duce. In their former employment
they consumed a certain portion of the food of the country and left in
return some silks and laces. In their latter employment they consumed
the same quantity of food and left in return provision for a hundred
thousand men. There can be little doubt which of the two legacies would
be the most really beneficial to the country, and it will, I think, be
allowed that the wealth which supported the two hundred thousand men
while they were producing silks and laces would have been more usefully
employed in supporting them while they were producing the additional
quantity of food.

A capital employed upon land may be unproductive to the individual that
employs it and yet be highly productive to the society. A capital
employed in trade, on the contrary, may be highly productive to the
individual, and yet be almost totally unproductive to the society: and
this is the reason why I should call manufacturing labour unproductive,
in comparison of that which is employed in agriculture, and not for the
reason given by the French economists. It is, indeed, almost impossible
to see the great fortunes that are made in trade, and the liberality
with which so many merchants live, and yet agree in the statement of
the economists, that manufacturers can only grow rich by depriving
themselves of the funds destined for their support. In many branches of
trade the profits are so great as would allow of a clear rent to a
third person; but as there is no third person in the case, and as all
the profits centre in the master manufacturer, or merchant, he seems to
have a fair chance of growing rich, without much privation; and we
consequently see large fortunes acquired in trade by persons who have
not been remarked for their parsimony.

Daily experience proves that the labour employed in trade and
manufactures is sufficiently productive to individuals, but it
certainly is not productive in the same degree to the state. Every
accession to the food of a country tends to the immediate benefit of
the whole society; but the fortunes made in trade tend but in a remote
and uncertain manner to the same end, and in some respects have even a
contrary tendency. The home trade of consumption is by far the most
important trade of every nation. China is the richest country in the
world, without any other. Putting then, for a moment, foreign trade out
of the question, the man who, by an ingenious manufacture, obtains a
double po