Defence of Usury [44]
may be stated at a sum equal to the amount of those profits. Thence arises a further deduction, viz. the loss to the nation caused by employing the capital in the trade to the colony, in preference to the improvement of land, and thence upon the supposition that the continuance of the trade depended upon the keeping the colony in subjection. The other mischiefs resulting from the keeping of a colony in subjection, are: 1. The expence of its establishment, civil and military. 2. The contingent expence of wars and other coercive measures for keeping it in subjection. 3. The contingent expence of wars for the defence of it against foreign powers. 4. The force, military and naval, constantly kept on foot under the apprehension of such wars. 5. The occasional danger to political liberty from the force thus kept up. 6. The contingent expence of wars produced by alliances contracted for the purpose of supporting wars that may be brought on by the defence of it. 7. The corruptive effects of the influence resulting from the patronage of the establishment, civil and military. 8. The damage that must be done to the national stock of intelligence by the false views of the national interest, which must be kept up in order to prevent the nation from opening their eyes and insisting upon the enfranchisement of the colony. 9. The sacrifice that must be made of the real interest of the colony to this imaginary interest of the mother-country. It is for the purpose of governing it badly, and for no other, that you wish to get or keep a colony. Govern it well, it is of no use to you. To govern its inhabitants as well as they would govern themselves, you must choose to govern them those only whom they would themselves choose, you must sacrifice none of their interests to your own, you must bestow as much time and attention to their interests as they would themselves, in a word, you must take those very measures and no others, which they themselves would take. But would this be governing? And what would it be worth to you, if it were? After all, it would be impossible for you to govern them so well as they would themselves, on account of the distance. 10. The bad government resulting to the mother-country from the complication, the indistinct views of things, and the consumption of time occasioned by this load of distant dependencies.
AGRICULTURE NOT DEPENDENT ON MANUFACTURES
The most advantageous employment for the community that can be made of capital is agriculture, because there the idle landlord shares in equal proportion with the labouring farmer. This can not be extended ad infinitum, to the exclusion of other employments of capital. It can be extended no farther than so far as the farmer finds his profit equal to the profit of stock in other employments of capital, which he would cease to do if this business were to be overstocked. What follows? -- that as soon as this branch of business became so far stocked as to be less productive than others, capital would cease to be applied to it; capital, instead of being applied to this business, would be applied to some other, i.e. manufactures. There would therefore be no occasion for employing artificial means to draw it to manufactures: it would go there of its own accord. It is therefore not true to say that manufactures are necessary to agriculture, and that manufactures must first be encreased before agriculture can be encreased. On the contrary, it is true to say that agriculture is necessary to manufactures, and that agriculture must first be encreased before manufactures can be encreased. Men must exist, before they can begin to work: raw materials of manufacture must exist before they can be worked. What makes the mistake is this. It is true that, when manufactures have encreased within the reach of an intercourse with cultivators, agriculture can be carried on in various respects to more advantage. Manufactures as well as agriculture afford by parsimony and storing a capital: and when a capital
AGRICULTURE NOT DEPENDENT ON MANUFACTURES
The most advantageous employment for the community that can be made of capital is agriculture, because there the idle landlord shares in equal proportion with the labouring farmer. This can not be extended ad infinitum, to the exclusion of other employments of capital. It can be extended no farther than so far as the farmer finds his profit equal to the profit of stock in other employments of capital, which he would cease to do if this business were to be overstocked. What follows? -- that as soon as this branch of business became so far stocked as to be less productive than others, capital would cease to be applied to it; capital, instead of being applied to this business, would be applied to some other, i.e. manufactures. There would therefore be no occasion for employing artificial means to draw it to manufactures: it would go there of its own accord. It is therefore not true to say that manufactures are necessary to agriculture, and that manufactures must first be encreased before agriculture can be encreased. On the contrary, it is true to say that agriculture is necessary to manufactures, and that agriculture must first be encreased before manufactures can be encreased. Men must exist, before they can begin to work: raw materials of manufacture must exist before they can be worked. What makes the mistake is this. It is true that, when manufactures have encreased within the reach of an intercourse with cultivators, agriculture can be carried on in various respects to more advantage. Manufactures as well as agriculture afford by parsimony and storing a capital: and when a capital