Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/152

283 does not nttempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker; the shoemaker does not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers; all of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry, in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, whatever else they have occasion for." "What is prudence in the conduct of any private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantnge." "The natural advantages which one country has over another in producing pnrticular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by all the world, to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine can be made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland? But if there would be a manifest absurdity in turning towards any employment thirty times more of the capital and industry of the country, than would be necessary to purchase from foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted; there must be an absurdity, though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment a thirtieth, or even a three-hundredth part more of either."

But though Dr Smith contended upon correct principles for unlimited freedom of trade and commerce, and conceived that all the different branches of industry must be advantageous to society, he was of opinion that all were not equally advantageous. Agriculture he conceived to be the most productive employment in which capital could be engaged; the home trade to be more productive than the foreign; and the foreign than the carrying trade. But these distinctions are evidently erroneous. The self-interest of individuals will always prevent them from employing their capital in manufactures, or in commerce, unless they yield as large profits as they would have done, if they had been employed in agriculture: and a state being only a collection of individuals, whatever is most beneficial to them, must also be most advantageous to the society. Dr Smith has made another mistake in regard to the productiveness of labour. He divides all labourers into two classes, the productive and the unproductive; and he limits the class of productive labourers to those whose labour is immediately fixed, and realized in some vendible commodity. But certainly all labour ought to be reckoned productive, which, either directly or indirectly, contributes to augment the wealth of a society. It is impossible to hold that the labour of an Ark w right, or a Watt, was unproductive.

Few chapters in the "Wealth of Nations" are more valuable, than that in which the illustrious author explains the causes of the apparent inequality in the wages and profits derived from different employments. He has shown, in the fullest and most satisfactory manner, that when allowance is made for all the advantages and disadvantages attending the different employments of labour and stock, wages and profits must, in the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal, or continually tending to equality. The circumstances which he enumerates, as making up for a low state of wages in some employments, and counterbalancing a high one in others, are five in number. First, the agreeableness or disagreenbleness of the employments themselves: secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly,