318 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

bably more difficult than in one in which the inferior ranks ofpeople have no other maintenance but what they derive fromthe employment of such a capital . The idleness of the greaterpart of the people who are maintained by the expense of re-venue, corrupts, it is probable, the industry of those who oughtto be maintained by the employment of capital, and rendersit less advantageous to employ a capital there than in otherplaces. There was little trade or industry in Edinburgh be-fore the Union. When the Scotch parliament was no longerto be assembled in it, when it ceased to be the necessary re-sidence of the principal nobility and gentry of Scotland , itbecame a city of some trade and industry. It still continues,however, to be the residence of the principal courts of justicein Scotland , of the boards of customs and excise, &c. A con-siderable revenue, therefore, still continues to be spent in it.In trade and industry it is much inferior to Glasgow , of whichthe inhabitants are chiefly maintained by the employment ofcapital. The inhabitants of a large village, it has sometimesbeen observed, after having made considerable progress inmanufactures, have become idle and poor, in consequence ofa great lord’s having taken up his residence in their neigh-bourhood.

The proportion between capital and revenue, therefore,seems everywhere to regulate the proportion between indus-try and idleness. Wherever capital predominates, industryprevails: wherever revenue, idleness. Every increase ordiminution of capital, therefore, naturally tends to increase ordiminish the real quantity of industry, the number of produc-tive hands, and consequently the exchangeable value of theannual produce of the land and labour of the country, thereal wealth and revenue of all its inhabitants.

Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished byprodigality and misconduct.

Whatever a person saves from his revenue he adds to hiscapital, and either employs it himself in maintaining an ad-ditional number of productive hands, or enables some otherperson to do so, by lending it to him for an interest, that is,for a share of the profits. As the capital of an individual canbe increased only by what he saves from his annual revenueor his annual gains, so the capital ol a society, which is thesame with that of all the individuals who compose it, can beincreased only in the same manner.

Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the