THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

643

lar, as well as some other goods, was always most distin-guished for its great exportation of grain. It was long thegranary of the Roman empire.

The sovereigns of China , of ancient Egypt, and of dillerentkingdoms into which lndostanhas at different times been di-vided, have always derived the whole, or by far the most con-siderable part, of their revenue from some sort of land-tax orland-rent. This land-tax or land-rent, like the tithe in Eu­ rope , consisted in a certain proportion, a fifth it is said, of theproduce of the land, which was either delivered in kind, orpaid in money, according to a certain valuation, and whichtherefore varied from year to year according to all the varia-tions of the produce. It was natural, therefore, that the so-vereigns of those countries should be particularly attentive tothe interests of agriculture, upon the prosperity or declensionof which immediately depended the yearly increase or dimi-nution of their own revenue.

The policy of the ancient republics of Greece , and that ofRome , though it honoured agriculture more than manufac-tures or foreign trade, yet seems rather to have discouragedthe latter employments, than to have given any direct or in-tentional encouragement to the former. In several of the an-cient states of Greece , foreign trade was prohibited altoge-ther ; and in several others, the employments of artificers andmanufacturers were considered as hurtful to the strength andagility of the human body, as rendering it incapable of thosehabits which their military and gymnastic exercises endea-voured to form in it, and as thereby disqualifying it more orless for undergoing the fatigues and encountering the dangersot wav. Such occupations were considered as fit only forslaves, and the free citizens of the state were prohibited fromexercising them. Even in those states where no such prohi-bition took place, as in Rome and Athens, the great body ofthe people were in effect excluded from all the trades whichare now commonly exercised by the lower sort of the inhabi-tants ot towns. Such trades were, at Athens and Rome , alloccupied by the slaves of the rich, who exercised them forthe benefit ot their masters, whose wealth, power, and protec-tion, made it almost impossible for a poor freeman to find amarket tor his work, when it came into competition with thatpt the slaves of the rich. Slaves , however, are very seldommventive; and all the most important improvements, either111 machinery, or in the arrangement and distribution of work,