be generally observed, that processes for abridging labour,
though they may enable a farmer to bring a certain quantity of
grain cheaper to market, tend rather to diminish than increase
the whole produce; and in agriculture, therefore, may, in some
respects, be considered rather as private than public advantages.

An immense capital could not be employed in China in
preparing manufactures for foreign trade without taking off so
many labourers from agriculture as to alter this state of things,
and in some degree to diminish the produce of the country. The
demand for manufacturing labourers would naturally raise the
price of labour, but as the quantity of subsistence would not be
increased, the price of provisions would keep pace with it, or
even more than keep pace with it if the quantity of provisions
were really decreasing. The country would be evidently advancing
in wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its
land and labour would be annually augmented, yet the real funds
for the maintenance of labour would be stationary, or even
declining, and, consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation
would rather tend to depress than to raise the condition of the
poor. With regard to the command over the necessaries and
comforts of life, they would be in the same or rather worse state
than before; and a great part of them would have exchanged the
healthy labours of agriculture for the unhealthy occupations of
manufacturing industry.

The argument, perhaps, appears clearer when applied to China,
because it is generally allowed that the wealth of China has been
long stationary. With regard to any other country it might be
always a matter of dispute at which of the two periods, compared,