Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/153

Rh There can be no doubt but that the assurance of the consumption is the sole regulation of the crop. If the cultivator be denied the opportunity of disposing of the superfluity of his productions, he will be careless about an abundance which will not be profitable, and will confine himself to the planting and rearing of what is simply necessary. When he perceives that the commodities remain unsold for want of purchasers, he will diminish the number of his daily labourers, and the expences attendant on the improvement of the soil, invoking, as his sole refuge, a scarcity, which, by fixing a regular price on the different produdtions, may repay him for his time, fatigues, and expences.

The heaviest and most inevitable originate in the distance. As it surcharges the effects in their conveyance and transport, it weakens the principle of activity, and utterly prevents a competition with the prices of foreign productions. Great Britain, as an island, has comparatively but a small distance from the sea to the lands situated in the interior. France, by the means of rivers and canals, facilitates the approach to her ports, and in this manner acquires an advantage over other rival nations, by the irresistible recommendation of an inferior price.

In Peru, the productions are to be brought from a distance of forty or fifty leagues. In transporting them, all the delays and embarrassments of roads scarcely practicable, are to be encountered; and, as an internal consumption is entirely out of the question, they are afterwards to be exposed to the risks of a prolonged navigation, the extent of which, the difficulty of procuring vessels, and the bulk of the merchandizes, add