THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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The gross revenue of all the inhabitants of a great countrycomprehends the whole annual produce of their land and la-bour; the neat revenue, what remains free to them after de-ducting the expense of maintaining; first, their fixed, andsecondly, their circulating capital; or what, without en-croaching upon their capital, they can place in their stock re-served for immediate consumption, or spend upon their sub-sistence, conveniencies, and amusements. Their real wealthtoo is in proportion, not to their gross, but to their neat re-venue.

The whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital, mustevidently be excluded from the neat revenue of the society.Neither the materials necessary for supporting their usefulmachines and instruments of trade, their profitable buildings,&c. nor the produce of the labour necessary for fashioningthose materials into the proper form, can ever make any partof it. The price of that labour may indeed make a part of it;as the workmen so employed may place the whole value oftheir wages in their stock reserved for immediate consump-tion. But in other sorts of labour, both the price and theproduce go to this stock; the price to that of the workmen,the produce to that of other people, whose subsistence, con-veniencies, and amusements are augmented by the labour ofthose workmen.

The intention of the fixed capital is to increase the pro-ductive powers of labour, or to enable the same number of la-bourers to perform a much greater quantity of work. In afarm where all the necessary buildings, fences, drains, com-munications, &c. are in the most perfect good ovder, the samenumber of labourers and labouring cattle will raise a muchgreater produce, than in one of equal extent and equallygood ground, but not furnished with equal conveniencies. Inmanufactures, the same number of hands, assisted with thebest machinery, will work up a much greater quantity ofgoods than with more imperfect instruments of trade. Theexpense which is properly laid out upon a fixed capital of anykind, is always repaid with great profit, and increases theannual produce l>y a much greater value than that of thesupport which such improvements require. This support,however, still requires a certain portion of that produce. Acertain quautity ol materials, and the labour of a certainnumber of workmen, both of which might have been imme-diately employed to augment the food, clothing, and lodging,

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