for being transported to distant markets as
wool. It suffers more by keeping. A salted
hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and
sells for a lower price. This circumstance
must necessarily have some tendency to sink
the price of raw hides produced in a country
which does not manufacture them, but is obliged
to export them, and comparatively to
raise that of those produced in a country which
does manufacture them. It must have some
tendency to sink their price in a barbarous,
and to raise it in an improved and manufacturing
country. It must have had some tendency,
therefore, to sink it in ancient, and to
raise it in modern times. Our tanners, besides,
have not been quite so successful as our clothiers,
in convincing the wisdom of the nation,
that the safety of the commonwealth depends
upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture.
They have accordingly been much
less favoured. The exportation of raw hides
has, indeed, been prohibited, and declared a
nuisance; but their importation from foreign
countries has been subjected to a duty; and
though this duty has been taken off from those
of Ireland and the plantations (for the limited
time of five years only), yet Ireland has
not been confined to the market of Great Britain
for the sale of its surplus hides, or of
these which are not manufactured at home.
The hides of common cattle have, but within
these few years, been put among the enumerated
commodities which the plantations can
send nowhere but to the mother country; neither
has the commerce of Ireland been in this
case oppressed hitherto, in order to support
the manufactures of Great Britain.
Whatever regulations tend to sink the price,
either of wool or of raw hides, below what it
naturally would be, must, in an improved and
cultivated country, have some tendency to raise
the price of butcher's meat. The price both
of the great and small cattle, which are fed
on improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient
to pay the rent which the landlord, and
the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect
from improved and cultivated land. If
it is not, they will soon cease to feed them.
Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not
paid by the wool and the hide, must be paid
by the carcase. The less there is paid for
the one, the more must be paid for the other.
In what manner this price is to be divided
upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent
to the landlords and farmers, provided
it is all paid to them. In an improved and more
cultivated country, therefore, their interest as
landlords and farmers cannot be much affected
by such regulations, though their interest
as consumers may, by the rise in the price of
provisions. It would be quite otherwise, however,
in an unimproved and uncultivated
country, where the greater part of the lands
could be applied to no other purpose but the
feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the
hide made the principal part of the value of
those cattle. Their interest as landlords and
farmers would in this case be very deeply affected
by such regulations, and their interest
as consumers very little. The fall in the price
of the wool and the hide would not in this
case raise the price of the carcase; because
the greater part of the lands of the country
being applicable to no other purpose but the
feeding of cattle, the same number would still
continue to be fed. The same quantity of
butcher's meat would still come to market.
The demand for it would be no greater than
before. Its price, therefore, would be the same
as before. The whole price of cattle would
fall, and along with it both the rent and the
profit of all those lands of which cattle was
the principal produce, that is, of the greater
part of the lands of the country. The perpetual
prohibition of the exportation of wool,
which is commonly, but very falsely, ascribed
to Edward III., would, in the then circumstances
of the country, have been the most
destructive regulation which could well have
been thought of. It would not only have reduced
the actual value of the greater part of
the lands in the kingdom, but by reducing
the price of the most important species of
small cattle, it would have retarded very much
its subsequent improvement.
The wool of Scotland fell very considerably
in its price in consequence of the union
with England, by which it was excluded from
the great market of Europe, and confined to
the narrow one of Great Britain. The value
of the greater part of the lands in the southern
counties of Scotland, which are chiefly a sheep
country, would have been very deeply affected
by this event, had not the rise in the price
of butcher's meat fully compensated the fall
in the price of wool.
As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing
the quantity either of wool or of raw
hides, is limited, so far as it depends upon
the produce of the country where it is exerted;
so it is uncertain so far as it depends upon
the produce of other countries. It so far
depends not so much upon the quantity which
they produce, as upon that which they do not
manufacture; and upon the restraints which
they may or may not think proper to impose
upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce.
These circumstances, as they are altogether
independent of domestic industry, so
they necessarily render the efficiency of its efforts
more or less uncertain. In multiplying this
sort of rude produce, therefore, the efficacy
of human industry is not only limited, but
uncertain.
In multiplying another very important sort
of rude produce, the quantity of fish that is
brought to market, it is likewise both limited
and uncertain. It is limited by the local situation
of the country, by the proximity or
distance of its different provinces from the