sea, by the number of its lakes and rivers, and
by what may be called the fertility or barrenness
of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this
sort of rude produce. As population increases,
as the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country grows greater and greater,
there come to be more buyers of fish; and
those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and
variety of other goods, or, what is the same
thing, the price of a greater quantity and variety
of other goods, to buy with. But it will
generally be impossible to supply the great
and extended market, without employing a
quantity of labour greater than in proportion
to what had been requisite for supplying the
narrow and confined one. A market which,
from requiring only one thousand, comes to
require annually ten thousand ton of fish, can
seldom be supplied, without employing more
than ten times the quantity of labour which
had before been sufficient to supply it. The
fish must generally be sought for at a greater
distance, larger vessels must be employed, and
more expensive machinery of every kind made
use of. The real price of this commodity,
therefore, naturally rises in the progress of
improvement. It has accordingly done so, I
believe, more or less in every country.
Though the success of a particular day's
fishing may be a very uncertain matter, yet
the local situation of the country being supposed,
the general efficacy of industry in bringing
a certain quantity of fish to market, taking
the course of a year, or of several years
together, it may, perhaps, be thought is certain
enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As it
depends more, however, upon the local situation
of the country, than upon the state of its
wealth and industry; as upon this account it
may in different countries be the same in very
different periods of improvement, and very
different in the same period; its connection
with the state of improvement is uncertain;
and it is of this sort of uncertainty that I am
here speaking.
In increasing the quantity of the different
minerals and metals which are drawn from the
bowels of the earth, that of the more precious
ones particularly, the efficacy of human industry
seems not to be limited, but to be altogether
uncertain.
The quantity of the precious metals which
is to be found in any country, is not limited
by any thing in its local situation, such as the
fertility or barrenness of its own mines. Those
metals frequently abound in countries which
possess no mines. Their quantity, in every
particular country, seems to depend upon two
different circumstances; first, upon its power
of purchasing, upon the state of its industry,
upon the annual produce of its land and labour,
in consequence of which it can afford
to employ a greater or a smaller quantity of
labour and subsistence, in bringing or purchasing
such superfluities as gold and silver,
either from its own mines, or from those of
other countries; and, secondly, upon the fertility
or barrenness of the mines which may
happen at any particular time to supply the
commercial world with those metals. The
quantity of those metals in the countries most
remote from the mines, must be more or less
affected by this fertility or barrenness, on account
of the easy and cheap transportation of
those metals, of their small bulk and great
value. Their quantity in China and Indostan
must have been more or less affected by the
abundance of the mines of America.
So far as their quantity in any particular
country depends upon the former of those two
circumstances (the power of purchasing), their
real price, like that of all other luxuries and
superfluities, is likely to rise with the wealth
and improvement of the country, and to fall
with its poverty and depression. Countries
which have a great quantity of labour and
subsistence to spare, can afford to purchase
any particular quantity of those metals at the
expense of a greater quantity of labour and
subsistence, than countries which have less to
spare.
So far as their quantity in any particular
country depends upon the latter of those two
circumstances (the fertility or barrenness of
the mines which happen to supply the commercial
world), their real price, the real quantity
of labour and subsistence which they will
purchase or exchange for, will, no doubt,
sink more or less in proportion to the fertility,
and rise in proportion to the barrenness of
those mines.
The fertility or barrenness of the mines,
however, which may happen at any particular
time to supply the commercial world, is a
circumstance which, it is evident, may have
no sort of connection with the state of industry
in a particular country. It seems even to
have no very necessary connection with that
of the world in general. As arts and commerce,
indeed, gradually spread themselves
over a greater and a greater part of the earth,
the search for new mines, being extended over
a wider surface, may have somewhat a better
chance for being successful than when confined
within narrower bounds. The discovery
of new mines, however, as the old ones come
to be gradually exhausted, is a matter of the
greatest uncertainty, and such as no human
skill or industry can insure. All indications,
it is acknowledged, are doubtful; and the actual
discovery and successful working of a
new mine can alone ascertain the reality of its
value, or even of its existence. In this search
there seem to be no certain limits, either to
the possible success, or to the possible disappointment
of human industry. In the course
of a century or two, it is possible that new
mines may be discovered, more fertile than
any that have ever yet been known, and it is
just equally possible, that the most fertile mine