An Essay Towards Regulating the Trade, and Employing the Poor of This Kingdom: Whereunto is Added, an Essay Towards Paying Off the Publick DebtsCary, John
History
An Essay Towards Regulating the Trade, and Employing the Poor of This Kingdom: Whereunto is Added, an Essay Towards Paying Off the Publick Debts
Cary, John
Great Britain -- Commercial policy; Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 18th century; Poor -- Great Britain
To understand this rightly, let us begin with the Shop-keeper, or
Buyer and Seller, who is the Wheel whereon the Inland Trade turns, as
he buys of the Importer and Manufacturer, and sells again to the
Country; suppose this Man spends Two Hundred Pounds _per_ Annum in
all things necessary for himself and Family, as Provisions, Cloaths,
House-Rent, and other Expences, the Question will be, what part of
this is laid out in Flesh, Corn, Butter, Cheese, &c. barely
considered according to their first Cost in the Market? I presume
Fifty or Sixty Pounds _per_ Annum to be the most, whereon the Advance
to him will not be so much by keeping up our Product to a good Rate,
as the Profits which will consequently arise in his Trade will amount
unto; For by this means the Farmer will be enabled to give a better
Rent to his Landlord, who may then keep a more Plentiful Table, spend
more Wine, Fruit, Sugars, Spices, and other things wherewith he is
furnished from the City, suit himself and his Family oftner, and
carry on a greater Splendour in every thing; the Farmer according to
his condition may do the same, and give higher Wages to the Labourers
imployed in Husbandry, who may then live better, and buy new Cloaths
oftner, instead of patching up old ones; by this means the
Manufacturers will be encouraged to give a better Price for Wooll and
Labour, when they shall find a Vent as fast as they can make; and a
Flux of Wealth causing a Variety of Fashions, will add Wings to their
Inventions, when they shall see their Manufactures advanced in their
Values by the Buyer’s Fancy; This likewise will encourage the
Merchants to encrease their Exports, when they shall find a quick
Vent for their Imports; By which regular Circulation, Payments will
be short, and all will grow rich; But when Trade deadens in the
Fountain, when the Gentlemen and the Farmers are kept low, every one
in his order feels it, It being most certain, and grounded on the
Observation of all Men who have lookt into it, That in those Countrys
where Provisions are Cheap, the People are generally Poor, both
proceeding from the want of Trade; so that he who will give a right
Judgment in this Matter, must not consider things only as they offer
themselves at the first Sight, but as they will be in their
Consequences.
As to the other part of _Great Britain_ called _Scotland_, I can say
little with Relation to this Matter, my Knowledge of that part of the
Kingdom being not sufficient to enable me to do it: But I am apt to
believe, that the same General Maxim must hold good there also,
_viz._ That the Rates of Labour must be according to the Prices of
Provisions, and those according to the Rents of the Lands.
[Sidenote: The Poor.]
Having thus gone through the State of the Nation with respect to its
Trade, I will next consider it with respect to the Poor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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