sidered the DISTRIBUTION.-It is in vain that provisions abound in the country, unless I be able to obtain a share of them. This reflection belongs to every individual. The plenty of provision produced, the quantity of public stock, affords subsistence to individuals, and encouragement to the formation of families, only in proportion as it is distributed, that is, in proportion as these individuals are allowed to draw from it a supply of their own wants. The distribution, therefore, becomes of equal consequence to population with the production. Now, there is but one principle of distribution that can ever become universal, namely, the principle of "exchange;" or, in other words, that every man have something to give in return for what he wants. Bounty, however it may come in aid of another principle, however it may occasionally qualify the rigour, or supply the imperfection of an established rule of distribution, can never itself become that rule or principle; because men will not work to give the produce of their labour away. Moreover, the only equivalents that can be offered in exchange for provision are, power and labour. All property is power. What we call property in land, is the power to use it, and exclude others from the use. Money is the representative of power because it is convertable into power; the value of it consists in its faculty of procuring power over things and persons. But power which results from civil conventions (and of this kind is what we call a man's fortune or estate,) is necessarily confined to a few, and is withal soon exhausted; whereas, the capacity of labour is every man's natural possession, and composes a constant and renewing fund. The hire, therefore, or produce of personal industry, is that which the bulk of every community must bring to market, in exchange for the means of subsistence; in other words, employment must, in every country, be the medium of distribution, and the source of supply to individuals. But when we consider the production and distribution of provision, as distinct from, and independent of each other; when, supposing the same quantity to be produced, we inquire in what way, or according to what rule, it may be distributed, we are led to a conception of the subject not at all agreeable to truth and reality; for, in truth and reality, though provision must be produced before it be distributed, yet the production depends in a great measure upon the distribution. The quantity of provision raised out of the ground, so far as the raising of it requires human art or labour, will evidently be regulated by the demand; the demand, or, in other words, the price and sale, being that which alone rewards the care, or excites the diligence of the husbandman. But the sale of provision depends upon the

number, not of those who want, but of those who have something to offer in return for what they want; not of those who would consume, but of those who can buy; that is, upon the number of those who have the fruits of some other kind of industry to tender in exchange for what they stand in need of from the production of the soil.

We see, therefore the connexion between population and employment. Employment affects population "directly," as it affords the only medium of distribution by which individuals can obtain from the common stock a supply for the wants of their families; it affects population "indirectly," as it augments the stock itself of provision, in the only way by which the production of it can be effectually encouraged, by furnishing purchasers. No man can purchase without an equivalent; and that equivalent, by the generality of the people, must in every country be derived from employment.

And upon this basis is founded the public benefit of trade, that is to say, its subserviency to population, in which its only real utility consists. Of that industry, and of those arts and branches of trade, which are employed in the production, conveyance, and preparation of any principal species of human food, as of the business of the husbandman, the butcher, baker, brewer, corn-merchant, &c. we acknowledge the necessity: likewise of those manufactures which furnish us with warm clothing, convenient habitations, domestic utensils, as of the weaver, tailor, smith, carpenter, &c. we perceive (in climates, however, like ours, removed at a distance from the sun,) the conduciveness to population, by their rendering human life more healthy, vigorous, and comfortable. But not one half of the occupations which compose the trade of Europe, fall within either of these descriptions. Perhaps two-thirds of the manufacturers of England are employed upon the articles of confessed luxury, ornament, or splendour: in the superfluous embellishment of some articles which are useful in their kind, or upon others which have no conceivable use or value, but what is founded in caprice or fashion. What can be less necessary, or less connected with the sustentation of human life, than the whole produce of the silk, lace and plate manufactory? yet what multitudes labour in the different branches of these arts! What can be imagined more capricious than the fondness for tobacco and snuff? yet how many various occupations, and how many thousands in each, are set at work in administering to this frivolous gratification! Concerning trades of this kind (and this kind comprehends more than half of the trades that are exercised,) it may fairly be asked,

"How, since they add nothing to the stock of provision, do they "tend to increase the number of the people?" We are taught to say of trade, "that it maintains multitudes;" but by what means does it maintain them, when it produces nothing upon which the support of human life depends?-In like manner with respect to foreign commerce; of that merchandise which brings the necessaries of life into a country, which imports, for example, corn, or cattle, or cloth, or fuel, we allow the tendency to advance population, because it increases the stock of provision by which the people are subsisted. But this effect of foreign commerce is so little seen in our own country, that, I believe, it may be affirmed of Great Britain, what Bishop Berkley said of a neighbouring island, that, if it was encompassed with a wall of brass fifty cubits high, the country might maintain the same number of inhabitants that find subsistence in it at present; and that every necessary, and even every real comfort and accommodation of human life, might be supplied in as great abundance as they are now. Here, therefore, as before, we may fairly ask, by what operation it is, that foreign commerce, which brings into the country no one article of human subsistence, promotes the multiplication of human life?

The answer to this inquiry will be contained in the discussion of another, viz.

Since the soil will maintain more than it can employ, what must be done, supposing the country to be full, with the remainder of the inhabitants? They who, by the rules of partition, (and some such must be established in every country,) are entitled to the land; and they who, by their labour upon the soil, acquire a right in its produce, will not part with their property for nothing; or rather, they will no longer raise from the soil what they can neither use themselves, nor exchange for what they want. Or, lastly, if these were willing to distribute what they could spare of the provision which the ground yielded, to others who have no share or concern in the property or cultivation of it, yet still the most enormous mischiefs would ensue from great numbers remaining unemployed. The idleness of one half of the community would overwhelm the whole with confusion and disorder. One only way presents itself of removing the difficulty which this question states, and which is simply this; that they whose work is not wanted, nor can be employed in the raising the provision out of the ground, convert their hands and ingenuity to the fabrication of articles which may gratify and requite those who are so employed, or who, by the division of lands in the country, are entitled to the exclusive possession of certain parts of them.

By this contrivance, all things proceed well. The occupi

er of the ground raises from it the utmost that he can procure, because he is repaid for what he can spare by something else which he wants, or with which he is pleased; the artist and manufacturer, though he have neither any property in the soil, nor any concern in its cultivation, is regularly supplied with the produce, because he gives, in exchange for what he stands in need of, something upon which the receiver places an equal value; and the community is kept quiet, while both sides are engaged in their respective Occupations.

It appears, then, that the business of one half of mankind is, to set the other half at work; that is, to provide articles which, by tempting the desires, may stimulate the industry, and call forth the activity of those upon the exertion of whose industry, and the application of whose faculties, the production of human provision depends. A certain portion only of human labour is, or can be productive; the rest is instrumental;—both equally necessary, though the one have no other object than to excite the other. It appears also, that it signifies nothing, as to the main purpose of trade, how superfluous the articles which it furnishes are; whether the want of them be real or imaginary, founded in nature or in opinion, in fashion, habit, or emulation; it is enough that they be actually desired and sought after. Flourishing cities are raised and supported by trading in tobacco; populous towns subsist by the manufactory of ribbands. A watch may be a very unnecessary appendage to the dress of a peasant; yet if the peasant will till the ground in order to obtain the watch, the true design of trade is answered; and the watchmaker, while he polishes the case, or files the wheels of his machine, is contributing to the production of corn as effectually, though not so directly, as if he handled the spade or held the plough. The use of tobacco has been mentioned already, as an acknowledged superfluity, and as affording a remarkable example of the caprice of human appetite; yet, if the fisherman will ply his nets, or the mariner fetch rice from foreign countries, in order to procure to himself this indulgence, the market is supplied with two important articles of provision, by the instrumentality of a merchandise, which has no other apparent use than the gratification of a vitiated palate.

But it may come to pass, that the husbandman, landowner, or whoever he be that is entitled to the produce of the soil, will no longer exchange it for what the manufacturer has to offer. He is already supplied to the extent of his desires. For instance, he wants no more cloth; he will no longer, therefore, give the weaver corn, in return for the produce of his looms; but he would readily

give it for tea, or for wine. When the weaver finds this to be the case, he has nothing to do but to send his cloth abroad, in exchange for tea or for wine, which he may barter for that provision, which the offer of his cloth will no longer procure. The circulation is thus revived; and the benefit of the discovery is, that, whereas the number of weavers, who could find subsistence from their employment, was before limited by the consumption of cloth in the country, that number is now augmented in proportion to the demand for tea and for wine. This is the principle of foreign commerce. In the magnitude and complexity of the machine, the principle of motion is sometimes lost or unobserved; but it is always simple and the same, to whatever extent it may be diversified and enlarged in its operation.

The effect of trade upon agriculture, the process of which we have been endeavouring to describe, is visible in the neighourhood of trading towns, and in those districts which carry on a communication with the markets of trading towns. The, husbandmen are busy and skilful, the peasantry laborious, the lands are managed to the best advantage, and double the quantity of corn or herbage (articles which are ultimately converted into human provision} raised from it, of what the same soil yields in remoter and more neglected parts of the country. Wherever a thriving manufactory finds means to establish itself, a new vegitation springs up around it. I believe it is true, that agriculture never arrives at any considerable, much less at its highest degree of perfection, where it is not connected with trade; that is, where the demand for the produce is not increased by the consumption of trading cities.

Let it be remembered, then, that agriculture is the immediate source of human provision; that trade conduces to the production of provision only as it promotes agriculture; that the whole system of commerce, vast and various as it is, hath no other public importance than its subserviency to this end.

We return to the proposition we laid down, that "employment universally promotes population." From this proposition it follows, that the comparative utility of different branches of national commerce is measured by the number which each branch employs. Upon which principle a scale may easily be constructed, which shall assign to the several kinds and divisions of foreign trade their respective degrees of public importance. In this scale, the first place belongs to the exchange of wrought goods for raw materials, as, of broad cloths for raw silk; cutlery for wool; clocks or watches for iron, flax, or furs; because this traffic provides a market for the labour that has already been expended at the same time that it sup