Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/114

Rh land is sold; 2d, of the sum of all the moveable riches existing in the nation.

Estates in land are equivalent to a capital equal to their annual revenue multiplied by the current penny at which lands are sold. If, then, we add up the revenue of all lands, that is to say, the net revenue they return to the proprietors and to all those who share in their ownership, such as the Seigneur who takes a rent, the Parson who takes the tithe, the Sovereign who takes the taxes; if, I say, we add up all these sums, and multiply them by the rate at which lands are sold, we shall have the sum of the riches of the nation in landed property. To obtain the total of a nation's riches, we have to add to that the moveable riches; which consist of the sum of the capitals employed in all the enterprises of agriculture, industry and commerce, and which never come out of them, since all advances in every kind of enterprise must needs incessantly return to the undertakers to be incessantly put back into the undertaking, as otherwise it could not continue. It would be a very gross error to confound the immense mass of these moveable riches with the mass of money that exists in a State; the latter is but a very small thing in comparison. To convince one's self of this we need only remember the immense quantity of beasts, utensils and seed which constitute the advances of agriculture; of materials, tools, furniture of all sorts which constitute the stocks of the manufacturers, and which fill the warehouses of all the