BOOK many other parts of the kingdom, at three and a half, four, and four and a half per cent.

I.

Since the time of Henry VIII. the wealth and revenue of the country have been continually. advancing, and, in the course of their progress, their pace feems rather to have been gradually accelerated than retarded. They feem, not only ́to have been going on, but to have been going on fafter and fafter. The wages of labour have been continually increafing during the fame period, and in the greater part of the different branches of trade and manufactures the profits of ftock have been diminishing.

It generally requires a greater stock to carry on any fort of trade in a great town than in a country village. The great flocks employed in every branch of trade, and the number of rich competitors, generally reduce the rate of profit in the former below what it is in the latter. But the wages of labour are generally higher in a great town than in a country village. In a thriving town the people who have great stocks to employ, frequently cannot get the number of workmen they want, and therefore bid against one another in order to get as many as they can, which raises the wages of labour, and lowers the profits of flock. In the remote parts of the country there is frequently not ftock fufficient to employ all the people, who therefore bid against one another in order to get employment, which lowers the wages of labour, and raifes the profits of ftock.

IX.

• In Scotland, though the legal rate of interest C HA P. is the fame as in England, the market rate is rather higher. People of the best credit there feldom borrow under five per cent. Even pri

vate bankers in Edinburgh give four per cent. upon their promiffory notes, of which payment either in whole or in part may be demanded at pleasure. Private bankers in London give no interest for the money which is depofited with them. There are few trades which cannot be carried on with a fmaller ftock in Scotland than in England. The common rate of profit, therefore, must be fomewhat greater. The wages of labour, it has already been obferved, are lower in Scotland than in England. The country too is not only much poorer, but the steps by which it advances to a better condition, for it is evidently advancing, feem to be much flower and more tardy.

In

1724

The legal rate of intereft in France has not, during the courfe of the present century, been always regulated by the market rate*. In 1720 intereft was reduced from the twentieth to the fiftieth penny, or from five to two per cent. it was raised to the thirtieth penny, or to 3 per cent. In 1725 it was again raised to the twentieth penny, or to five per cent. In 1766, during the administration of Mr. Laverdy, it was reduced to the twenty-fifth penny, or to four per cent. The Abbe Terray raised it afterwards to the old rate of five per cent. The fup

* See Denifart, Article Taux des Interets, tom. iii. p. 18.

BOOK pofed purpofe of many of thofe violent reductions

I.

of intereft was to prepare the way for reducing that of the public debts; a purpose which has fometimes been executed. France is perhaps in the prefent times not fo rich a country as England; and though the legal rate of intereft has in France frequently been lower than in England, the market rate has generally been higher; for there, as in other countries, they have several very fafe and eafy methods of evading the law. The profits of trade, I have been affured by British merchants who have traded in both countries, are higher in France than in England; and it is no doubt upon this account that many British fubjects chufe rather to employ their capitals in a country where trade is in difgrace, than in one where it is highly refpected. The wages of labour are lower in France than in England. When you go from Scotland to England, the difference which you may remark between the dress and countenance of the common people in the one country and in the other, fufficiently indicates the difference in their condition. The contraft is ftill greater when you return from France. France, though no doubt a richer country than Scotland, feems not to be going forward fo faft. It is a common and even a popular opinion in the country, that it is going backwards; an opinion which, I apprehend, is ill-founded even with regard to France, but which nobody can poffibly entertain with regard to Scotland, who fees the country now, and who faw it twenty or thirty years ago.

The

IX.

The province of Holland, on the other hand, CHA P. in proportion to the extent of its territory and the number of its people, is a richer country than England. The government there borrow at two per cent., and private people of good credit at three. The wages of labour are faid to be higher in Holland than in England, and the Dutch, it is well known, trade upon lower profits than any people in Europe. The trade of Holland, it has been pretended by fome people, is decaying, and it may perhaps be true that fome particular branches of it are fo. But thefe fymptoms feem to indicate fufficiently that there is no general decay. When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its profperity, or of a greater ftock being employed in it than before. During the late war the Dutch gained the whole carrying trade of France, of which they still retain a very large fhare. The great property which they poffefs both in the French and English funds, about forty millions, it is faid, in the latter (in which I fufpect, however, there is a confiderable exaggeration); the great fums which they lend to private people in countries where the rate of intereft is higher than in their own, are circumstances which no doubt demonstrate the redundancy of their stock, or that it has increased beyond what they can employ with tolerable profit in the proper business of their own country but they do not demonftrate that that bufinefs has decreased. As the capital of a

private

BOOK private man, though acquired by a particular I. trade, may increase beyond what he can employ in it, and yet that trade continue to increase too;

fo

may likewise the capital of a great nation.

In our North American and Weft Indian colonies, not only the wages of labour, but the interest of money, and confequently the profits of stock, are higher than in England. In the different colonies both the legal and the market rate of intereft run from fix to eight per cent. High wages of labour and high profits of ftock, however, are things, perhaps, which scarce ever go together, except in the peculiar circumftances of new colonies. A new colony muft always for fome time be more under-ftocked in proportion to the extent of its territory, and more under-peopled in proportion to the extent of its ftock, than the greater part of other countries. They have more land than they have stock to cultivate. What they have, therefore, is applied to the cultivation only of what is moft fertile and most favourably fituated, the land near the sea shore, and along the banks of navigable rivers. Such land too is frequently purchafed at a price below the value even of its natural produce. Stock employed in the purchase and improvement of such lands must yield a very large profit, and confequently afford to pay a very large intereft. Its rapid accumulation in fo profitable an employment enables the planter to increase the number of his hands faster than he can find them in a new fettlement. Those whom he can find, therefore, are very liberally rewarded.

3

As