"Though, for want of such regulations, the society should never acquire the proposed manufacture, it would not upon that account necessarily be the poorer in any one period of its duration.In every period of its duration its whole capital and industry might still have been employed, though upon different objects, in the manner that was most advantageous at the time.
In every period its revenue might have been the greatest which its capital could afford, and both capital and revenue might have been augmented with the greatest possible rapidity.
"The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them.By means of glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland and very good wine, too, can be made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries.
Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?
But if there would be a manifest absurdity in turning towards any employment thirty times more of the capital and industry of the country than would be necessary to purchase from foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted, there must be an absurdity, though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment a thirtieth, or even a three hundredth part of either.Whether the advantages which one country has over another be natural or acquired, is in this respect of no consequence.As long as the one country has those advantages and the other wants them, it will always be more advantageous for the latter rather to buy of the former than to make.It is an acquired advantage only, which one artificer has over his neighbor who exercises another trade; and yet they both find it more advantageous to buy of one another, than to make what does not belong to their particular trades."I must be excused for running somewhat into repetition in observing, that the strength of this passage evidently lies in the axioms, "The industry of the society can augment only as its capital augments, and its capital can augment only in proportion to what can be gradually saved out of its revenue;" and that the proper answer to these axioms is, either, that they prove nothing, or, that they prove it by a begging of the question, by assuming that to be proved which is in process of proof.The expression, the industry of the society can augment only as its capital augments, may signify, either, that the augmentation of a society's capital, and an increase of its productive industry always accompany each other; or, that every augmentation of the productiveness of the general industry, is produced by an augmentation of capital, and can be produced by nothing else.In like manner, the expression, the capital of the society can augment only in proportion to what can be gradually saved out of its revenue, may signify, either, merely that the saving from revenue is a necessary part of the increase of the general capital, and measures its amount, or, that there are no other means of augmenting its capital but it.In the former of these two senses the axioms prove nothing; in the latter they prove all things desired, because they assume them as acknowledged truths.The double meaning of the assumptions contained in these axioms, and the fallacy into which they may, in consequence, be made to lead, may be easily perceived by an application of them to the transactions of an individual.
A person residing in England, owns an estate in the West Indies, which he proposes to visit.His motives to do so are, that he thinks, that, by his personal superintendence, he can give a better direction to the industry employed on it, and render the returns greater.In order to do so, it is necessary for him to procure and expend a certain sum to pay for the expense of the voyage, and the cost of the various articles which his private accommodation will require there, and he therefore takes measures to apply to this purpose a considerable part of one year's revenue of the estate.On account of this disbursement, some one objects to the project, and endeavors, in the following manner, to prove to him that it must be hurtful to his interests:
