factures from their countrymen at home. Whilst the inhabitants continue few, and the lands cheap and fresh, the colonists will find it eafier and more profitable to raise corn, or rear cattle, and with corn and cattle to purchase woollen cloth, for inftance, or linen, than to fpin or weave thefe articles for themselves. The mother country, mean while, derives from this connection an increase both of provifion and employment. It promotes at once the two great requifites, upon which the facility of fub. fiftence, and, by confequence, the state of population depends, production and distribution and this in a manner the moft direct and beneficial. No fituation can be imagined more favourable to popu, lation, than that of a country which works up goods for others, whilft thefe others are cultivating new tracts of land for them. For as, in a genial climate, and from a fresh foil, the labour of one man will raise provifion enough for ten, it is manifest that, where all are employed in agriculture, much the greater part of the produce will be spared from the confumption; and that three out of four, at least, of those who are maintained by it, will refide in the country which receives the redundancy. When the new country does not remit provifion to the old one, the advantage is lefs; but ftill the exportation of wrought goods, by whatever return they are paid for, advances population in that fecondary way, in which thofe trades promote it that are not employed in the production of provifion. Whatever prejudice, therefore, fome late events have excited against schemes of colonization, the fyftem itself is founded in apparent national utility, and, what is more, upon principles favourable to the common intereft of human nature for it does not appear, by what other method newly discovered and unfrequented coun. tries can be peopled, or, during the infancy of their eftablishment, be protected or fupplied. The error which we of this nation at prefent lament, feems to have confifted not fo much in the original formation

of

of colonies, as in the fubfequent management; in impofing restrictions too rigorous, or in continuing then too long; in not perceiving the point of time, when the irrefiftible order and progress of human affairs demanded a change of laws and policy.

III. MONEY. Where money abounds the people are generally numerous: yet, gold and filver neither feed nor clothe mankind; nor are they in all countries converted into provifion by purchafing the neceffaries of life at foreign markets; nor do they, in any country, compofe thofe articles of perfonal or domeftic ornament, which certain orders of the community have learnt to regard as neceffaries of life, and without the means of procuring which they will not enter into family establishments at least this property of the precious metals obtains in a very finall degree. The effect of money upon the number of the people, though visible to observation, is not explained without fome difficulty. To understand this connection properly, we must return to the propofition, with which we concluded our reafoning upon the fubject," that "population is chiefly promoted by employment." Now of employment money is partly the indication, and partly the caufe. The only way in which money regularly and fpontaneously flows into a country, is in return for the goods that are fent out of it, or the work that is performed by it, and the only way in which money is retained in a country is, by the country fupplying, in a great meafure, its own confumption of manufactures. Confequently, the quantity of money found in a country, denotes the amount of labour and employment: but ftill, employment, not money, is the cause of population; the accumulation of money being merely a collateral effect of the fame caufe, or a circumftance which accompanies the existence, and meafures the operations of that caufe. And this is true of money, only whilst it is acquired by the industry of the inhabitants. The treasures, which belong to a country by the poffeffion of mines, or by the exaction of

tribute

tribute from foreign dependencies, afford no conclufion concerning the ftate of population. The influx from these fources may be immenfe, and yet the country remain poor and ill peopled, of which we fee an egregious example in the condition of Spain, fince the acquifition of its South American dominions.

But, fecondly money may become also a real and an operative cause of population, by acting as a stimulus to industry, and by facilitating the means of fubfiftence. The cafe of fubfiftence, and the encouragement of industry, depend neither upon the price of labour, nor upon the price of provision, but upon the proportion which the one bears to the other. Now the influx of money into a country naturally tends to advance this proportion; that is, every fresh acceffion of money raifes the price of labour before it raises the price of provifion. When money is brought from abroad, the perfons, be they who they will, into whofe hands it first arrives, do not buy up provifion with it, but apply it to the purchase and payment of labour. If the ftate receive it, the ftate difpenfes what it receives amongst foldiers, failors, artificers, engineers, fhipwrights, workmen if private persons bring home treasures of gold and filver, they ufually expend them in the building of houses, the improvement of estates, the purchase of furniture, drefs, equipage, in articles of luxury or fplendour : if the merchant be enriched by returns of his foreign commerce, he applies his increased capital to the enlargement of his business at home. The money erelong comes to market for provifion, but it comes thither through the hands of the manufacturer, the artist, the husbandman, and labourer. Its effect, therefore, upon the price of art and labour will precede its effect upon the price of provifion; and, during the interval between one effect and the other, the means of fubfiftence will be multiplied and facilitated, as well as industry be excited by new rewards. When the greater plenty

of

of money in circulation has produced an advance in the price of provifion, correfponding to the advanced price of labour, its effect ceafes. The labourer no longer gains any thing by the increase of his wages. It is not, therefore, the quantity of fpecie collected into a country, but the continual increase of that quantity, from which the advantage arifes to employment and population. It is only the acceffion of money which produces the effect, and it is only by money conftantly flowing into a country, that the effect can be conftant. Now whatever confequence arifes to the country from the influx of money, the contrary may be expected to follow from the diminution of its quantity; and accordingly we find, that whatever caufe drains off the fpecie of a country, fafter than the ftreams, which teed it, can fupply, not only impoverishes the country, but depopulates it. The knowledge and expe rience of this effect has given occafion to a phrase which occurs in almost every difcourfe upon commerce or politics. The balance of trade with any foreign nation is faid to be against or in favour of a country fimply as it tends to carry money out, or to bring it in; that is, according as the price of the imports exceeds or falls fhort of the price of the exports. So invariably is the increase or diminution of the fpecie of a country regarded as a teft of the public advantage or detriment, which arifes from any branch of its commerce.

IV. TAXATION. As taxes take nothing out of a country; as they do not diminish the public stock, only vary the distribution of it, they are not neceffarily prejudicial to population. If the state exact money from certain members of the community, the difpenfes it also amongst other members of the iame community. They who contribute to the revenue, and they who are fupported or benefited by the expences of government, are to be placed one against the other; and whilft what the fubfiftence of one part is profited by receiving, compenfates for

what

what that of the other fuffers by paying, the common fund of the fociety is not leffened. This is true but it must be observed that although the fum diftributed by the ftate be always equal to the fum collected from the people, yet the gain and lofs to the means of fubfiftence may be very unequal and the balance will remain on the wrong or the right fide of the account, according as the money paffes by taxation from the induftrious to the idle, from the many to the few, from thofe who want to those who abound, or in a contrary direction. For instance, a tax upon coaches, to be laid out in the repair of roads, would probably improve the population of a neighbourhood; a tax upon cottages, to be ultimately expended in the purchase and fupport of coaches, would certainly diminish it. In like manner, à tax upon wine or tea, diftributed in bounties to fishermen or husbandmen, would augment the provifion of a country; a tax upon fisheries and hufbandry, however indirect or concealed, to be converted, when raifed, to the procuring of wine or tea for the idle and opulent, would naturally impair the public ftock. The effect, therefore, of taxes upon the means of fubfiftence depends not so much. upon the amount of the fum levied, as upon the object of the tax, and the application. Taxes likewife may be fo adjufted as to conduce to the reftraint of luxury, and the correction of vice; to the encouragement of industry, trade, agriculture, and marriage. Taxes thus contrived, become rewards and penalties, not only fources of revenue, but inftruments of police. Vices indeed themselves cannot be taxed without holding forth fuch a conditional toleration of them as to deftroy men's percep tion of their guilt: a tax comes in time to be confidered as a commutation: the materials, however, and incentives of vice may. Although, for instance, drunkennefs would be, on this account, an unfit object of taxation, yet public-houfes and fpirituous liquors are very properly fubjected to heavy impofts. Nevertheless,