| OCR Text |
Show 408 ON THE IlVIMEDIA1'E CA US:ES [ CH. VII,. of capital, and the increase of population? And "vhen to these considerations \ve add the fortunes which have been maJe in these manufactures, the 1narket for "vhich has been continually extending, and continually requiring n1ore c~pital and more people to be en1ployed in them; and contrast with this state of things the constant necessity of 1ooking out for ne\v n1odes of employing the san1e capital and the satne people, a portion of which would be thro\vn out of their old occupations by every new invention ;-we n1ust be convinced that the state of this country would have been totally different from what it is, and that it would not certainly have acquired the san1e inco1ne in rents, profits and wages, if the same ingenuity had been exercised in the invention of n1achinery, without the san1e extension of the tnarket for the con1modities produced. It n1ay justly be doubted, whether, at the present n1oment, upon the supposition of our foreign intercourse being interrupted, \Ve should be likely to find efficient substitutes for teas, coffee, sugar, 1vines, silks, indigo, cottons, &c. so as to keep up the, value of our present income; but it cannot well be doubted, that if, from the ti1ne of Edward the First, and setting out with the actual division of landed property which then prevailed, the foreign vent for our cotntnodities had remained stationary, our revenue from the land alone would not have approached to \Vhat it is at present, and still less, the revenue from trade and tnan ufactures. Even under the actual division of the landed SEC. V.) OF THE PROGRESS Ol" WEALTH. 409 property in Europe, which is very tnuch better than it was 500 years ago, most of the states of \vhich it is con1posed would be comparatively unpeopled, if it were not for trade and manufactures. Without the excitements arising from the results of this sort of industry, no sufficient motives could .be presented to them either to divide their great estates by sale, or to take care that they were well cultivated. According to Adam Smith, the most important manufactures of the northern and western parts of Europe were established either in itnitation of foreign articles, . the tastes for which had been already formed by a previous foreign trade, or by the gradual refinement of domestic cotnmodities till they were fit for exportation.~( In the first case, the very origin of the tnanufacture is made to depend upon a previous extension of market, and the importation of foreign articles; and in the second case, the main object and use of refining the domestic colllmodities in an inland country, appears to be the fitting them for an extensive 1narket, without \Vhich the local advantages enjoyed would be in a great n1easure lost. In carrying on the late war, we were powerfully assisted by our steatn-engines, which enabled us to com1nand a prodigious quantity of foreign produce and foreign labour. But ho\v would their efficacy have been weakened if \Ve could not have exported our cottons, cloths and hard ware? ' Wealth of Nations, Vol. ii. B. iii. ch. iii. p. 115. 6th edit. |
