labourer. The great bulk of the food required must
be raised within our own borders. As Chalmers says, in 1832, the total
importation of corn, even in the two famine years, 1800 and 1801,
taken together, had only provided food for five weeks,[405] and could
normally represent a mere fringe or superfluous addition to our
resources. His main argument is simple. The economists have fallen
into a fatal error. A manufacturer, he observes, only makes his own
article.[406] The economists somehow imagine that he also supports
himself. You see a prosperous 'shawl-making village.' You infer that
its ruin would cause the destitution of so many families. It would
only mean the loss of so many shawls. The food which supports the
shawl-makers would still be produced, and would be only diverted to
support makers of some other luxury.[407] There would be a temporary
injury to individuals, but no permanent weakening of national
resources. Hence we have his division of the population. The
agriculturists, and those who make the 'second necessaries' (the
cottages, ploughs, and so forth, required by the agriculturist),
create the great wealth of the country. Besides these we have the
'disposable' population, which is employed in making luxuries for the
landowners, and, finally, the 'redundant' or what he calls in his
later book the 'excrescent' or 'superinduced' population,[408] which
is really supported by foreign trade. Commerce, then, is merely 'the
efflorescence of our agriculture.'[409] Were it annihilated this
instant, we should still retain our whole disposable population. The
effect of war is simply to find a different employment for this part
of the nation. Napoleon, he says, is 'emptying our shops and filling
our battalions.'[410] All the 'redundant' population might be
supported by simply diminishing the number of our cart-horses.[411]
Similarly, the destruction of the commerce of France 'created her
armies.' It only transferred men from trade to war, and 'millions of
artisans' were 'transformed into soldiers.'[412] Pitt was really
strengthening when he supposed himself to be ruining his enemy.
'Excrescence' and 'efflorescence' are Chalmers's equivalent for the
'sterility' of the French economists. The backbone of all industry is
agriculture, and the manufacturers simply employed by the landowner
for such purposes as he pleases. Whether he uses them to make his
luxuries or to fight his battles, the real resources of the nation
r