Til K HEALTH 01' NATIONS.

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from the old employment. To augment our shave of the colonytrade beyond what it otherwise would be, is the avowed purposeof the monopoly. If our share of that trade were tube no greaterwith, than it would have been without the monopoly, therecould have been no reason for establishing the monopoly. Butwhatever forces into a branch of trade, of which the returnsare slower and more distant than those of the greater part ofother trades, a greater proportion of the capital of any countrythan what of its own accord would go to that branch, neces-sarily renders the whole quantity of productive labour annu-ally maintained there, the whole annual produce of the landand labour of that country, less than they otherwise wouldbe. It keeps down the revenue of the inhabitants of thatcountry, below what it would naturally rise to, and therebydiminishes their power of accumulation. It not only hinders,at all times, their capital from maintaining so great a quantityof productive labour as it would otherwise maintain, but ithinders it from increasing so fast as it would otherwise in-crease, and consequently from maintaining a still greaterquantity of productive labour.

The natural good effects of the colony trade, however, morethan counterbalance to Great Britain the bad effects of themonopoly, so that, monopoly and altogether, that trade, evenas it is carried on at present, is not only advantageous, butgreatly advantageous. The new market and the new employ-ment which are opened by the colony trade, are of muchgreater extent than that portion of the old market and of theold employment which is lost by the monopoly. The newproduce and the new capital which has been created, if onemay say so, by the colony trade, maintain in Great Britain agreater quantity of productive labour than what can have beenthrown out of employment by the revulsion of capital fromother trades of which the returns are more frequent. If thecolony trade, however, even as it is carried on at present, isadvantageous to Great Britain, it is not by means of the mo-nopoly, but in spite of the monopoly.

It is rather for the manufactured than for the rude produceoi Burope, that the colony trade opens a new market. Agri-culture is the proper business of all new colonies; a businesswhich the cheapness of land renders more advantageous than:in y other. They abound, therefore, in the rude produce ofjand, and instead of importing it from other countries, theyhave generally a large surplus to export. In new colonies,