Defence of Usury [43]
the limit to the quantity of trade. 5. Therefore no regulations nor any efforts whatsoever, either on the part of subjects or governors, can raise the quantity of wealth produced during a given period to an amount beyond what the productive powers of the quantity of capital in hand at the commencement of that period are capable of producing. 6. A given quantity of capital may enable the employer to produce a greater quantity of wealth when employed in one way than when employed in another. Let the number of possible ways of employing capital be any number whatever, suppose a thousand: if a minister could make out that one certain mode would be more productive than any one of the remaining 999, he would have reason for wishing that a certain portion of the national capital should be applied to that branch, in preference to all others.(36*) But he would have no sufficient reason for so much as wishing it, till he had made out that superiority with respect to all the 999.(37*) And though he had made it out ever so clear, he could have no warrantable ground for employing coercive measures to induce any one to engage in this most advantageous of all branches. For the more evident its superiority, the more certain it is that, as soon as that superiority was made evident to them, men would betake themselves to that superior branch of their own accord, without being either hired or forced to do so. 7. Vanity and weakness can alone give him a plea which would be sufficient to his own conscience, to warrant his employing force(38*) to such a purpose. And whichever plea such a persuasion might afford to his own conscience, it is a plea that could never be valid in the eyes of any other men. To every bystander the refusal of the persons concerned to engage in the business without being thus compelled or hired, would be a stronger reason for looking upon it as not being an advantageous one, than any it could ever be possible for him to give on the other side.
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PRINCIPLE "NO MORE TRADE THAN CAPITAL" WITH RESPECT TO COLONIAL GOVERNMENT, ECONOMY AND PEACE
What is it that would be the loss, suppose it to amount to any thing, that a nation would sustain by the giving up of any colony? The difference between the profit to be made by the employing in that trade so much capital as would be employed in it were the colony kept, and the profit that would be made by the employment of the same capital in any other way, suppose in the improvement of land. The loss is nothing, if the same capital employed in the improvement of land would be more productive: and it would be more productive by the amount of so much as would go to form the annual rent: for deducting that rent, capital employed in the improvement of land produces as much as if employed in any other way. If the loss were any thing, would it then amount to the whole difference between the profit upon that trade, and the profit upon the next most profitable one? no: but only to the difference between so much of that difference as would be produced if the colony were retained in subjection, and so much as would be produced if the colony were declared free. The value of a colony to the mother country, according to the common mode of computation, is equal to the sum total of imports from that colony and exports to it put together. From this statement, if the foregoing observation be just, the following deductions will come to be made. 1. The whole value of the exports to the colony. 2. So much of the imports as is balanced by the exports. 3. Such a portion of the above remainder as answers to so much of the trade as would be equally carried on, were the colony independent. 4. So much of that reduced profit as would be made, were the same capital employed in any other trade or branch of industry lost by the independence of the colony. 5. But the same capital, if employed in agriculture. would have produced a rent over and above the ordinary profits of capital: which rent, according to a general and undisputed computation,
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PRINCIPLE "NO MORE TRADE THAN CAPITAL" WITH RESPECT TO COLONIAL GOVERNMENT, ECONOMY AND PEACE
What is it that would be the loss, suppose it to amount to any thing, that a nation would sustain by the giving up of any colony? The difference between the profit to be made by the employing in that trade so much capital as would be employed in it were the colony kept, and the profit that would be made by the employment of the same capital in any other way, suppose in the improvement of land. The loss is nothing, if the same capital employed in the improvement of land would be more productive: and it would be more productive by the amount of so much as would go to form the annual rent: for deducting that rent, capital employed in the improvement of land produces as much as if employed in any other way. If the loss were any thing, would it then amount to the whole difference between the profit upon that trade, and the profit upon the next most profitable one? no: but only to the difference between so much of that difference as would be produced if the colony were retained in subjection, and so much as would be produced if the colony were declared free. The value of a colony to the mother country, according to the common mode of computation, is equal to the sum total of imports from that colony and exports to it put together. From this statement, if the foregoing observation be just, the following deductions will come to be made. 1. The whole value of the exports to the colony. 2. So much of the imports as is balanced by the exports. 3. Such a portion of the above remainder as answers to so much of the trade as would be equally carried on, were the colony independent. 4. So much of that reduced profit as would be made, were the same capital employed in any other trade or branch of industry lost by the independence of the colony. 5. But the same capital, if employed in agriculture. would have produced a rent over and above the ordinary profits of capital: which rent, according to a general and undisputed computation,