But to accomplish this.local administration chosen by the inhabitants,whose only care should be the good of the neighbourhood,would be necessary.
The possibility of vent exists,but all that may be done to benefit by it is not done.Managers in the interest of the central authority almost all become political or financial'agents,or what is still worse police-agents.
22.Travels in France ,vol.2,page 98,Engl.
Edition.
23.This supposition is very admissible,for in England three parts of the population live in towns.and consequently are not employed in country labors.A country therefore which feeds 60million inhabitants.may be very well cultivate by 15million cultivators.the number which is computed in France at the present day.
24.The means we have of attaining,are the profits which every one obtains from his industry,his capital.and land.Consumers,who have neither industry,nor capital,nor land,spend what they take away from the profit of the former.In every ease each person has an income which has a limit.and although those persons who have a very large income can sacrifice large sums of money for very trifling pleasures,still it may be conceived the dearer the pleasure the less it is sought after.
25.If he diminishes the quality,it is the same as if he raised the price.
26.New Principles,book iv.chap.4.
27.The workman can only continue to work so long as he can subsist by his labor;and when his subsistence is too dear,it is not convenient to any enterpriser to employ him.Then it may be said,in Political Economy.that the workman no longer .supplies his productive labor,although he offers it with great earnestness;but this offer is not acceptable on the only durable conditions on which it can be performed.
28.Mr.Ricardo pretends that in spite of taxes and other obstructions,there is always as much industry as capital employed and that all capitals saved are still employed because capitalists will not lose the interest.There are,on the contrary,many savings unemployed on account of the difficulty in employing them,or being employed are lost in consequence of bad management.Besides,Mr.Ricardo is contradicted by what happened to us in 1813,when the faults of the government ruined all commerce,and when interest of money fell so low,for want of good opportunities of employing it --and by what is happening to us at this moment in which the capitals sleep at the bottom of the coffers of capitalists.
--The Bank of France alone has 223millions in specie in its coffers;a sum.more than double the amount of the notes in circulation,and six times greater than prudence warrants to be kept for casual payments.
29.See the report upon the situation of France,made in 1813,by the then Minister of the Interior.He was interested in disguising this decline of commerce 30.Humbolt's Essay on New Spain,vol.iii,page 183.
31.See Malthus's Essay on Population,book ii,chap.11,of the French translation,and chap.13of the 5th English edition.
32.Mr Malthus,still convinced that there are classes who render service to society simply by consuming without producing,would consider it a misfortune if the whole or a great part of the English national debt were paid off.This circumstance would,on the contrary,in my opinion be very favorable for England,because the result would be that the stock-holder,being paid off,would obtain some income from their capitals.That those who pay taxes would themselves spend the 40millions sterling which they now pay to the creditors of the State.That the 40million of taxes being taken off,all productions would be cheaper,and the consumption would considerably increase;that it would give work to the laborer,in place of sabre cuts,which are now dealt out to them;and I confess that these consequences do not appear to me of a nature to terrify the friends of public welfare.
33.Page 498.
34.The manufactured labors which a new state can perform to the greatest .advantage,are in general those of preparing matter from its rough state,or inexpensive commerce.It is not probable that the United States will ever furnish Europe with cloth,but they will perhaps furnish it with manufactured tobacco,and refined sugar:and who knows that they will not succeed in establishing cotton manufactories at a cheaper rate than England?
35.Considerations on the Policy of Entails,page 14.
36."When a machine is invented,which by saving manual labor brings the commodities to a lower price the ordinary effect is an increase in the demand,so that the total value of the quantity of commodities thus made far exceeds the total former value of the same commodities;whereby the number of workmen employed in the manufacture is increased rather than diminished."Malthus's Principles of Political Economy ,page 402.
"But we must admit that the principal advantage arising from the substitution of machines for manual labor.depends upon the extent of the sale.and the encouragement which results from it for consumption,and that without this the advantage of this substitution is all but lost."Page 412.
37.New Principles of Political Economy,vol.2,page 317.
38.Book 1.Chap.4.
39."It is therefore evident that the value of commodities,that is,the sacrifice in labor or in any other article which persons consent to make to obtain them in exchange,"etc.Malthus'Principles of Political Economy .page 341.English Edition.
40.See the Notes added by me to the French Translation by M.Constance,of Mr.Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy .
41.Mr.Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy ,2d.English Edition.chap.20.
