VII. however, it must be acknowledged, can feldom CHA P. be long kept; and the extraordinary profit can laft very little longer than they are kept. Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than fecrets in trade. A dyer who has found the means of producing a particular colour with materials which coft only half the price of thofe commonly made ufe of, may, with good management, enjoy the advantage of his difcovery as long as he lives, and even leave it as a legacy to his pofterity. His extraordinary gains arife from the high price which is paid for his private labour. They properly confift in the high wages of that labour. But as they are repeated upon every part of his flock, and as their whole amount bears, upon that account, a regular proportion to it, they are commonly confidered as extraordinary profits of stock. Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effects of particular accidents, of which, however, the operation may fometimes laft for many years together. Some natural productions require fuch a fingularity of foil and fituation, that all the land in a great country, which is fit for producing them, may not be fufficient to fupply the effectual demand. The whole quantity brought to market, therefore, may be difpofed of to thofe who are willing to give more than what is fufficient to pay the rent of the land which produced them, together with the wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock which were employed in preparing and bringing them to market, accord ing BOOK ing to their natural rates. Such commodities I. may continue for whole centuries together to be fold at this high price; and that part of it which refolves itself into the rent of land is in this cafe the part which is generally paid above its natural rate. The rent of the land which affords fuch fingular and efteemed productions, like the rent of fome vineyards in France of a peculiarly happy foil and fituation, bears no regular proportion to the rent of other equally fertile and equally well-cultivated land in its neighbourhood, The wages of the labour and the profits of the flock employed in bringing fuch com, modities to market, on the contrary, are feldom out of their natural proportion to those of the other employments of labour and stock in their neighbourhood. Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effect of natural caufes which may hinder the effectual demand from ever being fully supplied, and which may continue, therefore, to operate for ever. A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the fame effect as a fecret in trade or manufactures. The monopolifts, by keeping the market constantly underftocked, by never fully fupplying the effectual demand, fell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they confift in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate. The price of monopoly is upon every occafion the highest which can be got. The natural price, or VII. or the price of free competition, on the contrary, CHA P. is the loweft which can be taken, not upon every occafion indeed, but for any confiderable time together. The one is upon every occafion the highest which can be fqueezed out of the buyers, or which, it is fuppofed, they will confent to give: The other is the lowest which the fellers can commonly afford to take, and at the fame time continue their bufinefs. The exclufive privileges of corporations, ftatutes of apprenticeship, and all thofe laws which restrain, in particular employments, the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the fame tendency, though in a less degree. They are a fort of enlarged monopolies, and may frequently, for ages together, and in whole claffes of employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities above the natural price, and maintain both the wages of the labour and the profits of the flock employed about them fomewhat above their natural rate. Such enhancements of the market price may laft as long as the regulations of police which give occafion to them. The market price of any particular commodity, though it may continue long above, can feldom continue long below, its natural price. Whatever part of it was paid below the natural rate, the perfons whofe intereft it affected would immediately feel the lofs, and would immediately withdraw either fo much land, or fo much labour, or fo much stock, from being employed about BOOK about it, that the quantity brought to market I. would foon be no more than fufficient to fupply the effectual demand. Its market price, therefore, would foon rife to the natural price. This at leaft would be the cafe where there was perfect liberty. The same statutes of apprenticeship and other corporation laws indeed, which, when a manufacture is in profperity, enable the workman to raife his wages a good deal above their natural rate, fometimes oblige him, when it decays, to let them down a good deal below it. As in the one cafe they exclude many people from his employment, fo in the other they exclude him from many employments. The effect of fuch regulations, however, is not near fo durable in finking the workman's wages below, as in raifing them above, their natural rate. Their operation in the one way may endure for many centuries, but in the other it can laft no longer than the lives of fome of the workmen who were bred to the bufinefs in the time of its profperity. When they are gone, the number of those who are afterwards educated to the trade will naturally fuit itfelf to the effectual demand. The police must be as violent as that of Indoftan or antient Egypt (where every man was bound by a principle of religion to follow the occupation of his father, and was fuppofed to commit the moft horrid facrilege if he changed it for another), which can in any particular employment, and for feveral generations together, fink either the wages of labour labour or the profits of flock below their natural CHA P. rate. This is all that I think neceffary to be observed at prefent concerning the deviations, whether occafional or permanent, of the market price of commodities from the natural price. The natural price itself varies with the natural rate of each of its component parts, of wages, profit, and rent; and in every fociety this rate varies according to their circumstances, according to their riches or poverty, their advancing, ftationary, or declining condition. I fhall, in the four following chapters, endeavour to explain, as fully and diftinctly as I can, the caufes of thofe different variations. First, I fhall endeavour to explain what are the circumftances which naturally determine the rate of wages, and in what manner thofe circumstances are affected by the riches or poverty, by the advancing, ftationary, or declining state of the fociety. Secondly, I fhall endeavour to fhow what are the circumstances which naturally determine the rate of profit, and in what manner too thofe circumstances are affected by the like variations in the ftate of the fociety. Though pecuniary wages and profit are very different in the different employments of labour and stock; yet a certain proportion feems commonly to take place between both the pecuniary wages in all the different employments of labour, and the pecuniary profits in all the different employments of stock. This proportion, it will appear VII. |