er and influence between landlords and tenants, which seldom exist in practice. In no other country do we see tenants so confident of undisturbed possession, as to build upon ground held on lease. Such tenants improve the land, as if it were their own; and their landlords are punctually paid; which is less frequently the case elsewhere.

The land is sometimes cultivated by persons possessed of no capital whatever, the proprietor furnishing himself the requisite capital, as well as the land. They are called in France metayers, and commonly pay to the landlord half the gross product. This arrangement is to be met with only in the infancy of agriculture, and is of all others the least conducive to improvement; for the party, who bears the expense of amelioration, whether landlord or tenant, makes the other a gratuitous present of half the interest on his advances. This kind of tendency was more common in the feudal times, than it is at present. The lords were above tilling the land themselves, and their vassals had not the means. The largest incomes were then derived from land, because the lords were large proprietors; but they bore no proportion to the extent of the land. Nor was this owing to the defect of agricultural skill, so much as to the scarcity of capital devoted to improvements. The lord felt little anxiety to improve his property, and expended, in a way more liberal than productive, an income that he might easily have tripled. He levied war, gave feasts and tournaments, and maintained a numerous retinue. If we look at the then degraded condition of commerce and manufacture, superadded to the insecurity of the agricultural interest, we need go no further for the explanation of the reason, why the bulk of the community was in the extreme of indigence; and why, independently of every political cause, the nation itself was weak and impotent. Five departments would not be able to repel attacks, which overwhelmed all France at that period: but, happily for her, the other states of Europe were nowise in a better condition.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE EFFECT OF REVENUE DERIVED BY ONE NATION FROM

ANOTHER.

ONE nation can not take from another the revenues of its industry. A German tailor, establishing himself in France, there makes a profit, in which Gemany has no participation. But, if this tailor contrive to amass a little capital, and after

the lapse of several years carry it back with him to his native country, he injures France to the same extent as a French capitalist, who should emigrate with the same amount of fortune. In a political view, the injury to the wealth of the nation is equal in both cases; but, in a moral light, it is otherwise: for I reckon that a native Frenchman, in quitting his country, robs it of an affectionate attachment, and a spirit of exclusive nationality which it can never look for in a stranger born.

A nation, receiving a stray child into its bosom again, acquires a real treasure; inasmuch, as in him it receives an addition to its population, an accession to the profits of national industry, and an acquisition of capital. It at the same time recovers a lost citizen, and the means for him to subsist upon. If the exile bring back his industry only, at any rate the profits of industry are added to the national stock. It is true, that a source of consumption is likewise superadded; but supposing it to counterbalance the advantage, there is no diminution of revenue, while the moral and political strength of the country is actually augmented. (a)

With regard to capital lent by one nation to another, the effect upon their respective wealth is precisely analogous to that, resulting upon every loan from one individual to another. If France borrow capital from Holland, and devote it to a productive purpose, she will gain the profit of industry and land accruing from the employment of that capital; and she will do so even although she pay interest; in like manner as a merchant or manufacturer borrows for the purposes of his concern, and gains a residue of profit, even after paying the interest of the loan.

But, if one state borrow from another, not for productive purposes, but for those of mere expenditure, the capital borrowed will then yield no return, and the national revenue be saddled with the interest to the foreign creditor. Such was the condition of France, when she borrowed from the Genoese, the Dutch, and the Genevese, for the support of her wars, or

If, however, this capital be the fruit of his personal frugality, he robs France of no part of her wealth existing previous to his arrival. Had he continued resident there, the aggregate of the capital of France would have been increased to the full extent of his accumulation; but, in taking the whole away with him he takes no more than his own earnings, and no value but what is of his own creation; in so doing, he commits no individual, and, therefore, no national, wrong.

(a) In the common course of things, such an addition is a national benefit, because it is an accession to the secondary source of production, i. e. industry. But defective human institutions may convert a benefit into a curse; as where a poor-law system gives gratuitous subsistence to a part of the population, capable of labour, but not incited by want. In such case, every additional human being may be a burthen instead of a prize; for he may be one more on the list of idle pensioners. T.

to feed the prodigality of a court. Yet it was better to borrow from strangers than from natives, even for the purpose of dissipation; because the amount so borrowed, was not withdrawn from the national productive capital of France. In either case, the French people would have to pay the interest;* but had they likewise lent the capital, they would have had to pay the interest, and at the same time have lost the benefit, which their industry and land might have derived from its employment and agency.

With regard to such landed property, as may belong to foreigners residing abroad, the revenue arising from it is an item of foreign, and forms no part of the national revenue. But it is to be remembered, that the foreigner can not have purchased it without a remittance of capital equal in value to the land; which capital is an equally valuable acquisition, particularly if the nation be possessed of improveable land in abundance, but of little capital to set industry in motion. In making his purchase of land, the foreigner exchanges a revenue of capital, which he leaves the nation to profit by, for a revenue of land: which he thenceforth receives; thus bartering interest of money for rent of land. If the national industry be active and skilfully directed, more benefit may be derived from the interest, than was before obtained from the rent; the purchaser, however, acquires a fixed and permanent, property, in lieu of one more perishable, transferable, and destructible. Mismanagement may soon annihilate the capital the nation has acquired; but the land remains a permanent possession of the purchaser, and he may sell it and get back the value when he pleases. There is therefore nothing to be apprehended from the purchase of land by foreigners, provided there be wisdom enough, to employ in reproduction the value received in exchange.

The particular form, in which one nation may draw revenue from another, is of no importance whatever. It may be remitted in specie, in bullion, or in any other kind of merchandise: indeed it is of the greatest consequence to leave individuals to take it in the shape, that best suits their convenience; for what suits them will infallibly be the best for both nations; in like manner as in the conduct of international trade, the commodity, which individuals export or import in preference, is that which best suits the mutual national interests.

The agents of the English East India Company draw from that country, either an annual revenue, or an accumulated fortune, which they return to England to enjoy and live upon: they take good care not to withdraw these remittances in the shape of gold or silver, because the precious metals are of more relative value in Asia than in Europe; they remit in the shape of India goods and products, on which a fresh profit is made

*It will be shown in Book III., that the interest is equally lost, whether spent internally or externally.

on arrival in Europe: every million they remit, swells perhaps to as much as 1,200,000, by the time it has reached the place of destination. Thus, Europe gains to the amount of 1,200,000, while India loses only a million. If these despoilers of India*(a) insisted on trasmitting this whole sum in specie, they must rob Hindustan, perhaps, of 1,500,000, or upwards for every 1,200,000, that England would receive. The sum may, perhaps, be amassed originally in specie; but it is always remitted in the shape of that commodity, which, for the time being, answers best as an object of transport. As long as exportation of any kind is allowed, and exportation has always been regarded by statesmen with a favourable eye, it is easy to receive in our country, the revenue and capital derived from another. And the remittance can not be prevented by the government, without the interdiction of all external commerce, which after all would leave the resource of smuggling and contraband. In the eyes of political economy, nothing is more absurd, than to see governments prohibit the export of the national specie, as a means of checking the emigration of wealth.t

* Raynal tells us, that, inasmuch as the East India Company derives a revenue from Bengal, to be consumed in Europe, it must infalliby drain it of specie in the end, since the Company is the only merchant, and imports no specie itself. But Raynal is mistaken in this. In the first place, private merchants do carry the precious metals to India, because they are of more value there than in Europe; and that very reason also deters the ser vants of the company, who may have made fortunes in Asia, from remitting them in specie.

And if it were to be suggested, that a fortune, remitted to Europe, is less substantial and more speedily dissipated, when it arrives in the shape of goods, than when in that of specie, this again would be an error. The form, that property happens to assume, does not affect its substantiality; when once transferred to Europe, it may be converted into specie, or land, or what not. It is the amount of values, and not the temporary form they appear under, which, in this colonial connexion, as in that of international trade, is the essential circumstance.

The complete interception of all export of objects of value would not help them towards the point of intent; because free communication occasions a much greater influx than efflux of wealth. Value, or wealth, is by nature fugitive and independent. Incapable of all restraint, it is sure to vanish from the fetters that are contrived to confine it, and to expand and flourish under the influence of liberty.

(a) This is a harsh word, yet probably justified by the history of the original acquisition. But the scene has now changed; the servants of the sovereign company no longer look to spoliation as a public or private resource, but are content with the liberal remuneration of laborious duties, civil, military, and financial. A slight examination of the connexion between Britain and her Asiatic dependencies will show, how small a balance is remitted to the former in any shape; and it should be remembered that part, even of this, is but the interest of loans raised in England, for the purposes of Indian administration, though not always of a wise or paternal character. T.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE MODE IN WHICH THE QUANTITY OF THE PRODUCT AFFECTS POPULATION.

SECTION I.

Of Population, as connected with Political Economy.(1)

HAVING, in Book I, investigated the production of the articles necessary to the satisfaction of human wants, and in the present Book, traced their distribution among the different members of the community, let us now further extend our observations to the influence those products exercise upon the number of individuals, of which the community is composed; that is to say, upon population.

In her treatment of all organic bodies, nature seems to despise the individual, and afford protection only to the species. Natural history presents very curious examples of her extraordinary care to perpetuate the species; but the most powerful means she adopts for that purpose is, the multiplication of germs in such vast profusion, that, notwithstanding the immense variety of accidents occurring to prevent their early development or destroy them in progress to maturity, there are always left more than sufficient to perpetuate the species. Did not accident, destruction, or failure of the means of development check the multiplication of organic existence, there is no animal or plant that might not cover the face of the globe in a very few years.

This faculty of infinite increase is common to man, with all other organic bodies; and although his superior intelligence continually enlarges his own means of existence, he must sooner or later arrive at the ultimum.

Animal existence depends on the gratification of one sole and immediate want, that of food and sustenance; but man is enabled, by the faculty of communication with his species, to barter one product for another, and to regard the value, rather than the nature, of a product. The producer and owner of a piece of furniture of 100 fr. value may consider himself as possessing as much human food, as may be procurable for that

(1) [In the original the title of this section is made the title of the chapter, and the title of the chapter the title of the section.] AMERICAN EDITOR.