Page:The wealth of nations, volume 3.djvu/25

 try of merchants, artificers and manufacturers, though in its own nature altogether unproductive, yet contributes in this manner indirectly to increase the produce of the land. It increases the productive powers of productive labor by leaving it at liberty to confine itself to its proper employment, the cultivation of land; and the plow goes frequently the easier and the better by means of the labor of the man whose business is most remote from the plow.

It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators to restrain or to discourage in any respect the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The greater the liberty which this unproductive class enjoys, the greater will be the competition in all the different trades which compose it, and the cheaper will the other two classes be supplied, both with foreign goods and with the manufactured produce of their own country.

It can never be the interest of the unproductive class to oppress the other two classes. It is the surplus produce of the land, or what remains after deducting the maintenance, first, of the cultivators, and afterward of the proprietors, that maintains and employs the unproductive class. The greater this surplus, the greater must likewise be the maintenance and employment of that class. The establishment of perfect justice, of perfect liberty, and of perfect equality, is the very simple secret which most effectually secures the highest degree of prosperity to all the three classes.

The merchants, artificers and manufacturers of those mercantile States which, like Holland and Hamburg, consist chiefly of this unproductive class, are in the same manner maintained, and employed altogether at the expense of the proprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference is that those proprietors and cultivators are, the greater part