Slow Progress from Lack of Circulation

Non-commoditization of Land

Commodities can be bought or sold in an instant. But in buying four or five acres of land, a lot of time must be spent in:

• examining the progress of writs, and
• getting your right legally constituted.

This tends greatly to the engrossment of lands, and consequently stops their improvement. If all the paperwork in buying lands were abolished, every person who had some money would be ready to buy land with it. The land would be better improved by passing through the different hands.

There is no natural reason why 1,000 acres should not be as easily bought as 1,000 yards of cloth. The keeping land out of the market always hinders its improvement. A merchant who buys a little piece of land wants to=

• improve it, and
• make the most of it.

In contrast, great and ancient families seldom have stock or the inclination to improve their estates, other than a small piece of pleasure-ground around their house.

Ban on Import-export

There are many errors in the policy of almost every country which can hinder agriculture.

Our fathers banned grain exports during grievous dearths occurring every two or three years. This is still the policy of most of Europe. It causes the dearth which it is trying to prevent.

Spain is the most fertile country in the world. In a plentiful year, its grain is not worth harvesting. They let it rot on the ground because they would get nothing for it since it cannot be exported. So in the next year, he turns his grounds to grass and a famine happens in the next year. This was one great cause of ancient Italy’s depopulation.

Grain exportation was banned by severe penalties and its importation was encouraged by high premiums. The Italian farmers had no encouragement to industry, not being sure of a market.

In the latter times of the Republic, the Emperors tried several ways to promote the country’s cultivation. But they didn’t know that the real cause was the immense amount of corn daily imported from Egypt and Africa and so their endeavours were ineffective.

Caligula and Claudius gave their soldiers land on the condition that they would cultivate it. But as the soldiers had no other motive, very inconsiderable improvements were made. Virgil also published his Georgics to bring the cultivation of land into fashion, but all was in vain.

Foreign grain was always sold cheaper than their own could be raised. Thus we find Cato, in the Third Book of Cicero’s Offices, preferring pasturage to farming.

The free export and import of gain is favourable to agriculture. Since its exportation was allowed, grain prices have gradually sunk. The bounty on exportation does harm in other respects, but it increases the amount of grain.

In Holland, grain is cheaper and plentier than anywhere else and a dearth there is unknown. Holland is a granary for a big part of Europe due to their free export and import. If no improper regulations took place, any European country might do more than maintain itself with all sorts of grain.

Preference for Urban over Rural

The Kings of Spain have also done all in their power to promote land improvement. Philip IV himself farmed, to set the fashion.

• He did everything for the farmers except bringing them a good market.
• He conferred the titles of nobility on several farmers.
• He very absurdly tried to oppress manufacturers with heavy taxes to force them to the countryside as he thought that the rural population decreased as the urban population increased.

This notion was highly ridiculous. The populousness of a town is the very cause of the populousness of the countryside, because it gives greater encouragement to industry.

Every man in a town must be fed by a man in the countryside. It is always a sign that the country is improving when men go to town. The best inhabited and cultivated lands are those near populous cities.

The more manufacturers there are in any country, the more improved agriculture is. The causes which prevent the progress of these react on agriculture.

Slavery

The slow progress of arts and commerce is due to similar causes. In all places where slavery took place, the manufactures were carried on by slaves.

It is impossible for manufactures to be well-done by slaves as by freemen, because they=

• can have no motive to labour but the dread of punishment, and
• can never invent any machine for facilitating their business.

Freemen who have a stock of their own, can get anything accomplished. If a carpenter thinks that a plane will serve his purpose better than a knife, he may go to a smith and get it made. But if a slave makes such a proposal he is called a lazy rascal. No experiments are made to give him ease.

Presently, the Turks and Hungarians work the same kind of mines, situated on opposite sides of the same mountains. But the Hungarians make much more than the Turks because they employ free men, while the Turks employ slaves. When the Hungarians encounter any obstacle, every invention is on work to find out some easy way of surmounting it. But the Turks only think of setting more slaves to work.

In the ancient world, the arts were all carried on by slaves. They had no stock and thus could not invent machinery. This was also true all over Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Those principles of the human mind which are most beneficial to society, are not marked by nature as the most honourable. Hunger, thirst, and lust are the great supports of the human species. Yet almost every expression of these excites contempt.

In the same way, that principle in the mind which prompts to truck, barter, and exchange is not marked with anything amiable even if it is the great foundation of arts, commerce, and the division of labour. To perform anything, or to give anything without a reward, is always generous and noble. But to barter one thing for another is mean. This is because these principles are so strongly implanted by nature. They do not need that additional force which the weaker principles need.

In rude ages, this contempt is at its highest. Even in a refined society, it is not utterly extinguished. In Britain, a small retailer is even odious in some degree today. The trade of a merchant or mechanic was thus depreciated in the beginnings of society and so it was confined to the lowest ranks of people.

Even when emancipated slaves began to practice these trades, it was impossible for them to accumulate much stock because=

• the government oppressed them severely, and
• they were obliged to pay licences for their liberty of trading.

The Domesday-book has an account of=

• all the different traders in every county,
• how many of them were under the king,
• how many under such a bishop, and
• what acknowledgments they were obliged to pay for their liberty of trading.

Their mean and despicable idea of merchants greatly obstructed the progress of commerce. The merchant is the medium between the manufacturer and the consumer. The weaver must not go to the market himself. There must be somebody to do this for him. This person must have a considerable stock to buy the commodity and maintain the manufacturer.

But merchants could never amass that stock necessary for making the division of labour and improving manufactures when they were so despicable and taxed heavily for the liberty to trade.

The only persons then who made any money by trade were the Jews who were considered as vagabonds.

• They could not buy lands.
• The only employment they could get was by becoming mechanics or merchants.
• Their character could not be spoiled by merchandise because they could not be more odious than what their religion made them.
• Even they were grievously oppressed.
• Consequently, the progress of opulence was greatly retarded.