must necessarily rise in proportion to the price of labour.
Relative to this subject, I cannot avoid venturing a few remarks
on a part of Dr Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, speaking at the
same time with that diffidence which I ought certainly to feel in
differing from a person so justly celebrated in the political
world.



CHAPTER 16

Probable error of Dr Adam Smith in representing every increase of
the revenue or stock of a society as an increase in the funds for
the maintenance of labour--Instances where an increase of wealth
can have no tendency to better the condition of the labouring
poor--England has increased in riches without a proportional
increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour--The state
of the poor in China would not be improved by an increase of
wealth from manufactures.


The professed object of Dr Adam Smith's inquiry is the nature and
causes of the wealth of nations. There is another inquiry,
however, perhaps still more interesting, which he occasionally
mixes with it; I mean an inquiry into the causes which affect the
happiness of nations or the happiness and comfort of the lower
orders of society, which is the most numerous class in every
nation. I am sufficiency aware of the near connection of these
two subjects, and that the causes which tend to increase the
wealth of a state tend also, generally speaking, to increase the