THE WEAETH O E NATIONS,

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periority of produce, which, inconsequence of this undividedattention, they are enabled to raise, is fully sufficient to paythe whole expense which the maintenance and employmentof the unproductive class costs either the proprietors, or them-selves. The industry of merchants, artificers, and manufac-turers, though in its own nature altogether unproductive, yetcontributes in this manner indirectly to increase the produceof the land. It increases the productive powers of produc-tive labour, by leaving it at liberty to confine itself to its pro-per employment, the cultivation of land ; and the plough goesfrequently the easier and the better by means of the labour ofthe man whose business is most remote from the plough.

It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultiva-tors to restrain or to discourage in any respect the industry ofmerchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The greater the li-berty which this unproductive class enjoys, the greater willbe the competition in all the different trades which composeit, and the cheaper will the other two classes be supplied, bothwitli foreign goods and with the manufactured produce of then-

own country.

It can never be the interest of the unproductive class tooppress the other two classes. It is the surplus produce ofthe land, or what remains after deducting the maintenance,first, of the cultivators, and afterward, of the proprietors, thatmaintains and employs the unproductive class. The greaterthis surplus, the greater must likewise be the maintenance andemployment of that class. The establishment ofperfectjustice,of perfect liberty, and of perfect equality, is the very simplesecret which most, effectually secures the highest degree ofprosperity to all the three classes.

The merchants, artificers, and manufacturers of those mer-cantile states which, like Holland and Hamburgh, consistschiefly of this unproductive class, are in the same mannermaintained, and employed altogether at the expense of theproprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference is,that those proprietors and cultivators are, the greater part ofthem, placed at a most inconvenient distance from the mer-chants, artificers, and manufacturers, whom they supply withme materials of their work and the fund of their subsistence,ure the inhabitants of other countries, and the subjects of othergovernments.

Such mercantile states, however, are not only useful butgreatly useful to the inhabitants of those other countries. Thev