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“moral,” which M. Say deduces from such an astonishing disparity in the profits? Upon a capital of little more than four thousand pounds sterling, the one furrier raises annually for himself a net return of not less than a thousand pounds; whilst his rival pockets only two hundred and forty pounds upon the very same capital, invested at the same time in the very same trade. Now, if this were the result of some single year, it would express no more than one of those casualties, (through bad debts, property uninsured, losses by embezzlements, &c.,) to which all commercial houses are liable in turn. But this, by the supposition, is the regular relation between the parties from year to year. How then is it explained by M. Say? How does he wish us to understand it? Why, as "fairly referable to the different degrees of skill and labor": the thousand pound man is active and intelligent; the two hundred and forty pound man is stupid and lazy. Personal qualities, in short, make the difference.

Yet is that possible? Not, undoubtedly, for the logical purpose to which it is applied by M. Say. Differences there may be, and differences there are, and differences even to that extent, between man and man - between house and house; but not founded on that open and professed negligence. For this under the action of our social machinery, hardly any opening exists.

"Nobis non licet esse tam disertis

Qui musas colimus severiores."

Excesses of negligence, amounting to such a result annually, would in the case where they are possible, offer no instruction; in the case where they could offer instruction, they would not be possible. For, if M. Say is exposing a mere lacheté of youthful luxury, then it is a case rather for a moralist than for an economist. But, if he means it as a

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representative case, involving some principle as yet undiscussed, then it is insufficiently explained. But it is impossible; and precisely on the following argument: If, by employing four thousand pounds in his trade, the man could annually clear only two hundred and forty, (or very little more than the interest at 5 per cent,) which, without risk or trouble, he could have obtained at the date of M. Say's book, and this at the very time when others were realizing four times as much; in that case, the true difference must arise from his turning over his capital only once, whilst his rivals turned over theirs four and five times. But every prudent tradesman would accept this as a warning to withdraw three fourths of his capital, when a second year's experience had taught him that he could obtain only one fourth of the profits reaped by others trading on the same terms as himself; and, à fortiori, this policy will be adopted by M. Say's furrier, who is supposed to act in mere laziness. His profits will be the same upon one fourth of the capital employed unintermittingly, as upon the four fourths employed in succession: his risk will be reduced; and there will be a clear gain by the interest upon the three fourths of capital now transferred to other hands. Consequently, as cases to be argued in political economy, as exemplary cases, these extreme ratios of profit, low and high, stated hypothetically by M. Say, could not exist. As individual accidents, ceasing to operate from the moment when they are ascertained, they fall into that general fund of known counter-agencies, which, upon all modes of productive industry, compel us to compute by averages and by prevailing tendencies. No man could persist in so perverse a conflict with the manifest current and set of the tide running against him. Or, in the case of actually persisting, his folly would indicate a mere individual anomaly; and such irregularities having no scientific influence on any

general principles of economy, it could be no purpose of M. Say to deal with.

Yet, generally, that many openings exist for a licentious latitude of profits, under circumstances the very same to the public eye, had been long apparent. It was impossible to be otherwise than incredulous as to the current assertions on this subject, which were equally discredited, à priori, by the known difficulty of ascertaining anything, and, à posteriori, by the frequent inconsistency of their own particular results. That the current rate of profits, as a thing settled and defined, must be a chimera — this was certain; and for the simple reason that, in each separate walk of commerce, this rate of profits was a thing imperfectly known to the tradesman concerned. If he - if the men exercising the trade, cannot tell you the general rate of profits even in this one trade, or even his own rate after allowing for all the numerous deductions to be made upon an average of ten years, how much less can a non-commercial economist pretend to draw such a representative estimate for all trades? The pretence is monstrous under any machinery which as yet we command for such a purpose.

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In harmony with these views, let the reader take the following case of judicial exposure upon this subject, remembering that similar exposures are almost of weekly recurrence:- A bankrupt (described as a mercer) was under examination before a commissioner of bankruptcy, or of insolvency. The commissioner asked him What, to the best of his belief and knowledge, had been his customary rate of profit? The bankrupt replied firmly, "six per cent." How, thought every man of consideration, did you indeed face for years this risk, laborious attendance, and, (worst of all) this anxiety, for so miserable an addition (two and a half per cent) upon that income which, without either labor, or risk, or anxiety, you might at any rate have

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obtained from the national funds of your country? In less than a quarter of an hour, by some turn in the examination, it was extracted from him - that he turned over his capital every two months. The commodity in which he had chiefly dealt appeared to have been Parisian silks, &c.; and in this trade, upon every thousand pounds, the sum gained was not sixty pounds annually, as he had led the court previously to suppose, but six times sixty, or three hundred and sixty. It is true, on the other hand that not improbably the bankrupt had taken no pains to distinguish the mere replacements from the profits, strictly so called. But still it could not be doubted that, in the very strictest sense, his profits were far beyond the low standard understood by the court at first - if not thirty-six per cent, probably twenty-five to twenty-eight per cent; whilst, from the language of the court, as it fell under each impression successively, no inference could be drawn that either had been viewed as startling. 46

Now, what is it that I infer from this case? I infer, 1st, that no definite rate of profit can be notorious to the world of commerce, where a court, which may be considered one of its organs, can so quietly adopt by turns a statement so entirely different. I infer, 2dly, that M. Baptiste Say has, in a partial sense, grounds for his doctrine; it cannot be denied him, that a possible tradesman may turn over his large capital, three, four, or six times, whilst an obscure tradesman in the same line may barely turn over his own small capital once. The very fact of a large capital is by itself a sort of invitation to such a result; for gods and men alike disapprove of the wretch who cannot offer credit. Now, the annual rate upon each hundred pounds must be four times greater to him who four times raises a profit upon that hundred, than to him who raises such a profit but once. This is undeniable; and it

is therefore undeniable that, upon the two extremes in respect of advantages for selling, the annual profits may be in any degree different. But, in answer to M. Say, it must be argued, — 1st, that from all such extreme cases the practice is and must be to abstract; and that, probably, such extremes compensate each the other; the average, the prevailing tendency, is what we look at:-2dly, that such a case does not prove any different rate of profits; for anything that appears to the contrary, the little tradesman has realized the same rate of profit upon each hundred pounds as the big tradesman, only his absolute profits have been less, both in the ratio of his less capital, and of his less power to employ it with effect. Power to turn over a hundred pounds four times instead of once, is in fact no more than the power to command four hundred pounds instead of one. The same consequences will take place. And, reciprocally, where a man really has the four hundred, with a virtual power only of profitably employing one hundred, (which case is the very case propounded by M. Say,) he will think himself obliged to withdraw three of the hundreds; for he will look upon it as the locking up of so much useless capital. Or, if M. Say should retort,-"No: just the contrary; because this man can turn over his hundred pounds only once against the four turns of the big man; à fortiori, he must work his four hundred where else he might be content to work one hundred: that is the only resource towards balancing matters, so far, at least, as his power extends;" yet, on the other hand, this is not the case put by M. Say. He supposed a man to make less profit, through industry in that proportion less; but, in this possible answer of M. Say, we have a disadvantage of mere position balancing itself, or tending to do so, by industry in that proportion greater. And in the last result we find the true moral of the case to be, simply, that one man

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