THE WEA l.Ttl OF NATIONS.

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every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon theliberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he bestowed uponcertain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, whilehe laid others under as extraordinary restraints, lie was notonly disposed, like other European ministers, to encouragemore the industry of the towns than that of the country, but,in order to support the industry of the towns, he was willingeven to depress and keep down that of the country. In orderto render provisions cheap to the inhabitants of the towns,and thereby to encourage manufactures and foreign commerce,he prohibited altogether the exportation of corn, and thusexcluded the inhabitants of the country from every foreignmarket for by far the most important part of the produce oftheir industry. This prohibition, joined to the restraints im-posed by the ancient provincial laws of France upon thetransportation of corn from one province to another, and tothe arbitrary and degrading taxes which are levied upon thecultivators in almost all the provinces, discouraged and keptdown the agriculture of that country very much below thestate to which it would naturally have risen in so very fertilea soil and so very happy a climate. This state of discourage-ment and depression was felt more or less in every differentpart of the country, and many different inquiries were set onfoot concerning the causes of it. One of those causes appearedto be the preference given by the institutions of Mr. Colbertto the industry of the towns above that of the country.

If the rod be bent too much one way, says the proverb, inorder to make it straight you must bend it as much the other.The French philosophers, who have proposed the system whichrepresents agriculture as the sole source of the revenue andwealth ot every country, seem to have adopted this proverbialmaxim; and as in the plan of Mr. Colbert the industry of thetowns was certainly over-valued in comparison with that ofthe country; so in their system it seems to be as certainlyunder-valued.

1 lie different orders of people who have ever been supposedto contribute in any respect towards the annual produce ofthe land and labour of the country, they divide into threeclasses. The first is the class of the proprietors of land. Thesecond is the class of the cultivators, of farmers and countrylabourers, whom they honour with the peculiar appellation‘>f the productive class. The third is the class of artificers,manufacturers, and merchants, whom they endeavour to de-