of this class was exactly equal to that of its
daily, monthly, and yearly production; yet
it would not from thence follow, that its labour
added nothing to the real revenue, to
the real value of the annual produce of the
land and labour of the society. An artificer,
for example, who, in the first six months after
harvest, executes ten pounds worth of work,
though he should, in the same time, consume
ten pounds worth of corn and other necessaries,
yet really adds the value of ten pounds
to the annual produce of the land and labour
of the society. While he has been consuming
a half-yearly revenue of ten pounds worth
of corn and other necessaries, he has produced
an equal value of work, capable of purchasing,
either to himself, or to some other
person, an equal half-yearly revenue. The
value, therefore, of what has been consumed
and produced during these six months, is
equal, not to ten, but to twenty pounds. It
is possible, indeed, that no more than ten
pounds worth of this value may ever have existed
at any one moment of time. But if the
ten pounds worth of corn and other necessaries
which were consumed by the artificer, had
been consumed by a soldier, or by a menial
servant, the value of that part of the annual
produce which existed at the end of the six
months, would have been ten pounds less than
it actually is in consequence of the labour of
the artificer. Though the value of what the
artificer produces, therefore, should not, at
any one moment of time, be supposed greater
than the value he consumes, yet, at every moment
of time, the actually existing value of
goods in the market is, in consequence of
what he produces, greater than it otherwise
would be.
When the patrons of this system assert, that
the consumption of artificers, manufacturers,
and merchants, is equal to the value of what
they produce, they probably mean no more
than that their revenue, or the fund destined
for their consumption, is equal to it. But if
they had expressed themselves more accurately,
and only asserted, that the revenue of
this class was equal to the value of what they
produced, it might readily have occurred to
the reader, that what would naturally be saved
out of this revenue, must necessarily increase
more or less the real wealth of the society.
In order, therefore, to make out something
like an argument, it was necessary that they
should express themselves as they have done;
and this argument, even supposing things
actually were as it seems to presume them to
be, turns out to be a very inconclusive one.
Fourthly, farmers and country labourers
can no more augment, without parsimony,
the real revenue, the annual produce of the
land and labour of their society, than artificers,
manufacturers, and merchants. The
annual produce of the land and labour of any
society can be augmented only in two ways;
either, first, by some improvement in the
productive powers of the useful labour actually
maintained within it; or, secondly, by some
increase in the quantity of that labour.
The improvement in the productive powers
of useful labour depends, first, upon the improvement
in the ability of the workman;
and, secondly, upon that of the machinery
with which he works. But the labour of artificers
and manufacturers, as it is capable of
being more subdivided, and the labour of each
workman reduced to a greater simplicity of
operation, than that of farmers and country
labourers; so it is likewise capable of both
these sorts of improvement in a much higher
degree.[43] In this respect, therefore, the class
of cultivators can have no sort of advantage
over that of artificers and manufacturers.
The increase in the quantity of useful labour
actually employed within any society
must depend altogether upon the increase of
the capital which employs it; and the increase
of that capital, again, must be exactly equal
to the amount of the savings from the revenue,
either of the particular persons who
manage and direct the employment of that
capital, or of some other persons, who lend it
to them. If merchants, artificers, and manufacturers
are, as this system seems to suppose,
naturally more inclined to parsimony and
saving than proprietors and cultivators,
they are, so far, more likely to augment the
quantity of useful labour employed within
their society, and consequently to increase its
real revenue, the annual produce of its land
and labour.
Fifthly and lastly, though the revenue of
the inhabitants of every country was supposed
to consist altogether, as this system seems to
suppose, in the quantity of subsistence which
their industry could procure to them; yet,
even upon this supposition, the revenue of a
trading and manufacturing country must,
other things being equal, always be much
greater than that of one without trade or manufactures.
By means of trade and manufactures,
a greater quantity of subsistence can
be annually imported into a particular country,
than what its own lands, in the actual state
of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants
of a town, though they frequently
possess no lands of their own, yet draw to
themselves, by their industry, such a quantity
of the rude produce of the lands of other
people, as supplies them, not only with the
materials of their work, but with the fund of
their subsistence. What a town always is
with regard to the country in its neighbourhood,
one independent state or country may
frequently be with regard to other independent
states or countries. It is thus that Holland
draws a great part of its subsistence
from other countries; live cattle from Holstein