The increase of population, and of national wealth, contributes to extend the market, in a manner still more advantageous. Yet every conceivable increase of population and of wealth, does not, of necessity, extend the market; it is only such an increase as attends the increased comforts of the most numerous class. When cultivation on the great scale has succeeded cultivation on the small, more capital is perhaps absorbed by land, and re-produced by it; more wealth than formerly may be diffused among the whole mass of agriculturists, but the consumption of one rich farmer's family, united to that of fifty families of miserable hinds, is not so valuable for the nation, as that of fifty families of peasants, no one of which was rich, but none deprived of an honest competence. So also in towns, the consumption of a manufacturer worth a million, under whose orders are employed a thousand workmen, reduced to the bare necessaries of life, is not so advantageous for the nation, as that of a hundred manufacturers far less rich, who employ each but ten workmen far less poor. It is very true, that ten thousand pounds of income, whether they belong to a single man, or to a hundred, are all equally destined for consumption, but this consumption is not of the same nature. A man, however rich, cannot employ for his use an infinitely greater number of articles than a poor man, but he employs articles infinitely better; he requires work far better finished, materials far more precious, and brought from a far greater distance. It is he who especially encourages the perfection of certain workmen, that finish a small number of objects with extreme skill; it is he who pays them an exorbitant wage. It is he also that especially rewards such workmen as we have named unproductive, because they procure for him nothing but fugitive enjoyments, which can never by accumulation form part of the national wealth; and whilst the effect of increasing capital is generally to concentrate labour in very large manufactories, the effect of great opulence is almost entirely to exclude the produce of those large manufactories from the consumption of the opulent man. The diffusion of wealth, therefore, still more than its accumulation, truly constitutes national prosperity, because it keeps up the kind of consumption most favourable for national re-production.
The manufacturer's market may, in the last place, be extended, by what forms the noblest wish of a statesman, the progress of civilization, comfort, security, and happiness, among barbarous nations. Europe has arrived at such a point, that, in all its parts, there is to be found an industry, a quantity of fabrication, superior to its wants; but if false policy did not incessantly induce us to arrest the progress of civilization among our neighbours; if Egypt had been left in the hands of a people requiring the arts of Europe; if Turkey were extricated from the oppression under which it groans; if our victories over the inhabitants of Barbary had been profitably employed in giving back the coasts of Africa to social life; if Spain had not again been yielded to a despotism which destroys and ruins her population; if the independents of America were protected, so that they might be allowed to enjoy the advantages which nature offers them; if the Hindoos, subject to Europe, were amalgamated with Europeans; if Franks were encouraged to settle among them, in place of being repelled, - consumption would increase in these different counties, rapidly enough to employ all this super-abundant labour, which Europe at present knows not how to dispose of, and to terminate this distress in which the poor are plunged.
The more superior the buyer's price is to the seller's, the more profit does trade give to be shared among the trader, and all those whom he employs in the transport and distribution of his goods; the manufacturer, and all those whom he employs in the production of them. Hence one of the great and constant objects of governments has been, to increase this difference, that their manufacturers might be enabled to produce cheap, and so find many buyers, and to sell dear to such as could not buy elsewhere, and so gain a large profit. The progress of society generally enables nations to produce cheaper; the almost ever injudicious protection of government often gives them means of selling dearer.
The low price of workmanship is the first cause of manufacturing profit; but this low price is never a national advantage, except when it is produced by superiority of climate, greater fertility of soil, or abundance of provision. On the contrary, when it arises from the difficulty of communication, which prevents cultivators from reaping all the profit of their wares, it can only be regarded as a private advantage, acquired at the expense of the national advantage. When the low price of workmanship arises from the poverty of day-labourers, forced by competition to content themselves with what is necessary for life; though commerce may profit by the circumstance, it is nothing better than a national calamity.
Abundance of capital, and the consequence of this, a low price of interest, likewise doubly contribute to diminish the price of production. With more capital, the manufacturer and merchant transact their purchases and sales at a more favourable moment; they are not pressed by either operation, or compelled to provide for the print by a sacrifice of future advantage.
Executing all kinds of labour more on the great scale, they save time, and all those incidental charges, which are the same for a great and for a small sum. But as to the saving made by the merchant on the interest of money, it is made at the expense of a particular class, deriving their revenue from trade; it does not enrich the nation any more than the diminution of wages enriched it; it only gives to one what it takes from another.
