SECTION III.-Different Employments of Capital and Labour-Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, equally advantageous-The investment of Capital in different Businesses determined by the Rate of Profit which they respectively yield.

IN the previous section, it has been shown, that the increase and diminution of capital is the grand point on which national prosperity hinges, that if you increase capital, you instantly increase the means of supporting and employing additional labourers—and that if you diminish capital, you instantly take away a portion of the comforts and enjoyments, and perhaps also of the necessaries, of the productive classes, and spread poverty and misery throughout the land; and it has also been shown, that the increase or diminution of the rate of profit is the great cause of the increase or diminution of capital. Now, if such be the case, it seems impossible to resist coming to the conclusion, that the employments which yield the greatest profit, or in which industry is most productive, are the most advantageous. But Dr. Smith, Mr. Malthus, and most other political economists, have objected to this standard. They allow that if two capitals yield equal profits, the employments in which they are engaged are equally beneficial to their possessors; but they contend, that, if one of these capitals be employed in agriculture, it will be productive of greater public advantage. It is not, difficult, however, to discover that this opinion rests on no good foundation; and to show that the average rate of profit is, under all circumstances, the single and infallible test by which we are to judge which employment is most and which is least advantageous.

A capital may be employed in four different ways; either, first, in the production of the raw produce required for the use and consumption of the society; or, secondly, in manufacturing and preparing that raw produce for immediate use and consumption; or, thirdly, in transporting the raw and manufactured products from one place to another according to the demand; or, fourthly, in dividing particular portions of either into such small parcels as suit the convenience of those who want them. The capitals of all those who undertake the improvement or cultivation of lands, mines, or fisheries, are employed in the first of these ways; the capital of all master-manufacturers is employed in the second; that of all wholesale merchants in the third; and that of all retailers in the fourth. It is difficult to conceive that a capital can be employed in any way which may not be classed under some one or other of these heads.

On the importance of the employment of capital in the acquisition of raw produce, and especially in the cultivation of the soil, it is unnecessary to enlarge. It is from the soil, including under that term mines and fisheries, that the matter of all commodities that either minister to our necessities, our comforts, or our enjoyments, must have

been originally derived. The industry which appropriates the raw productions of the earth, as they are offered to us by nature, preceded every other. But these spontaneous productions are always extremely limited. And it is by agriculture only, that is, by the united application of immediate labour and of capital, to the cultivation of the ground, that large supplies of those species of raw produce, which form the principal part of the food of man, can be obtained. It is not quite certain that any of the species of grain, as wheat, barley, rye, oats, &c. have ever been discovered growing spontaneously. But although this must originally have been the case, still the extreme scarcity of such spontaneous productions in every country with which we are acquainted, and the labour which it requires to raise them in considerable quantities, prove beyond all question that it is to agriculture that we are almost exclusively indebted for them. The transition from the pastoral to the agricultural mode of life is decidedly the most important step in the progress of society. Whenever, indeed, we compare the quantity of food, and of other raw products, obtained from a given surface of a well cultivated country, with those obtained from an equal surface of an equally fertile country, occupied by hunters or shepherds, the powers of agricultural industry in increasing useful productions appear so striking and extraordinary, that we cease to feel surprise at the preference which has been so early and generally given to agriculture over manufactures and commerce; and are disposed to subscribe without hesitation to the panegyric of Cicero when he says, 'Omnium autem rerum ex quibus aliquid aquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine, nihil libero dignius.

But are there really any just grounds for this preference? Are not manufactures and commerce equally advantageous as agriculture? It is plain, that without agriculture we could never possess any considerable supply of the materials out of which food and clothes are made; but is it not equally plain, that without a knowledge of the arts by which these materials are converted into food and clothes, the largest supply of them could be of little or no service? The labour of the miller who grinds the corn, and of the baker who bakes it, is equally necessary to the production of bread, as the labour of the husbandman who tills the ground. It is the business of the agriculturist to raise flax and wool; but if the labour of the spinner and weaver had not given them utility, and fitted them for being made a comfortable dress, they would have been nearly, if not entirely worthless. Without the labour of the miner who digs the mineral from the bowels of the earth, we could not have obtained the matter out of which many of our most useful implements and splendid articles of furniture have been made; but if we compare the ore when dug from the mine with the finished articles, we shall certainly be convinced that the labour of the purifiers

and refiners of the ore, and of the artists who have afterwards converted it to useful purposes, has been quite as advantageous as the industry of the miner.

But not only is it certain that manufacturing industry, or that species of industry which fits and adapts the raw produce of nature to our use, is requisite to render its acquisition of any considerable value; but it is also certain, that without manufacturing industry this very raw produce could never have been obtained in any considerable quantity. The labour of the mechanic who fabricates the plough is as efficacious in the production of corn as the labour of the husbandman who guides it. But the plough-wright, the mill-wright, the smith, and all other artizans who prepare tools and machines for the husbandmen, are really manufacturers, and differ in no respect whatever from those who are employed to give utility to wool and cotton, except that they work on harder materials. The fixed capital vested in tools and machines is the product of the labour of the tool and engine manufacturer; and without the aid of this fixed capital, it is impossible that agricultural labour, or that any other sort of labour, could ever have become considerably productive.

'Distinguer,' says the Marquis Garnier, 'le travail des ouvriers de l'agriculture d'avec celui des autres ouvriers, est une abstraction presque toujours oiseuse. Toute richesse, dans le sens dans lequel nous la concevons, est nécessairement le résultat de ces deux genres de travail, et la consommation ne peut pas plus se passer de l'un que de l'autre. Sans leur concours simultané il ne peut y avoir de chose consommable, et par conséquent point de richesse. Comment pourrait-on donc comparer leurs produits respectifs, puisque, en séparant ces deux espèces de travail, on ne peut plus concevoir de véritable produit, de produit consommable et ayant une valeur réelle? La valeur du blé sur pied résulte de l'industrie du moissonneur qui recueillera, du batteur qui le séparera de la paille, du meunier et du boulanger qui le convertiront successivement en farine et en pain, tout comme elle résulte du travail du laboureur et du semeur. Sans le travail du tisserand, le lin n'aurait pas plus le droit d'être compté au nombre des richesses, que l'ortie ou tout autre végétal inutile. A quoi pourrait-il donc servir de rechercher lequel de ces deux genres de travail contribue le plus à l'avancement de la richesse nationale? N'est-ce pas comme si l'on disputait pour savoir lequel, du pied droit ou du pied gauche, est plus utile dans l'action de marcher."*

In fact, there is not at bottom any real distinction between agricultural and manufacturing industry. It is, as has already been shown, a vulgar error to suppose that the operations of husbandry add anything to the stock of matter already in existence. All that man can do, and all that he ever does, is merely to give to matter that particular form * Discours Preliminaire, p. 58, to 2d. ed. of Smith's Wealth of Nations, by M. Garnier.

or shape which fits it for his use. But it was contended by M. Quesnay and the French economists, and their opinions have in this instance been espoused by Adam Smith, that the labour of the husbandman in adapting matter to our use is powerfully facilitated by the aid derived from the vegetative powers of nature, while the labour of the manufacturer has to perform everything itself without any such cooperation. No equal quantity of productive labour, or capital employed in manufactures,' says Adam Smith, ' can ever occasion so great a reproduction as if it were employed in agriculture. In manufactures nature does NOTHING, man does ALL; and the reproduction must always be proportioned to the strength of the agents that occasion it. The capital employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than any equal capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion, too, to the quantity of productive labour which it employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, to the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. Of all the ways in which a capital can be employed, it is by far the most advantageous to the society? (Wealth of Nations, Murray's Reprints, p. 185.)

This is perhaps the most objectionable passage in the Wealth of Nations; and it is really astonishing how so acute and sagacious a reasoner as Adam Smith could have maintained a doctrine so manifestly erroneous. It is indeed true, that nature powerfully assists the labour of man in agriculture. The husbandman prepares the ground for the seed, and deposits it there; but it is nature that unfolds the germ, that feeds and ripens the growing plant, and brings it to a state of maturity. But does not nature do as much for us in every other department of industry? The powers of water and of wind, which move our machinery, support our ships, and impel them over the deep,—the pressure of the atmosphere, and the elasticity of steam, which enable us to work the most stupendous engines, are they not the spontaneous gifts of nature? In fact, the single and exclusive advantage of machinery consists in its having enabled us to press the powers of nature into our service, and to make them perform the principal part of what would otherwise have been wholly the work of man. In navigation, for example, is it possible to doubt, that the powers of nature—the buoyancy of the water, the impulse of the wind, and the polarity of the magnet, contribute fully as much as the labour of the sailor to wast our ships from one hemisphere to another? In bleaching and fermentation the whole processes are carried on by natural agents. And it is to the effects of heat in softening and melting metals, in preparing our food, and in warming our houses, that we owe many of our most powerful and convenient instruments, and that these northern climates have been made to afford a comfortable habitation. So far, indeed, is it from being true that nature does much for man in agriculture, and nothing in manufactures, that the fact is nearly the reverse. There

are no limits to the bounty of nature in manufactures, but there are limits, and those not very remote, to her bounty in agriculture. The greatest possible amount of capital might be expended in the construction of steam-engines, or of any other sort of machinery, and after they had been multiplied to infinity, the last would be as powerful and as efficient in saving labour and producing commodities as the first. Such, however, is not the case with the soil. Lands of the first quality are speedily exhausted; and it is impossible to apply capital indefinitely even to the best soils, without obtaining from it a constantly diminishing rate of profit. The rent of the landlord is not, as Adam Smith conceived it to be, the recompense of the work of nature remaining, after all that part of the product is deducted which can be regarded as the recompense of the work of man! But it is, as we shall hereafter show, the excess of produce obtained from the best soils in cultivation, over that which is obtained from the worst-it is a consequence not of the increase, but of the diminution of the productive power of the labour employed in agriculture.

But if the giving utility to matter be, as it really is, the single and exclusive object of every species of productive industry, it is plain that the capital and labour which is employed in carrying commodities from where they are produced to where they are to be consumed; and in dividing them into minute portions, so as to fit the wants of the consumers, is really as productive as either agriculture or manufactures. The labour of the miner gives utility to matter-to coal for example— by bringing it from the bowels of the earth to its surface; but the labour of the merchant, or carrier, who transports this coal from the mine whence it has been dug to the city, or place where it is to be burned, gives it a further, and perhaps a more considerable value. We do not owe our fires exclusively to the miner, or exclusively to the coal merchant. They are the result of the conjoint operations of both, and also of the operations of all those who have furnished them with the tools and implements used in their respective employments.

Not only, however, is it necessary that commodities should be brought from where they are produced to where they are to be consumed, but it is also necessary that they should be divided into such small and convenient portions, that each individual may have it in his power to purchase the precise quantity of them he is desirous of obtaining. 'If,' says Adam Smith, 'there was no such trade as a butcher, every man would be obliged to purchase a whole ox or a whole sheep at a time. This would generally be inconvenient to the rich, and much more so to the poor. If a poor workman was obliged to purchase a month's, or six months' provisions at a time, a great part of the stock which he employs as a capital in the instruments of his trade, or in the furniture of his shop, and which yields him a revenue, he would be forced to place in that part of his stock which is reserved for imme