PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Agriculture, and Commerce. 471
tion, so the benefits, which indirectly arise to population
from foreign commerce, belong to this, in
common with other species of trade; together \vith
the peculiar advantage of presenting a constant incitement
to the skill and industry of the husbandman,
by the promise of a certain sale and an adequate
price, under every contingency of seascn and produce.
There is another situation, in which corn may
not only be exported, but in which the -people can
thrive by no other means; that is, of a newiy ~ettled
country with a fertile soil. The exportation of a
large proportion of the corn which a country produ"'\
ces, proies, it is true, that the inhabitants have not
yet attained to the number which the country is capable
of maintaining; but it does not prove but that
they may be hastening to this limit with the utmost
practicable celerity, which is the perfection to be
sought fDr ill a young e~tablishment. [In all cases
except those two, and in the former of them to any
greater degree than what is necessary to take off occasional
redundancies, [he exportation of corn i5
either itself noxious to population~ or argues a defect J
of population arising from some other cause. /
VI. ABRIDGMENT OF LABOUR. It has long been,
made a question, \1# hether those mechanical contri- \.
vances, which abridge labour, by performing the same \
work by fewer hands, be detriolental or Jlot to the'
population of a c;ollntry. :From what has been Je- \
livered ill preceding parts of the presen: chapter, it !
will be evident that t~lis question is equivalent to,
al10ther, \vhether ~uch contrivances dimi11ish or not (
the quantity of employment.1 The first and most ob.
vious effect undoubtedly is this; because if one man
be made to do what three men did before, t\\10 are
immediately discharged: but if, by some more gen.
eral alld rem )tcr conseqlJence, they increase the de ..
mand.·work, or, what is the same thing, prevent
t~e di.tion of that demand, in a gr~atl'~ prop?r ..
tlon rtrltn·:they contract the number of hands by whIch
it is performed, the quantity of employment, upon
the whole, will gain all addition. I U pO~l which prin-
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