cultivation of the earth ought not to be superseded by a passion for commerce."* The great features of Colbert's policy are still more strongly and distinctly marked in the following slight outline of Mr. Smith. "Accustomed by the habits of his education to regulate the different departments of public offices, and to establish the necessary checks and controls for confining each to its proper sphere, Colbert endeavoured to regulate the industry and commerce of a great country upon the same model; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints. He was not only disposed, like other European ministers, to encourage more the industry of the towns than that of the country, but in order to support the industry of the towns, he was willing even to depress and keep down that of the country. In order to 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 thus excluded the inhabitants of the country from every foreign market, for by far the most important part of the produce of their industry. This prohibition, joined to the restraints imposed by the ancient provincial laws of France, upon the trans-portation of corn from one province to another, and to the arbitrary and degrading taxes which are levied upon the cultivators in almost all the provinces, discouraged and kept down the agriculture of that country very much below the state to which it would naturally have risen in so very fertile a soil, and so very happy a climate. This state of discouragement and depression was felt more or less in every different part of the country, and many different inquiries were set on foot concerning the causes of it. One of those causes appeared to be the preference given by the institutions of Colbert to the industry of the towns above that of the country;"† or, in other words, to Manufactures in preference to Agriculture. *[L. 1.] +Wealth of Nations, B. IV. c. ix.; Vol. III. pp. 2, 3, teuth edition.] The result of these speculations in France, was the Economical system of M. Quesnai, of which I shall have occasion to treat afterwards, and which Mr. Smith accuses of a fundamental error, the reverse of that which misled Colbert, but equally wide of the truth;-the error of undervaluing that species of industry to which Colbert had in a great measure confined his encouragement. It is not necessary for me at present to inquire how far Mr. Smith's censure, in this instance, is well founded. I confess, for my own part, that he appears to me to have carried it too far, and that I think his criticisms apply rather to the language which the Economists have used, than to the substance of their doctrine when fully unfolded. One indisputable conclusion, at least, results from the facts which they have stated, that however powerfully manufactures may tend to stimulate agriculture under the influence of wise and equal laws, it is possible, not only for the former to flourish without a correspondent progress in the latter, but that the comparative encouragement which they receive from Government may be so great, as to withdraw from the other its natural share of capital and of industry. It will appear afterwards, that the advantages of manufactures in encouraging agricultural industry, are explicitly acknowledged, and indeed strongly stated, by all the Economical writers; and therefore, their opinions must not be confounded with those maintained by Mr. Arthur Young, in his Agricultural Survey of France, where he asserts that "there is something in manufactures pestiferous to agriculture.” It is remarkable, indeed, of this author, (to whose industry and activity the public unquestionably lies under great obligations,) that notwithstanding the asperity with which he generally speaks, particularly in his later works, of the Economists, he has carried that part of their system which Mr. Smith considers as the most paradoxical of the whole, far beyond the limits assigned to it by their principles. As the illustrations, however, which Mr. Young has collected, are interesting and valuable, I shall (agreeably to my general plan) select some of the most strik* [That is, his Travels in France.] ing facts which he has mentioned in support of his argument; although my knowledge of local circumstances is much too imperfect to enable me to remove completely the objections which they may suggest to some of the foregoing reasonings. "The greatest fabrics of France are the cottons and woollens of Normandy, the woollens of Picardy and Champagne, the linens of Brittany, and the silks and hardware of the Lyonnais. Now, if manufactures be the true encouragement of agriculture, the vicinity of these great fabrics ought to be the best cultivated districts in the kingdom, whereas the fact is very strikingly the reverse. Considering the fertility of the soil, which is great, Picardy and Normandy are among the worst cultivated countries I have seen. The immense fabrics of Abbeville and Amiens have not caused the enclosure of a single field, or the banishment of fallows from a single acre. Go from Elbœuf to Rouen, if you would view a desert; and the Pays de Caux, possessing one of the richest soils in the world, with manufactures in every hut and cottage, presents one continued scene of weeds, filth, and beggary; a soil so villanously managed, that if it were not naturally of an inexhaustible fertility, it would long ago have been utterly ruined. The agriculture of Champagne is miserable, even to a proverb: I saw there great and flourishing manufactures, and cultivation in ruins around them. In Brittany, which affords but one spectacle, that of a dreary, desolate waste, you find yourself in the midst of one of the greatest linen manufactures in Europe, and throwing your eye around the country, can scarcely believe the inhabitants are fed by agriculture; if they subsisted by the chase of wild animals, their country might be as well cultivated. From hence across the kingdom to Lyons, all the world knows the immense fabrics found there; and yet we are told by a very competent judge, M. Roland de la Platiêre, de toutes les provinces de France le Lyonnais est le plus misérable.' What I saw of it gave me little reason to question the assertion. The remark of another French writer makes the experiment double. L'Artois est un des provinces les plus riches du Royaume.-C'est une vérité incontestable... elle ne possède point de manufactures.'-I will not presume to assert that the agriculture of these districts is bad, because they abound with manufactures, though I believe it to be very much the case in the Pays de Caux; I merely state the facts. The fabrics are the greatest in the kingdom, and certainly the agriculture is among the worst."* In farther confirmation of the same view of the subject, Mr. Young refers to some facts stated in his Tour through Ireland many years ago,t with respect to the effects of the vast linen manufacture which spreads all over the north of that kingdom. “There,” says he, “I found the same spectacle that Brittany offers; husbandry so miserably, so contemptibly bad, that I have shewn by calculation the whole province converted into a sheep-walk, and feeding but two sheep per acre, would yield, in wool only, a greater value than the whole amount of the linen fabric; a circumstance I attribute entirely to the manufacture spreading into the country, instead of being confined to towns. 'Wherever the linen manufacture spreads, there tillage is bad, said that attentive observer, the Lord Chief Baron Forster. The Earl of Tyrone has an estate in the county of Derry, amidst manufactures, and another in that of Waterford, where there are none; and he assured me that if the Derry land were in Waterford, or absolutely freed from fabrics, he should clear full one-third more money from it. If we pass into England, we shall find something similar, though not in an equal degree; the manufacturing parts of the kingdom being among the worst cultivated. You must not go for agriculture to Yorkshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, or Gloucestershire, which are full of fabrics, but to Kent, where there is not the trace of a fabric; to Berkshire, Hertfordshire, and Suffolk, where there are scarcely any: Norwich affords an exception, being the only manufacture in the kingdom in a thoroughly well-cultivated district, which must very much be attributed to the fabric being kept remarkably within the city, and spreading (spinning excepted) not much into the country; a circumstance that de * [Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789; being an Agricultural Survey of the Kingdom, p. 507, seq.] † [In 1776-1779.] serves attention, as it confirms strongly the preceding observations. But the two counties of Kent and Lancaster are expressly to the purpose, because they form a double experiment: Lancaster is the most manufacturing province in England, and amongst the worst cultivated; Kent has not the shadow of a manufacture, and is perhaps the best cultivated. "Italy will furnish instances yet more to the purpose than any yet cited. The richest and most flourishing countries in Europe, in proportion to their extent, are probably Piedmont and the Milanese. All the signs of prosperity are there met with; populousness well employed and well supported, a great export without, a thriving consumption within, magnificent roads, numerous and wealthy towns, circulation active, interest of money low, and the price of labour high. In a word, you can name no circumstance that shall prove Manchester, Birmingham, Rouen, and Lyons to be in a prosperous state, that is not found diffused throughout the whole of these countries. To what is all this prosperity to be ascribed ? Certainly not to manufactures, because they possess hardly the trace of a fabric. There are a few of no consideration at Milan, and there are in Piedmont the silk-mills, to give the first hand to that product, but on the whole to an amount so very trifling, that both countries must be considered as without fabrics. They are equally without commerce, being excluded from the sea; and though there is a navigable river that passes through both these territories, yet no use is made of it, for there are five sovereigns between Piedmont and its mouth, all of whom lay duties on the transit of every sort of merchandise. As these two countries do not owe their riches to manufactures or coinmerce, so undoubtedly they are not indebted for them to any peculiar felicity in their governments. Both are despotisms; and the despot of Milan makes that country a beast of burden to Germany; the revenues are remitted to Vienna, and the clothes, even for the troops, paid by Milan, come from Germany. The origin and the support of all the wealth of these countries are to be found in agriculture alone, which is carried to such perfection, as to prove that it is equal to the sole support of a |