THK WEALTH OF NATIONS.

77

than in England. Such a difference of prices, which it seemsis not always sufficient to transporta man from one parish toanother, would necessarily occasion so great a transportationof the most bulky commodities, not only from one parish toanother, but from one end of the kingdom, almost from oneend of the world to the other, as would soon reduce themmore nearly to a level. After all that has been said of thelevity and inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidentlyfrom experience, that a man is of all sorts of luggage the mostdifficult to be transported. If the labouring poor, therefore,can maintain their families in those parts of the kingdomwhere the price of labour is lowest, they must be in affluencewhere it is highest.

Fourthly, the variations in the price of labour not only donot correspond either in place or time with those in the priceof provisions, but they are frequently quite opposite.

Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland than in England, whence Scotland receives almost every yearvery large supplies. But English corn must be sold dearerin Scotland, the country to which it is brought, than in Eng-land, the country from which it comes ; and in proportion toits quality it cannot be sold dearer in Scotland than the Scotchcorn that comes to the same market in competition with it.The quality of grain depends chiefly upon the quantity offlour or meal which it yields at the mill, and in this respectEnglish grain is so much superior to the Scotch, that thoughoften dearer in appearance, or in proportion to the measureof its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in proportionto its quality, or even to the measure of its weight. Theprice of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in England thanin Scotland . If the labouring- poor, therefore, can maintaintheir families in the one part of the united kingdom, theymust be in affluence in the other. Oatineal indeed suppliesthe common people in Scotland with the greatest and the bestpart of their food, which is in general much inferior to thatof their neighbours of the same rank in England. This dif-ference, however, in the mode of their subsistence is not thecause, but the effect, of the difference in their wages; though,by a strange misapprehension, I have frequently heard it re-presented as the cause. It is not because one man keeps acoach while his neighbour walks a-foot, that the one is richand the other poor; but because the one is rich lie keeps acoach, and because the other is poor he walks a-foot.