Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/54

425] In the highest place in the scale of labor is the seaman. "Every seaman," he says, "is not only a navigator, but a merchant and also a soldier." The wage of a husbandman is only one-third of that of a seaman. Holland is the model commonwealth, because in Holland there is little plowing or sowing of corn or little breeding of cattle. They have rid their hands of the "old patriarchal trade of being cow-keepers" (232). As the trades and arts increase so the trade of husbandry will decrease. It would be advantageous, if the husbandmen of England would become tradesmen (233). Cattle and corn could be imported from other countries.

We see from these views that, when labor is said to be the father of wealth, we must understand the expression in a limited sense. Labor can be employed in two ways, either in order to local wealth or to universal wealth. Under the last, he understands shipping and merchandise, to which he gives the preference. Under local wealth he reckons the building of houses, planting fruit trees and timber land, inclosing common land, works of defense, the building of work-houses, construction of roads, making rivers navigable, erection of factories of various kinds (310). The ultimate effect of labor applied to the production of universal wealth is "abundance of silver, gold and jewels, which are not perishable nor so mutable as other commodities, but are wealth at all times and in all places." "The labour of seamen and freight of ships is always of the nature of an exported commodity, the overplus whereof, above what is imported, brings home money" (224).