An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsSmith, Adam
General
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Smith, Adam
Economics
As by means of water-carriage, a more extensive market is opened to
every sort of industry than what land-carriage alone can afford it, so
it is upon the sea-coast, and along the banks of navigable rivers, that
industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and improve itself,
and it is frequently not till a long time after that those improvements
extend themselves to the inland parts of the country. A broad-wheeled
waggon, attended by two men, and drawn by eight horses, in about six
weeks time, carries and brings back between London and Edinburgh near
four ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship navigated by six
or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London and Leith,
frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight of goods. Six
or eight men, therefore, by the help of water-carriage, can carry and
bring back, in the same time, the same quantity of goods between London
and Edinburgh as fifty broad-wheeled waggons, attended by a hundred men,
and drawn by four hundred horses. Upon two hundred tons of goods,
therefore, carried by the cheapest land-carriage from London to
Edinburgh, there must be charged the maintenance of a hundred men for
three weeks, and both the maintenance and what is nearly equal to
maintenance the wear and tear of four hundred horses, as well as of
fifty great waggons. Whereas, upon the same quantity of goods carried by
water, there is to be charged only the maintenance of six or eight men,
and the wear and tear of a ship of two hundred tons burthen, together
with the value of the superior risk, or the difference of the insurance
between land and water-carriage. Were there no other communication
between those two places, therefore, but by land-carriage, as no goods
could be transported from the one to other, except such whose price was
very considerable in proportion to their weight, they could carry on but
a small part of that commerce which at present subsists between them,
and consequently could give but a small part of that encouragement which
they at present mutually afford to each other's industry. There could be
little or no commerce of any kind between the distant parts of the
world. What goods could bear the expense of land-carriage between London
and Calcutta? Or if there were any so precious as to be able to support
this expense, with what safety could they be transported through the
territories of so many barbarous nations? Those two cities, however, at
present carry on a very considerable commerce with each other, and by
mutually affording a market, give a good deal of encouragement to each
other's industry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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