break down that natural equality which would
otherwise take place in the commerce which is
carried on between them. The whole annual
produce of the labour of the society is annually
divided between these two different sets of
people. By means of those regulations, a
greater share of it is given to the inhabitants
of the town than would otherwise fall to them,
and a less to those of the country.
The price which the town really pays for
the provisions and materials annually imported
into it, is the quantity of manufactures and
other goods annually exported from it. The
dearer the latter are sold, the cheaper the
former are bought. The industry of the
town becomes more, and that of the country
less advantageous.
That the industry which is carried on in
towns is, everywhere in Europe, more advantageous
than that which is carried on in the
country, without entering into any very nice
computations, we may satisfy ourselves by one
very simple and obvious observation. In
every country of Europe, we find at least a
hundred people who have acquired great fortunes,
from small beginnings, by trade and
manufactures, the industry which properly
belongs to towns, for one who has done so by
that which properly belongs to the country,
the raising of rude produce by the improvement
and cultivation of land. Industry,
therefore, must be better rewarded, the wages
of labour and the profits of stock must evidently
be greater, in the one situation than in
the other. But stock and labour naturally
seek the most advantageous employment.
They naturally, therefore, resort as much as
they can to the town, and desert the country.
The inhabitants of a town being collected
into one place, can easily combine together.
The most insignificant trades carried on in
towns have, accordingly, in some place or
other, been incorporated; and even where they
have never been incorporated, yet the corporation-spirit,
the jealousy of strangers, the aversion
to take apprentices, or to communicate
the secret of their trade, generally prevail in
them, and often teach them, by voluntary associations
and agreements, to prevent that free
competition which they cannot prohibit by
bye-laws. The trades which employ but a
small number of hands, run most easily into
such combinations. Half-a-dozen wool-combers,
perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand
spinners and weavers at work. By combining
not to take apprentices, they can not only engross
the employment, but reduce the whole
manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves,
and raise the price of their labour much
above what is due to the nature of their work.
The inhabitants of the country, dispersed
in distant places, cannot easily combine together.
They have not only never been incorporated,
but the incorporation spirit never
has prevailed among them. No apprenticeship
has ever been thought necessary to qualify
for husbandry, the great trade of the country.
After what are called the fine arts, and
the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps
no trade which requires so great a variety
of knowledge and experience. The innumerable
volumes which have been written upon
it in all languages, may satisfy us, that among
the wisest and most learned nations, it
has never been regarded as a matter very easily
understood. And from all those volumes
we shall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge
of its various and complicated operations
which is commonly possessed even by the common
farmer; how contemptuously soever the
very contemptible authors of some of them
may sometimes affect to speak of him. There
is scarce any common mechanic trade, on the
contrary, of which all the operations may not
be as completely and distinctly explained in
a pamphlet of a very few pages, as it is possible
for words illustrated by figures to explain
them. In the history of the arts, now publishing
by the French Academy of Sciences, several
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
discretion, than that of those which are always
the same, or very nearly the same.
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 brass and iron, works
with instruments, and upon materials of which
the temper is always the same, or very nearly
the same. But the man who ploughs the
ground with a team of horses or oxen, works
with instruments of which the health, strength,
and temper, are very different upon different
occasions. The condition of the materials
which he works upon, too, is as variable as
that of the instruments which he works with,
and both require to be managed with much
judgment and discretion. The common ploughman,
though generally regarded as the pattern
of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective
in this judgment and discretion. He is less
accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse, than
the mechanic who lives in a town. His voice
and language are more uncouth, and more
difficult to be understood by those who are
not used to them. His understanding, however,
being accustomed to consider a greater
variety of objects, is generally much superior
to that of the other, whose whole attention,
from morning till night is commonly occupied
in performing one or two very simple operations.
How much the lower ranks of people
in the country are really superior to those of
the town, is well known to every man whom
either business or curiosity has led to converse