Provisions and the manufactures, like a pair of scales, will not preponderate together; but as weight is applied to the one, the other will advance.
As labour is irksome to the body, a man will perform no more of it than necessity obliges him; it follows, that in those times when plenty preponderates, the manufactures tend to decay: For if a man can support his family with three days labour, he will not work six.
As the generality of men will perform no more work than produces a maintenance, reduce that maintenance to half the price, and they will perform but half the work: Hence half the commerce of a nation is destroyed at one blow, and what is lost by one kingdom will be recovered by another, in rivalship.
A commercial people, therefore, will endeavour to keep provisions at a superior rate, yet within reach of the poor.
It follows also, that luxury is no way detrimental to trade; for we frequently observe ability and industry exerted to support it.
The practice of the Birmingham manufacturer, for, perhaps, a hundred generations, was to keep within the warmth of his own forge.
The foreign customer, therefore, applied to him for the execution of orders, and regularly made his appearance twice a year; and though this mode of business is not totally extinguished, yet a very different one is adopted.
The merchant stands at the head of the manufacturer, purchases his produce, and travels the whole island to promote the sale: A practice that would have astonished our fore fathers. The commercial spirit of the age, hath also penetrated beyond the confines of Britain, and explored the whole continent of Europe; nor does it stop there, for the West-Indies, and the American world, are intimately acquainted with the Birmingham merchant; and nothing but the exclusive command of the East-India Company, over the Asiatic trade, prevents our riders from treading upon the heels of each other, in the streets of Calcutta.
To this modern conduct of Birmingham, in sending her sons to the foreign market, I ascribe the chief cause of her rapid increase.
By the poor's books it appears, there are not three thousand houses in Birmingham, that pay the parochial rates; whilst there are more then five thousand that do not, chiefly through inability. Hence we see what an amazing number of the laborious class of mankind is among us. This valuable part of the creation, is the prop of the remainder. They are the rise and support of our commerce. From this fountain we draw our luxuries and our pleasures. They spread our tables, and oil the wheels of our carriages. They are also the riches and the defence of the country.