The violent operation of foreign wars or domestic disturbances, will scarce, I think, be said to be more advantageous methods of effecting this purpose, than the restrictions and bounties of the legislator.At all events such causes are continually diminishing in their frequency and the vigour of their operations, and becoming more and more beyond the reach of our calculations.For spreading the useful arts from people to people, this element confessedly of very great importance in the advance of the general welfare of mankind, there remains then, according to these principles, but the unaided efforts of private individuals alone.
It must be kept in mind, that, by the efforts of individuals, are meant, according to our author, their endeavors to better their condition; that is, as he defines it, to increase their fortunes.But, in order to add to his fortune, one must get more than he gives.No such efforts can ever lead any individual to embark in a project that will probably take more from him, than it will return to him.Now, to transfer a manufacture from one country to another, must always be a very tedious and expensive operation, for any individual to perform.The consideration of his own profit, the sole motive according to our author, which determines the owner of a capital to employ it in any undertaking, would never lead one, to engage in the enterprise of establishing a new manufacture in any country unless of such commodities as were of common consumption in it, and which he could therefore be sure to sell.Those commodities being of common consumption, and not produced within the country, must at the time be furnished by some foreign state, and, consequently, to procure their sale, he must be able to supply them, at as cheap a rate as that state.The effecting this, for reasons I have stated, would generally take more time and money, than any private individual can afford.But, granting that the funds of some private individuals could afford this requisite outlay, and that they should succeed m bringing the manufacture to such perfection as to enable them to sell the commodity on terms equal to those of the foreign merchant, or lower than his, the more difficult question is, how is this great outlay to be reimbursed?
A great part of an individual's capital has been expended.This expenditure can, evidently, be reimbursed to him only by his drawing proportionally larger profits, than he otherwise could, from what remains.To balance the extraordinary outlay, he must have extraordinary returns.
But profits far exceeding the usual rate of profit can scarcely ever be drawn, for any time from, any employment."If, in the same neighborhood, there was any employment evidently more advantageous than the rest, so many people would crowd into it, that its advantages would soon return into the level of other employments." (27) It is no doubt true, that the proprietor of such new manufacture might, sometimes, not only succeed in establishing it, but in keeping secret the great profits he made from it, for a considerable period.This is a piece of good fortune, however, which, though it might sometimes befall an individual, he could never beforehand fairly calculate on.It is much more probable that his success would be blazoned abroad and exaggerated, that several projectors would establish themselves beside him, and, by bribing his workmen with somewhat higher wages, with comparative ease, succeed in depriving him of the profits he might otherwise have drawn from his extraordinary outlay of labor and capital.(28) It may, therefore, I think, be safely laid down as a principle, that, in all ordinary cases, a due regard to their own interests cannot be a motive sufficient to prompt individuals to such undertakings.It may no doubt happen, as capitalists are every now and then engaging in injudicious projects, and such as either injure or ruin them, that some one may be imprudent enough to enter on such a project as this, and may succeed in introducing a particular manufacture, though with the loss of part, or of the whole of his capital.But, even granting that such an occurrence as this may sometimes take place, it would be far from serving to help out the theory we are discussing."Every injudicious and unsuccessful project in agriculture, mines, fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labor.In every such project, though the capital is consumed by productive hands only, yet, as by the injudicious manner they are employed, they do not produce the full value of their consumption, there must always be some diminution in what would otherwise have been the productive funds of the society." (29) This project then, being injudicious and unsuccessful, for it would have occasioned the loss of a portion of individual capital, must, by these principles, be injurious to the society.
