If it were acknowledged, that nothing contributes so much to the multiplying of the articles, as the multiplicity of the channels through which they can be introduced:
If it were acknowledged, that the multiplicity of channels in another nation, for the introduction of our own goods, is necessarily inseparable from the multiplicity of channels opened in our own country for the introduction of foreign goods:
If it were acknowledged, that with the fullest persuasion that money ought to be the sole aim of trade, it has only proved, hitherto, the means of supporting it:
If it were acknowledged, that notwithstanding the prejudices to the contrary, as deeply rooted in the heads of Ministers, as they are in the hearts of Merchants, and notwithstanding all the national cupidities, private interest in all countries has always proved sufficient to reject effectually all the useless, and procure all the necessary money:
If it should result, not from arguments, which very seldom contain what they ought to contain, in order to become uncontrovertible, but from the experience of a whole century, sufficient to estimate the effect of the passion the most ardent, and the most attached to its object, that contrary to the common ideas, and in spite of the general rage for money, the whole of commerce has, to this day, been ultimately confined to its true balance, i. e. to bartering goods for goods, except the little money which is wanted every where, and which has constantly penetrated every where, to answer either to the new productions when they had actually increased in their quantity, or to the advance of prices when the taxes had at last produced every where, and on the generality of prices, their effect, as equitable as it is necessary and harmless:
If the same experience should evince, that the richest individual, or he who becomes such the soonest, has no other advantage in point of commerce, than the choice of the men whom he is pleased to admit to a share of his wealth without impairing it; and that the inference to be drawn therefrom is, that such a man must be a dupe who confines his choice to ten, when he can make it from among thirty:
If it were acknowledged, that riches and ease, like the light, stand in want of no assistance whatever, to propagate themselves equally in every direction, as general interest requires; that the private interest of one man, or of a body of men, is always sufficiently opposed, protected, balanced, by the interest of another man, or of another body of men, wherever administration confines its attention to the maintenance of strict justice and good order; and that from this equilibrium in which they mutually keep, or soon replace one another, there results, for both, the greatest advantage they can hope for, and for the State the highest prosperity it can attain:
If it were acknowledged, that on all these various objects, no difference whatever can subsist between one nation and another:
If it were acknowledged also, that all Europe, as well as each State in particular, is essentially, finally, strictly, composed only of three kinds of capitalists, or proprietors, the landed capitalist, the capitalist of industry, and the proprietor of money, considered either as a dependant or as a capitalist: