant, &c. The circulating capital confifts in this manner, of the provifions, materials, and finished work of all kinds that are in the hands of their respective dealers, and of the money that is neceffary for circulating and diftributing them to thofe who are finally to use, or to confume them.

Of these four parts three, provifions, materials, and finished work, are, either annually, or in a longer or fhorter period, regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed capital or in the stock referved for immediate confumption.

Every fixed capital is both originally derived from, and requires to be continually supported by a circulating capital. All ufeful machines and inftruments of trade are originally derived from a circulating capital, which furnishes the

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materials of which they are made, and the main- CHA P. tenance of the workmen who make them. They require too a capital of the fame kind to keep them in conftant repair.

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital. The moft ufeful machines and inftruments of trade will produce nothing without the circulating capital which affords the materials they are employed upon, and the maintenance of the workmen who employ them. Land, however improved, will yield no revenue without a circulating capital, which maintains the labourers who cultivate and collect its produce.

To maintain and augment the stock which may be referved for immediate confumption, is the fole end and purpose both of the fixed and circulating capitals. It is this ftock which feeds, clothes, and lodges the people. Their riches or poverty depends upon the abundant or fparing fupplies which those two capitals can afford to the stock referved for immediate confumption.

So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general stock of the fociety; it must in its turn require continual fupplies, without which it would foon ceafe to exift. Thefe fupplies are principally drawn from three fources, the produce of land, of mines, and of fisheries. These afford continual fupplies of provifions and materials, of which part is afterwards wrought

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BOOK up into finished work, and by which are replaced the provisions, materials, and finished work continually withdrawn from the circulating capital. From mines too is drawn what is neceflary for maintaining and augmenting that part of it which confifts in money. For though, in the ordinary course of bufinefs, this part is not, like the other three, neceffarily withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general flock of the fociety, it must, however, like all other things, be wafted and worn out at laft, and fometimes too be either loft or fent abroad, and muft, therefore, require continual, though, no doubt, much fmaller fupplies.

Land, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and a circulating capital to cultivate them: and their produce replaces with a profit, not only thofe capitals, but all the others in the fociety. Thus the farmer annually replaces to the manufacturer the provifions which he had confumed and the materials which he had wrought up the year before; and the manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had wafted and worn out in the fame time. This is the real exchange that is annually made between thofe two orders of people, though it feldom happens that the rude produce of the one and the manufactured produce of the other, are directly bartered for one another; because it feldom happens that the farmer fells his corn and his cattle, his flax and his wool, to the very fame perfon of whom he chufes to purchase the

clothes,

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