materials of which they are made, and the main- C H A P. tenance of the workmen who make them. They J* require too a capital of the fame kind to keep them in constant repair.

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital. The moft ufeful machines and inftruments of trade will produce nothing without the circulating capital which affords the materials they are employed upon, and the maintenance of the workmen who employ them. Land, however improved, will yield no revenue without a circulating capital, which maintains the labourers who cultivate and collect its produce.

To maintain and augment the ftock which may be referved for immediate consumption, is the .fole end and purpofe both of the fixed and circulating capitals. It is this lock which feeds, clothes, and lodges the people. Their riches or poverty depends upon the abundant or fparing fupplies which thofe two capitals can afford to the ftock referved for immediate consumption.

. So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general stock of the fociety; it muft in its turn require continual fupplies, without which it would soon. ceafe to exift. Thefe fupplies are principally drawn from three fources, the produce of land, of mines, and of fifheries. Thefe afford continual fupplies of provifions and materials, of which part is afterwards wrought v E E 2 up

BOOK up into finished work, and by which are replaced lu the provisions, materials, and finished work continually withdrawn from the circulating capital. From mines too is drawn what is necessary for maintaining and augmenting that part of it which consists in money. For though, in the ordinary course of business, this part is not, like the other three, neceflarily withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general stock of the society, it must, however, like all other things, be wasted and worn out at last, and sometimes too be either lost or sent abroad, and must, therefore, require continual, though, no doubt, much smaller supplies.

Land, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and a circulating capital to cultivate them: and their produce replaces with a profit, not only those capitals, but all the others in the society. Thus the farmer annually replaces to the manufacturer the provisions which he had consumed and the materials which he had wrought up the year before; and the manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had wasted and worn out in the fame time. This is the real exchange that is annually made between those two orders of people, though it seldom happens that the rude produce of the one and the manufactured produce of the other, are directly bartered for one another; because it seldom happens that the farmer fells his corn and his cattle, his flax and his wool, to the very fame person of whom he chuses to purchase the

clothes,

clothes, furniture, and instruments of trade which Chap. he wants. He fells, therefore, his rude produce ^ _ for money, with which he can purchase, where* ever it is to be had, the manusactured produce he has occasion for. Land even replaces, in part at least, the capitals with which fisheries and mines are cultivated. It is the produce of land which draws the fish from the waters; and it is the produce 'of the surface of the earth which extracts the minerals from its bowels.

The produce of land, mines, and fisheries, when their natural fertility is equal, is in proportion to the extent and proper application of the capitals employed about them. When the capitals are equal and equally well applied, it is in proportion to their natural fertility.

In all countries where there is tolerable security, every man of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit. If it is employed in procuring present enjoyment, it is a stock reserved for immediate consumption. If it is employed in procuring future profit, it must procure this profit either by staying with him, or by going from him. In the one case it is a fixed, in the other it is a circulating capital. A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands, whether it be his own or borrowed of other people, in some one or other of those three ways.

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BOOK In those unfortunate countries, indeed,where "A... F, _j men are continually afraid of the violence of their superiors, they frequently bury and conceal a great part of their stock, in order to have it always at hand to carry with them to some place of fafety, in case of their being threatened with any of those disasters to which they consider themselves as at all times exposed. This is faid to be a common practice in Turkey, in Indostan, and, I believe, in most other governments of Asia. It seems to have been a common practice among our ancestors during the violence of the feudal government. Treasure-trove was in those times considered as no contemptible part of the revenue of the greatest sovereigns in Europe. It consisted in such treasure as was found concealed in the earth, and to which no particular person could prove any right. This was regarded in those times as ib important an object, that it was always considered as belonging to the sovereign, and neither to the finder nor to the proprietor of the land, unless the right to it had been conveyed to the latter by an express clause in his charter. It was put upon the fame footing with gold and silver mines, which, without a special clause in the charter, were never supposed to be comprehended in the general grant of the lands, though mines of lead, copper, tin, and coal were, as things of smaller consequence.

CHAP. CHAP. II.

Of Money considered as a particular Branch of the general Stock of the Society, or of the Erpence of maintaining the National Capital.

IT has been shewn in the fire Book, that the Chap. price of the greater part of commodities re- }\_ solves itself into three parts, of which one pays the wages of the labour, another the profits of the stock, and a third the rent of the land which had been employed in producing and bringing them to market: that there are, indeed, some commodities of which the price is made up of two of those parts only, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock: and a very few in which it consists altogether in one, the wages of labour: but that the price of every commodity necessarily resolves itself into some one, or other, or all of these three parts; every part of it which goes neither to rent nor to wages, being necessarily profit to somebody.

Since this is the case, it has been observed, with regard to every particular commodity, taken separately; it must be so with regard to all the commodities which compose the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, taken complexly. The whole price or exchangeable value of that annual produce, must resolve itself into the fame three parts, and be parcelled out among the different inhabitants of

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