The Wealth of Nations_ Books 4-5 - Adam Smith [339]
home consumption will be . . . .
£0 14 3 3/4
Though the loss of duties opon herrings exported cannot, perhaps, properly be considered as bounty; that upon herrings entered for home consumption certainly may.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE QUANTITY OF FOREIGN SALT IMPORTED INTO SCOTLAND, AND OF SCOTS SALT DELIVERED DUTY FREE FROM THE WORKS THERE FOR THE FISHERY, FROM THE 5TH OF APRIL 1771 TO THE 5TH OF APRIL 1782, WITH A MEDIUM OF BOTH FOR ONE YEAR
Period.
Foreign Salt Imported. Scots Salt delivered from the works.
Bushels
Bushels
From the 5th of April 1771 to the 5th of April 1782
936,974
168,226
Medium for one Year
85,179 5/11 15,293 3/11
It is to be observed that the Bushel of Foreign Salt weighs 84lb., that of British Salt 56 lb. only.
NOTE ON THE INDEX
The Wealth of Nations was published by Strachan and Cadell on 9 March 1776. The book attracted the approval of many of Smith’s friends. David Hume, for example, was ‘much pleased’ with Smith’s ‘performance’, noting that it had ‘depth and solidity and acuteness’.1 Hugh Blair, Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Edinburgh, observed that ‘Your arrangement is excellent. One chapter paves the way for another; and your system gradually erects itself.’2 William Robertson, Historiographical Royal and Principal of Edinburgh University, noted that Smith had ‘formed into a regular and consistent system one of the most intricate and important parts of political science’.3
But Blair was not uncritical:
the chief Improvement I wish for in the next Edition is that you take some method to point out in what parts of the Book we may find out anything we wish to look for. You travel thro’ a great Variety of Subjects. One has frequent occasion to reflect and look back. The Contents of your chapters are so short as to afford little direction. An Index (which however will be Necessary) does not fully Supply the want.
Robertson also believed that a ‘copious’ index would be necessary.4
Smith was probably aggravated by such criticism. But an index was added to the third edition, published on 20 November 1784. It is not known if Smith created this index, but it seems unlikely given his involvement with the work of the Customs; a post to which he had been appointed in 1778, and which, as he later admitted, had adversely affected his plan to revise The Theory of Moral Sentiments and to complete his wider system by finishing the projected ‘theory of jurisprudence’.5
But whoever the author of the index may have been, it is a remarkable document, notable for its sensitivity to the author’s intentions. Interestingly, the same quality is evident in the index to Sir James Steuart’s Principles of Political Œconomy, which had been published by Strachan and Cadell nine years earlier.
INDEX
(Page numbers in italic refer to the Penguin Classic edition of The Wealth of Nations: Books I–III.)
Absentee tax, the propriety of, considered, with reference to Ireland, 492.
Accounts of money, in modern Europe, all kept, and the value of goods computed, in silver, 142.
Actors, public, paid for the contempt attending their profession, 209.
Africa, cause assigned for the barbarous state of the interior parts of that continent, 125.
African company, establishment and constitution of, 326. Receive an annual allowance from parliament for forts and garrisons, 328. The company not under sufficient control, ib. History of the Royal African company, 331–2. Decline of, ib. Rise of the present company, ib.
Age, the foundation of rank and precedency in rude as well as civilised societies, 299.
Aggregate fund, in the British finances, explained, 514.
Agio of the bank of Amsterdam explained, 55. Of the bank of Ham-burgh, 56. The agio at Amsterdam, how kept at a medium rate, 64.
Agriculture, the labour of, does not admit of such subdivisions as manufactures, 111. This impossibility of separation, prevents agriculture from improving equally with manufactures, ib. Natural state of, in a new colony, 195. Requires more knowledge and experience than most mechanical professions, and