590

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

does take place among all the different classes of them.Though the same capital never will maintain the same quan-tity of productive labour in a distant as in a near employ-ment, yet a distant employment may be as necessary for thewelfare of the society as a near one ; the goods which thedistant employment deals in being necessary, perhaps, forcarrying on many of the nearer employments. But if the pro-fits of those who deal in such goods are above their properlevel, those goods will be sold dearer than they ought to be,or somewhat above their natural price, and all those engagedin the nearer employments will be more or less oppressed bythis high price. Their interest, therefore, in this case, requiresthat some stock should be withdrawn from those nearer em-ployments, and turned towards that distant one, in order toreduce its profits to their proper level, and the price of thegoods which it deals in to their natural price. In this extra-ordinary case, the public interest requires that some stockshould be withdrawn from those employments which in or-dinary cases arc more advantageous, and turned towards onewhich in ordinary cases is less advantageous to the public :and in this extraordinary case, the natural interests and in-clinations of men coincide as exactly with the public interestas in all other ordinary cases, and lead them to withdrawstock from the near, and to turn it towards the distant em-ployment.

It is thus that the private interests and passions of indi-viduals naturally dispose them to turn their stock towards theemployments which in ordinary cases are most advantageousto the society. But if from this natural preference they shouldturn too much of it towards those employments, the fall ofprofit in them and the rise of it in all others immediatelydispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without anyintervention of law, therefore, the private interests and pas-sions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute thestock of every society, among all the different employmentscarried on in it, as nearly as possible in the proportion whichis most agreeable to the interest of the whole society.

All the different regulations of the mercantile system ne-cessarily derange more or less this natural and most advan-tageous distribution of stock. But those which concern thetrade to America and the East Indies derange it perhaps morethan any other; because the trade to those two great conti-nents absorbs a greater quantity of stock than any two other