Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/87

60 other. A man who could only procure the articles of his consumption by buying them directly from the hand of him who had gathered or manufactured them, would go without a good many things or spend his life in travel.

This double interest on the part both of the Producer and of the Consumer, of the first to find an opportunity to sell, of the other to find an opportunity to buy, and yet not to lose precious time in waiting for the Purchaser or seeking the Seller, must have suggested to third parties to act as intermediaries between the two. This is the purpose of the profession of Merchants who purchase the commodity from the hand of the Producer, in order to make a store of it or to furnish a warehouse whither the Consumer comes to get what he needs. In this way the Undertaker, assured of the sale and of the return of his funds, devotes himself undisturbedly and continuously to further production, and the Consumer finds within his reach and at any moment the things of which he is in want.

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Different orders of Merchants, All have this in common, that they purchase to sell again, and that their business depends upon advances which need to return with profit in order to be once more put into the undertaking.

From the Huckster who displays her pot-herbs on the market-place up to the Ship-owner of Nantes or of Cadiz who carries on his sales and purchases as far as India or America, the profession of a merchant, or commerce