An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable rent. In many parts of

Scotland and Wales it affords none. Barren timber for building is of great

value in a populous and well-cultivated country, and the land which produces

it affords a considerable rent. But in many parts of North America, the

landlord would be much obliged to any body who would carry away the greater

part of his large trees. In some parts of the Highlands of Scotland, the

bark is the only part of the wood which, for want of roads and

water-carriage, can be sent to market ; the timber is left to rot upon the

ground. When the materials of lodging are so superabundant, the part made

use of is worth only the labour and expense of fitting it for that use. It

affords no rent to the landlord, who generally grants the use of it to

whoever takes the trouble of asking it. The demand of wealthier nations,

however, sometimes enables him to get a rent for it. The paving of the

streets of London has enabled the owners of some barren rocks on the coast

of Scotland to draw a rent from what never afforded any before. The woods of

Norway, and of the coasts of the Baltic, find a market in many parts of

Great Britain, which they could not find at home, and thereby afford some

rent to their proprietors.

Countries are populous, not in proportion to the number of people whom their

produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can

feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary clothing and

lodging. But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find

food. In some parts of the British dominions, what is called a house may be

built by one day’s labour of one man. The simplest species of clothing, the

skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to dress and prepare them for

use. They do not, however, require a great deal. Among savage or barbarous

nations, a hundredth, or little more than a hundredth part of the labour of

the whole year, will be sufficient to provide them with such clothing and

lodging as satisfy the greater part of the people. All the other ninety-nine

parts are frequently no more than enough to provide them with food.

But when, by the improvement and cultivation of land, the labour of one

family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes

sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at

least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things,

or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind. Clothing and

lodging, household furniture, and what is called equipage, are the principal

objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich man

consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very

different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art;

but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious palace

and great wardrobe of the one, with the hovel and the few rags of the other,

and you will be sensible that the difference between their clothing,

lodging, and household furniture, is almost as great in quantity as it is in

quality. The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity

of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments

of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit

or certain boundary. Those, therefore, who have the command of more food

than they themselves can consume, are always willing to exchange the

surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of

this other kind. What is over and above satisfying the limited desire, is

given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem

to be altogether endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert

themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich ; and to obtain it more

certainly, they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of

their work. The number of workmen increases with the increasing quantity of

food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of the lands ; and as

the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of labour,

the quantity of materials which they can work up, increases in a much

greater proportion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for every sort

of material which human invention can employ, either usefully or

ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture ; for the

fossils and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth, the precious

metals, and the precious stones.

Food is, in this manner, not only the original source of rent, but every

other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent, derives

that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in

producing food, by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.

Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford

rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and cultivated countries,

the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than

what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with its

ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to

market. Whether it is or is not such, depends upon different circumstances.

Whether a coal mine, for example, can afford any rent, depends partly upon

its fertility, and partly upon its situation.

A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according as

the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain quantity

of labour, is greater or less than what can be brought by an equal quantity

from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.

Some coal mines, advantageously situated, cannot be wrought on account of

their barrenness. The produce does not pay the expense. They can afford

neither profit nor rent.

There are some, of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the labour,

and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock employed in

working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker of the work, but no

rent to the landlord. They can be wrought advantageously by nobody but the

landlord, who, being himself the undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary

profit of the capital which he employs in it. Many coal mines in Scotland

are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no other. The landlord

will allow nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and nobody can

afford to pay any.

Other coal mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be

wrought on account of their situation. A quantity of mineral, sufficient

to defray the expense of working, could be brought from the mine by the

ordinary, or even less than the ordinary quantity of labour: but in an

inland country, thinly inhabited, and without either good roads or

water-carriage, this quantity could not be sold.

Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood : they are said too to be less

wholesome. The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where they are

consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.

The price of wood, again, varies with the state of agriculture, nearly in

the same manner, and exactly for the same reason, as the price of cattle. In

its rude beginnings, the greater part of every country is covered with wood,

which is then a mere incumbrance, of no value to the landlord, who would

gladly give it to any body for the cutting. As agriculture advances, the

woods are partly cleared by the progress of tillage, and partly go to decay

in consequence of the increased number of cattle. These, though they do not

increase in the same proportion as corn, which is altogether the acquisition

of human industry, yet multiply under the care and protection of men, who

store up in the season of plenty what may maintain them in that of scarcity

; who, through the whole year, furnish them with a greater quantity of food

than uncultivated nature provides for them; and who, by destroying and

extirpating their enemies, secure them in the free enjoyment of all that she

provides.Numerous herds of cattle, when allowed to wander through the woods,

though they do not destroy the old trees, hinder any young ones from coming

up ; so that, in the course of a century or two, the whole forest goes to

ruin. The scarcity of wood then raises its price. It affords a good rent ;

and the landlord sometimes finds that he can scarce employ his best lands

more advantageously than in growing barren timber, of which the greatness of

the profit often compensates the lateness of the returns. This seems, in the

present times, to be nearly the state of things in several parts of Great

Britain, where the profit of planting is found to be equal to that of either

corn or pasture. The advantage which the landlord derives from planting can

nowhere exceed, at least for any considerable time, the rent which these

could afford him ; and in an inland country, which is highly cuitivated, it

will frequently not fall much short of this rent. Upon the sea-coast of a

well-improved country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be had for fuel, it

may sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timber for building from less

cultivated foreign countries than to raise it at home. In the new town of

Edinburgh, built within these few years, there is not, perhaps, a single

stick of Scotch timber.

Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals is such that the expense

of a coal fire is nearly equal to that of a wood one we may be assured, that

at that place, and in these circumstances, the price of coals is as high as

it can be. It seems to be so in some of the inland parts of England,

particularly in Oxfordshire, where it is usual, even in the fires of the

common people, to mix coals and wood together, and where the difference in

the expense of those two sorts of fuel cannot, therefore, be very great.

Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere much below this highest price.

If they were not, they could not bear the expense of a distant carriage,

either by land or by water. A small quantity only could be sold; and the

coal masters and the coal proprietors find it more for their interest to

sell a great quantity at a price somewhat above the lowest, than a small

quantity at the highest. The most fertile coal mine, too, regulates the

price of coals at all the other mines in its neighbourhood. Both the

proprietor and the undertaker of the work find, the one that he can get a

greater rent, the other that he can get a greater profit, by somewhat

underselling all their neighbours. Their neighbours are soon obliged to sell

at the same price, though they cannot so well afford it, and though it

always diminishes, and sometimes takes away altogether, both their rent and

their profit. Some works are abandoned altogether ; others can afford no

rent, and can be wrought only by the proprietor.

The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any considerable time, is.

like that of all other commodities, the price which is barely sufficient to

replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be

employed in bringing them