THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

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not being sufficient for the whole accession of business, whichsnch acquisitions present to the different people among whomit is divided, is applied to those particular branches onlywhich afford the greatest profit. Part of what had before beenemployed in other trades is necessarily withdrawn from them,and turned into some of the new and more profitable ones.In all those old trades, therefore, the competition comes tobe less than before. The market comes to be less fully sup-plied with many different sorts of goods. Their price neces-sarily rises more or less, and yields a greater profit to thosewho deal in them, who can, therefore, afford to borrow at ahigher interest. For some time after the conclusion of thelate war, not only private people of the best credit, but someof the greatest companies in London , commonly borrowed atfive per cent, who before that had not been used to pay morethan four, and four and a half per cent. The great accessionboth of territory and trade, by our acquisitions in NorthAmerica and the West Indies , will sufficiently account forthis, without supposing any diminution in the capital stockof the society. So great an accession of new business tobe carried on by the old stock, must necessarily have dimi-nished the quantity employed in a great number of particu-lar branches, in which the competition being less, the profitsmust have been greater. I shall hereafter have occasion tomention the reasons which dispose me to believe that thecapital stock of Great Britain was not diminished even bythe enormous expense of the late war.

The diminution of the capital stock of the society, or ofthe funds destined for the maintenance of industry, however,i as it lowers the wages of labour, so it raises the profits ofstock, and consequently the interest of money. By the wagesof labour being lowered, the owners of what stock remainsin the society can bring their goods at less expense to marketthan before, and less stock being employed in supplying themarket than before, they can sell them dearer. Their goodscost them less, and they get more for them. Their profits,therefore, being augmented at both ends, can well afford alarge interest. The great fortunes so suddenly and so easilyacquired in Bengal and the other British settlements in theEast Indies, may satisfy us that, as the wages of labour arevery low, so the profits of stock are very high in those ruinedcountries. The interest of money is proportionably so. InBengal, money is frequently lent to the farmers at forty, fifty,