Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1811-06-27

~ cement Of manufactures, may, IL IS be-
EeTed. be satisfactorily demonstrated
And IL is also believed, that the expedien;;
nv Of such encouragement, iii a geherai
view. may be shewn to be recommenueu
by the most cogent and persuasive motives
Of national policy.
II has been maintained, that agriculture
is not ONLY the most productive, but the
only productive species of industry. INC
reality Of this suggestion. in either repec''
has. however. not been verified by any ac-
curate detail OF facts and calculations !;
and the general arguments, which are AL,
duced to prove it, are rather subtle anu
naradoxical, than solid or convincing.
Those which maintain its exclusive pro-
ductiyeness are to this effect -
Labor bestowed upon the cultivation OF
land produces enough, not only to replace
all the necessary expenses incurred III the
business. and to maintain the persons who
are employed in it, but to afford, together
with the ordinary profit on the stock CT
capital Of the farmer, a nett surplus, CT
rent for the landlord OF proprietor OF the
soil. But the labor Of artiricers does
nothing more than replace the stock which
employed them Cor which furnishes mate
rials, tools and wages and yield the ordi-
nary profit upon that stock. 1t yields
nothing equivalent to the rent Of land :;
neither does it add any thing to the total
ralue of the zchote annual produce Of the
land and labour Of the country. The ad-
ditional value given to those parts OF the
produce of land, which are wrought into
manufactures, is counterbalanced by the
value of those other parts Of that produce
which are consumed by the manufacture
ers. 1t can therefore only be by saving,
or parsimony, not by the positive product
ireness of their labor, that the classes Of
artiticers can in any degree augment the
revenue of the society.
10 this it has been answered,
4. "That inasmuch as it is acknowledge
ed that manufacturing labor re-Produces
value equal to that which is expended
OF consumed in carrying it OH, and contin
ues in existence the original stock or cap
itaI employed, it ought Oh that account "a
lone to escape being considered as wholly
unproductire that though 1t should be
admitted, as alledged, that the consump-
ton Of the produce Of the soil, by the
classes of artifcers, Of manufacturers is
exactly equal to the value added by their
labor to the materials upon which it Is
eyerted vet it would not thence follow,
that it added nothing to the revenue of
-, IN tt,p n
the annual produce Of its Land anu labor.
1.-THE consumption oijany given perioa a
mounted to sirel sam anu tie increased
value of the produce manufactured In the
same period to a like sum, the total a
mount of the consumption and production
during that period would be equal to the
tzco sums, and consequently double the va
lrle of the agricultural produce consumed.
And though the increment OF value pro-
duced by the classes Of artiiicers should at
no time exceed the value of the produce
of the land consumed by them, yet there
would be every moment, in consequence
Of their labor, a greater value OF goods in
the market than would exist independent
Of it,
2. "That the position, that artificers
can augment the revenue Of a society on
ly by parsimony, is true in no other sense
than in one which is equally applicable to
husbandmen or cultivators. 1t may be a.
like affirmed ofall these classes, that the
fund acquired by their labor and destined
for their support, is not, in any ordinary
way, more than equal to it. And hence
it will follow, that augmentations Of the
wealth OF capital Of the community Eek
eept in the instance of some eAtraordina-
~ dexterity or skilD can only proceed,
with respect to any of them, from the
savings of the more thrifty and parsimo-
NOUS.
5. "That the annual produce of the
land and labor of a country can only be
increased in two ways-by some improve
ment in the productive po7cers of the use
full labor; which actually exists within it,
m Inv Soma iporaaca in tho uuantjty If