England, on account of the natural fertility of the soil, of the great extent of the sea-coast in proportion to that of the whole country, and of the many navigable rivers which run through it and afford the conveniency of water carriage to some of the most inland parts of it, is perhaps as well fitted by nature as any large country in Europe to be the seat of foreign commerce, of manufactures for distant sale, and of all the improvements which these can occasion.From the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth too, the English legislature has been peculiarly attentive to the interests of commerce and manufactures, and in reality there is no country in Europe, Holland itself not excepted, of which the law is, upon the whole, more favourable to this sort of industry.Commerce and manufactures have accordingly been continually advancing during all this period.The cultivation and improvement of the country has, no doubt, been gradually advancing too; but it seems to have followed slowly, and at a distance, the more rapid progress of commerce and manufactures.The greater part of the country must probably have been cultivated before the reign of Elizabeth; and a very great part of it still remains uncultivated, and the cultivation of the far greater part much inferior to what it might be.The law of England, however, favours agriculture not only indirectly by the protection of commerce, but by several direct encouragements.
Except in times of scarcity, the exportation of corn is not only free, but encouraged by a bounty.In times of moderate plenty, the importation of foreign corn is loaded with duties that amount to a prohibition.The importation of live cattle, except from Ireland, is prohibited at all times, and it is but of late that it was permitted from thence.Those who cultivate the land, therefore, have a monopoly against their countrymen for the two greatest and most important articles of land produce, bread and butcher's meat.These encouragements, though at bottom, perhaps, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter, altogether illusory, sufficiently demonstrate at least the good intention of the legislature to favour agriculture.But what is of much more importance than all of them, the yeomanry of England are rendered as secure, as independent, and as respectable as law can make them.No country, therefore, in which the right of primogeniture takes place, which pays tithes, and where perpetuities, though contrary to the spirit of the law, are admitted in some cases, can give more encouragement to agriculture than England.Such, however, notwithstanding, is the state of its cultivation.What would it have been had the law given no direct encouragement to agriculture besides what arises indirectly from the progress of commerce, and had left the yeomanry in the same condition as in most other countries of Europe? It is now more than two hundred years since the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a period as long as the course of human prosperity usually endures.
France seems to have had a considerable share of foreign commerce near a century before England was distinguished as a commercial country.The marine of France was considerable, according to the notions of the times, before the expedition of Charles VIII to Naples.The cultivation and improvement of France, however, is, upon the whole, inferior to that of England.
The law of the country has never given the same direct encouragement to agriculture.
The foreign commerce of Spain and Portugal to the other parts of Europe, though chiefly carried on in foreign ships, is very considerable.That to their colonies is carried on in their own, and is much greater, on account of the great riches and extent of those colonies.But it has never introduced any considerable manufactures for distant sale into either of those countries, and the greater part of both still remains uncultivated.The foreign commerce of Portugal is of older standing than that of any great country in Europe, except Italy.
Italy is the only great country of Europe which seems to have been cultivated and improved in every part by means of foreign commerce and manufactures for distant sale.Before the invasion of Charles VIII, Italy according to Guicciardin, was cultivated not less in the most mountainous and barren parts of the country than in the plainest and most fertile.The advantageous situation of the country, and the great number of independent states which at that time subsisted in it, probably contributed not a little to this general cultivation.It is not impossible too, notwithstanding this general expression of one of the most judicious and reserved of modern historians, that Italy was not at that time better cultivated than England is at present.
The capital, however, that is acquired to any country by commerce and manufactures is all a very precarious and uncertain possession till some part of it has been secured and realized in the cultivation and improvement of its lands.A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.It is in a great measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove his capital, and together with it all the industry which it supports, from one country to another.
No part of it can be said to belong to any particular country, till it has been spread as it were over the face of that country, either in buildings or in the lasting improvement of lands.No vestige now remains of the great wealth said to have been possessed by the greater part of the Hans towns except in the obscure histories of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.It is even uncertain where some of them were situated or to what towns in Europe the Latin names given to some of them belong.But though the misfortunes of Italy in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries greatly diminished the commerce and manufactures of the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, those countries still continue to be among the most populous and best cultivated in Europe.The civil wars of Flanders, and the Spanish government which succeeded them, chased away the great commerce of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges.But Flanders still continues to be one of the richest, best cultivated, and most populous provinces of Europe.The ordinary revolutions of war and government easily dry up the sources of that wealth which arises from commerce only.That which arises from the more solid improvements of agriculture is much more durable and cannot be destroyed but by those more violent convulsions occasioned by the depredations of hostile and barbarous nations continued for a century or two together, such as those that happened for some time before and after the fall of the Roman empire in the western provinces of Europe.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONSby Adam Smith 1776