Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/71

44 the most unchangeable of all the articles of Commerce and the easiest to keep without trouble, it could not fail to be sought after before everything else by anyone who wished to accumulate. It was not only the Proprietors of lands who thus accumulated their superfluity. Although the profits of industry are not, like the revenues of the earth, a gift of nature, and the man engaged in industry gets from his work nothing but the price given him for it by the person who pays his wages; although this latter economises as much as possible in this payment of wages, and competition obliges the man engaged in industry to content himself with a price less than he would like, it is nevertheless certain that this competition has never been numerous enough or keen enough in all the different kinds of labours to prevent at any time a man who was more expert, more active, and, above all, more economical than others in his personal consumption, from gaining a little more than was necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family and from saving this surplus to create therewith a little store.

S51
Moveable riches are an indispensable prerequisite for all lucrative works.

It is even necessary that in every trade the Workmen, or the Undertakers who set them at work, should have a certain fund of moveable riches accumulated beforehand. Here we are again obliged to retrace our steps and recall several matters which at first were only hinted at on the