An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy (Vol. 1 of 2) / Being an essay on the science of domestic policy in free nations. In which are particularly considered population, agriculture, trade, industry, money, coin, interest, circulation, banks, exchange, public credit, and taxes

by Sir James Steuart

Now, by the supposition, 500 farmers fed, though scantily, the whole of the inhabitants, that is 1000 persons. If therefore 100 of the free hands can be engaged to become farmers, the end may be attained: more nourishment will be produced; the people will be better fed; they will multiply; that is, their number will rise above 1000. Let us next endeavour to form a judgment of this increase, and of the consequence of the revolution.

The society will now be composed of 600 farmers and 400 free hands. The 600 will certainly produce more fruits than formerly; but as their labour is relatively less productive by the supposition, it will be impossible for them to furnish surplus equal to their own consumption; consequently, the free hands never will be able to rise to a number equal to theirs; that is, the society will never get up to 1200. But we supposed, that the other wants of the society required the industry of one half of the inhabitants to supply them; that is, of all the 500 free hands; and, as the number of these has been already reduced, and can never more rise to that proportion, as has been said, must not either the people voluntarily adopt a more simple way of living; or must not the demand for work rise very considerably? Let me consider the consequences in both cases. In the first, you perceive, that if the inhabitants themselves are obliged to simplify their way of living, for want of hands to supply what they formerly consumed, three of the four objects proposed by the reformation become impossible to be attained; to wit, the defending themselves against their enemies, the supplying the wants of strangers, and the supplying their own with more abundance. And with regard to the fourth, the being better fed, that must cease to be the case, the moment the end is obtained; that is, the moment the inhabitants are multiplied up to the proportion of additional food. Consequently, by simplifying their way of life, and allowing farming to stand upon the new footing, they compass not any one of the ends they proposed.

Next, if we suppose, that the inhabitants do not incline to simplify their way of life, but that the wealthy among them insist upon purchasing all the instruments of luxury which they formerly were used to enjoy, must not demand for work greatly rise, and must not, of consequence, an additional encouragement be given to that species of labour which had been diminished, in taking 100 persons from industry, to throw them into the class of farmers? Will not this make them quickly desert their spade, and the rather, as they have taken to an employment less lucrative than that of farming, according to the former systems?

So much for the consequences which would follow, in case the plan proposed was found practicable; that is, supposing it to be a thing possible to transport into agriculture a part of an industrious society, already otherwise employed, and to change all at once the relative proportion between those who supply food, and those who purchase it with their industry. We have begun, by taking that first step for granted; and now I am to shew what obstacles will be found in the execution.

We have said, that it is the multiplicity and complexity of wants which give an encouragement to agriculture, and not agriculture, or an abundance of food, which inspires mankind with a disposition to labour. Now, if this principle be true, the supposition we have proceeded upon is absurd. I am afraid, both reason and experience will abundantly prove that it is so.

The natural and necessary effect of industry, in trades and manufactures, is to promote the increase of relative husbandry; which, by augmenting the surplus, tends of course to increase the proportion of the free hands relatively to the farmers. A river may as easily ascend to its source, as a people voluntarily adopt a more operose agriculture than that already established, supposing the lands to be fully improved, the spirit of industry to prevail on one hand, and the farmers to have profit only in view on the other.

What farmer could sell the surplus of an expensive agriculture in competition with another who exercised a species relatively more productive?

When lands are improved, the simplification of agriculture is a necessary concomitant of industry, because diminishing expence is the only method of gaining a preference at market.

Quest. III.

Whether industry has done hurt to population, by augmenting the relative, and diminishing the absolute produce of agriculture; or whether it has done good to it, by encouraging the science in general, and extending the exercise of it over the face of the earth, is a matter of fact which I shall leave to others, better informed than I am, to determine. For my own part, I believe that thousands of examples may be found of the one and the other. I know corn fields, where villages formerly stood, the inhabitants of which fed themselves with the pure produce of absolute agriculture; that is, with a bit of garden ground, and the milk of a cow: there surely is depopulation: but, at a small distance from the place where those villages stood, I see corn fields, where nothing but heath was to be met with; this marks population. I seek no more than to explain from facts the principles I am endeavouring to discover, and shall leave general conclusions to others, as I have already said.