An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign trade without taking off so many labourers from agriculture as to alter this state of things, and in some degree to diminish the produce of the country.  The demand for manufacturing labourers would naturally raise the price of labour, but as the quantity of subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it if the quantity of provisions were really decreasing.  The country would be evidently advancing in wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its land and labour would be annually augmented, yet the real funds for the maintenance of labour would be stationary, or even declining, and, consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation would rather tend to depress than to raise the condition of the poor.  With regard to the command over the necessaries and comforts of life, they would be in the same or rather worse state than before; and a great part of them would have exchanged the healthy labours of agriculture for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.

The argument, perhaps, appears clearer when applied to China, because it is generally allowed that the wealth of China has been long stationary.  With regard to any other country it might be always a matter of dispute at which of the two periods, compared, wealth was increasing the fastest, as it is upon the rapidity of the increase of wealth at any particular period that Dr Adam Smith says the condition of the poor depends.  It is evident, however, that two nations might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the exchangeable value of the annual produce of their land and labour, yet if one had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other chiefly to commerce, the funds for the maintenance of labour, and consequently the effect of the increase of wealth in each nation, would be extremely different.  In that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the poor would live in great plenty, and population would rapidly increase.  In that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce, the poor would be comparatively but little benefited and consequently population would increase slowly.

CHAPTER 17

Question of the proper definition of the wealth of a state—­ Reason given by the French economists for considering all manufacturers as unproductive labourers, not the true reason—­ The labour of artificers and manufacturers sufficiently productive to individuals, though not to the state—­A remarkable passage in Dr Price’s two volumes of Observations—­Error of Dr Price in attributing the happiness and rapid population of America, chiefly, to its peculiar state of civilization—­No advantage can be expected from shutting our eyes to the difficulties in the way to the improvement of society.