however it may come in aid of another principle, however it may occafionally qualify the rigour, or fupply the imperfection of an eftablished rule of diftribution, can never itself become that rule or principle; because men will not work to give the produce of their labour away. Moreover, the only equivalent that can be offered in exchange for provifion are power and labour. All property is power. What we call property in land is the power to use it, and to exclude others from the use. Money is the representative of power, because it is convertible into power: the value of it confifts in its faculty of procuring power over things and perfons. But power which refults from civil conventions, and of this kind are what we call a man's fortune or estate, is necessarily confined to a few, and is withal foon exhausted: whereas the capacity of labour is every man's natural poffeffion, and compofes a conftant and renewing fund. The hire, therefore, or produce of perfonal industry is that, which the bulk of every community must bring to market, in exchange for the means of fubfiftence; in other words, employment muft, in every country, be the medium of diftribution, and the source of fupply to individuals. But when we confider the production The production and diftribution of provifion, as diftinct from, and independent of each other; when supposing the fame quantity to be produced, we enquire in what way, or according to what rule, it may be diftributed, we are led to a conception of the fubject not at all agreeable to truth and reality; for, in truth and reality, though provifion must be produced, before it be distributed, yet the production depends, in a great measure, upon the diftribution. quantity of provision raised out of the ground, fo far as the raifing of it requires human art or labour, will evidently be regulated by the demand; the demand, or, in other words, the price and fale, being that which alone rewards the care, or excites the diligence of the husbandman. But the fale of provifion depends upon the number, not of thofe who want, but of those who have fomething to offer in return for what they want; not of those who would confume, but of thofe who can buy: that is, upon the number of those who have the fruits of fome other kind of industry to tender. in exchange for what they stand in need of from the productions of the foil. We fee, therefore, the connection between population and employment. Employment affects population" directly," as it affords the only medium of diftribution, by which individuals And upon this bafis is founded the public benefit of trade, that is to fay, its fubferviency to population, in which its only real utility confifts. Of that industry, and of those arts and branches of trade, which are employed in the production, conveyance, and preparation of any principal fpecies of human food, as of the businefs of the husbandman, the butcher, baker, brewer, corn-merchant, &c. we acknowledge the neceffity: likewise of those manufactures which furnish us with warm clothing, convenient habitations, domeftic utenfils, as of the weaver, taylor, fmith carpenter, &c. we perceive, (in climates, however, like ours, removed at a diftance from the fun,) the conduciveness to population, by their rendering human life more healthy, vigorous, and comfortable. But not one half of the occupations, which compofe the trade trade of Europe, fall within either of these defcriptions. Perhaps two thirds of the manufactures of England are employed upon articles of confeffed luxury, ornament, or fplendour: in the fuperfluous embellishment of fome articles which are useful in their kind, or upon others which have no conceivable ufe or value, but what is founded in caprice or fashion. What can be lefs neceffary, or lefs connected with the fuftentation of human life, than the whole produce of the filk, lace, and plate manufactory? yet what multitudes labour in the different branches of thefe arts! What can be imagined more capricious than the fondness for tobacco and fnuff? yet, how many various occupations, and how many thousands in each, are fet at work in adminiftring to this frivolous gratification! Concerning trades of this kind, and this kind comprehends more than half of the trades that are exercifed, it may fairly be asked, how, fince they add nothing to the stock of "provifion, do they tend to increase the num"ber 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 fupport of human life depends ?-In like manner with respect Bb, VOL. II. to to foreign commerce; of that merchandize which brings the neceffaries 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 ftock of provision, by which the people are fubfifted. But this effect of foreign commerce is fo little feen in our own country, that, I believe, it may be affirmed of Great Britain, what Bishop Berkley faid of a neighbouring island, that if it was encompaffed with a wall of brass fifty cubits high, the country might maintain the fame number of inhabitants, that find subfiftence in it at prefent; and that every neceffary, and even every real comfort and accommodation of human life might be fupplied in as great abundance as they are now. Here, therefore, as before, we may fairly afk, by what operation it is, that foreign commerce, which brings into the country no one article of human fubfiftence, promotes the multiplication of human life? The answer to this inquiry will be contained in the difcuffion of another; viz. Since the foil will maintain many more than it can employ, what must be done, fuppofing the country to be full, with the remainder of |