will suppose any effect
of this kind to be compensated by improvements in the instruments of
agriculture, and the quantity of provisions therefore to remain the
same. Improvements in manufacturing machinery would of course take
place, and this circumstance, added to the greater number of hands
employed in manufactures, would cause the annual produce of the labour
of the country to be upon the whole greatly increased. The wealth
therefore of the country would be increasing annually, according to the
definition, and might not, perhaps, be increasing very slowly.

The question is whether wealth, increasing in this way, has any
tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. It is a
self-evident proposition that any general rise in the price of labour,
the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a nominal rise,
as it must very shortly be followed by a proportional rise in the price
of provisions. The increase in the price of labour, therefore, which we
have supposed, would have little or no effect in giving the labouring
poor a greater command over the necessaries and conveniences of life.
In this respect they would be nearly in the same state as before. In
one other respect they would be in a worse state. A greater proportion
of them would be employed in manufactures, and fewer, consequently, in
agriculture. And this exchange of professions will be allowed, I think,
by all, to be very unfavourable in respect of health, one essential
ingredient of happiness, besides the greater uncertainty of
manufacturing labour, arising from the capricious taste of man, the
accidents of war, and other causes.

It may be said, perhaps, that such an instance as I have supposed could
not occur, because the rise in the price of provisions would
immediately turn some additional capital into the channel of
agriculture. But this is an event which may take place very slowly, as
it should be remarked that a rise in the price of labour had preceded
the rise of provisions, and would, therefore, impede the good effects
upon agriculture, which the increased value of the produce of the land
might otherwise have occasioned.

It might also be said, that the additional capital of the nation would
enable it to import provisions sufficient for the maintenance of those
whom its stock could employ. A small country with a large navy, and
great inland accommodations for carriage, such as Holland, may, indeed,
import and distribute an eff