There is a maxim in law, which may be extended almost to every thing in this world, unum quodque eodem modo solvitur quo colligatum est. Industry forms this species of absolute agriculture; industry destroys it. A military force raised the Roman greatness; a military force destroyed it. A spirit of liberty may form a noble constitution, and a spirit of liberty may break the same to pieces. The States of Denmark restrained the royal power and established a free government; the same States rendered that very power unlimited, and established there the purest monarchy in Christendom. But these reflections are foreign to our subject: Ne sutor ultra crepidam. I return.
When industry is set on foot, it gives encouragement to agriculture exercised as a trade: and by the allurements of ease, which a large surplus procures to the farmers, it does hurt to that species which is exercised as a method of subsistence. Lands become more generally and less thoroughly laboured. In some countries tillage is set on foot and encouraged; this is an operose agriculture. While industry goes forward, and while a people can remain satisfied with a nourishment consisting chiefly of bread, this system of agriculture will subsist, and will carry numbers very high. If wealth increases, and if those who have it begin to demand a much greater proportion of work than formerly, while they consume no more food, then I believe numbers may diminish from the principles I am now going in quest of.
I return to the council of the island where the proposition laid down upon the carpet is, The scanty subsistence of the inhabitants requires redress.
A Machiavelian stands up (of such there are some in every country) and proposes, in place of multiplying the inhabitants, by rendering agriculture more operose, to diminish their number, by throwing a quantity of corn fields into grass. What is the intention of agriculture, says he, but to nourish a state? By our operose method of plowing and sowing, one half of the whole produce is consumed by those who raise it; whereas by having a great part of our island in pasture, one half of the husbandmen may be saved. Pray what do you propose to do with those whom you intend to make idle? replies a citizen. Let them betake themselves to industry. But industry is sufficiently, nay more than sufficiently stocked already. If, says Machiavel, the supernumerary husbandmen be thrown out of a way of living, they may go where they please; we have no occasion for them, nor for any one who lives only to feed himself. But you diminish the number of your people, replies the citizen, and consequently your strength; and if afterwards you come to be attacked by your enemies, you will wish to have those back again for your defence, whom in your security you despised. To this the other makes answer: there you trust to the Egyptian reed. If they be necessary for feeding us at present, how shall we be able to live while we employ them as soldiers? We may live without many things, but not without the labour of our husbandmen. Whether we have our grounds in tillage or in pasture, if that class be rightly proportioned to the labour required, we never can take any from it. In those countries where we see princes have recourse to the land to recruit their armies, we may safely conclude, that there the land is overstocked; and that industry has not as yet been able to purge off all the superfluous mouths: but with us the case is different, where agriculture is justly proportioned to the number of husbandmen. If I propose a reform, it is only to augment the surplus, upon which all the state, except the husbandmen, are fed; if the surplus after the reform is greater than at present, the plan is good, although 250 of our farmers should thereby be forced to starve for hunger.
Though no man is, I believe, capable to reason in so inhuman a style, and though the revolution here proposed be an impossible supposition, if meant to be executed all at once, the same effects however must be produced, in every country where we see corn fields by degrees turned into pasture; only the change is gradual, industry is not overstocked any where, and subsistence may be drawn from other countries, where the operose species of agriculture can be carried on with profit.
Familiar experience proves the truth of this. I have a corn farm, where I maintain ten horses and four servants for the cultivation alone: at the end of the year I find my surplus equal to 40l. sterling. If, by throwing my grounds into grass, I can dismiss three servants and eight horses, and at the end of the year raise my surplus to 50l. sterling, who doubts of my doing it? Is not this following the doctrine above laid down? But there is nothing odious in this; because I do not see these three servants die for hunger, nor is it a consequence they should, as states are formed. They turn themselves to industry, and food comes from abroad, in proportion as the country itself produces a less quantity. Fact and experience prove this assertion, and I cite Holland as an example, where every branch of operose agriculture is exploded, except for such productions as cannot be brought from other countries. I introduced the rough Machiavelian only to set principles in a strong light, and particularly that concerning the recruiting of armies from the land, which I take to be both a true one, and one necessary to be attended to, to wit, that those who must labour for the subsistence of the society, can be of little use for the defence of a state, in case of any emergency. Princes have found out the truth of this, and in proportion as industry has extended itself, regular armies have been found necessary to be kept up in times of peace, in order to be had in times of war. A militia composed of people truly industrious, I take to be far better in speculation than in practice. How would a militia do in Holland? how admirable was it not formerly in Scotland, Poland, and Catalonia? And how admirably does it still succeed in the armies of the house of Austria? I may however be mistaken; for a military and an industrious spirit may be found compatible with one another in some particular nations: time perhaps will clear up this matter. Thus much with regard to a militia. Now as to recruiting a regular army.
The more they are recruited from the land, the less they desert. The army of the Russians, for example, now assembled (1758) hardly knows desertion, those of the house of Austria, taken from certain provinces where there is almost no industry, are in the same case, also the militia of France which I consider as regular troops. On the other hand, those armies which are raised in the countries where industry has taken root are chiefly composed of loose fellows, the excrements of populous cities, the sons of vice and idleness, who have neither domicil nor attachment. These are soldiers truly by trade, and make a trade of it; how many thousands of such are now to be found? they come to market every season, and the best bidder has them while he can hold them. Some princes make a point not to receive their own deserters back, but accept of those who have committed the same infidelity to others; while others content themselves with punishing those who fail in their attempt to desert, but receive them back when they return of their own accord, after having accomplished their desertion. All is now become commerce, and seems to be regulated by the principles of it. I return to our agriculture.
Does not the exposition we have now given of these principles tend to cast a light upon the first question dismissed in this chapter, to wit, the effects of an equal and an unequal distribution of the property of lands?
When these are once well cultivated and improved, it is of no consequence to whom the property belongs; for by the property of such lands I only can mean the surplus, as we have abundantly explained elsewhere. Let therefore the property of all the lands of a kingdom, fully improved, belong to the state, or to any number of individuals, however few, there is no question of improvement; no difference as to agriculture[agriculture], no difference as to population, according to modern policy. So long as the whole is well cultivated and made to produce, by a set of men I call farmers, the end is fully obtained; and according to the nature of the agriculture, which many different circumstances of taste and manner of living has introduced, larger or smaller portions of land must be allotted to each of them.
If you suppose a country not as yet improved, as many are, then, the case becomes quite different, and small possessions are necessary, both for multiplying the inhabitants and for improving the soil. In this supposition the most operose agriculture may be carried on in competition with the most lucrative; because when there is a question of improvement, there is frequently a considerable outgoing instead of any surplus after paying the labour.