Though the profits of stock both in the wholesale and retail trade are generally less in the capital than in small towns and country villages, yet great fortunes are frequently acquired from small beginnings in the former, and scarce ever in the latter.In small towns and country villages, on account of the narrowness of the market, trade cannot always be extended as stock extends.In such places, therefore, though the rate of a particular person's profits may be very high, the sum or amount of them can never be very great, nor consequently that of his annual accumulation.In great towns, on the contrary, trade can be extended as stock increases, and the credit of a frugal and thriving man increases much faster than his stock.His trade is extended in proportion to the amount of both, and the sum or amount of his profits is in proportion to the extent of his trade, and his annual accumulation in proportion to the amount of his profits.It seldom happens, however, that great fortunes are made even in great towns by any one regular, established, and well-known branch of business, but in consequence of a long life of industry, frugality, and attention.Sudden fortunes, indeed, are sometimes made in such places by what is called the trade of speculation.The speculative merchant exercises no one regular, established, or well-known branch of business.He is a corn merchant this year, and a wine merchant the next, and a sugar, tobacco, or tea merchant the year after.He enters into every trade when he foresees that it is likely to be more than commonly profitable, and he quits it when he foresees that its profits are likely to return to the level of other trades.His profits and losses, therefore, can bear no regular proportion to those of any one established and well-known branch of business.A bold adventurer may sometimes acquire a considerable fortune by two or three successful speculations; but is just as likely to lose one by two or three unsuccessful ones.This trade can be carried on nowhere but in great towns.It is only in places of the most extensive commerce and correspondence that the intelligence requisite for it can be had.
The five circumstances above mentioned, though they occasion considerable inequalities in the wages of labour and profits of stock, occasion none in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages, real or imaginary, of the different employments of either.The nature of those circumstances is such that they make up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and counterbalance a great one in others.
In order, however, that this equality may take place in the whole of their advantages or disadvantages, three things are requisite even where there is the most perfect freedom.First, the employments must be well known and long established in the neighbourhood; secondly, they must be in their ordinary, or what may be called their natural state; and, thirdly, they must be the sole or principal employments of those who occupy them.
First, this equality can take place only in those employments which are well known, and have been long established in the neighbourhood.
Where all other circumstances are equal, wages are generally higher in new than in old trades.When a projector attempts to establish a new manufacture, he must at first entice his workmen from other employments by higher wages than they can either earn in their own trades, or than the nature of his work would otherwise require, and a considerable time must pass away before he can venture to reduce them to the common level.Manufactures for which the demand arises altogether from fashion and fancy are continually changing, and seldom last long enough to be considered as old established manufactures.Those, on the contrary, for which the demand arises chiefly from use or necessity, are less liable to change, and the same form or fabric may continue in demand for whole centuries together.The wages of labour, therefore, are likely to be higher in manufactures of the former than in those of the latter kind.Birmingham deals chiefly in manufactures of the former kind; Sheffield in those of the latter; and the wages of labour in those two different places are said to be suitable to this difference in the nature of their manufactures.
The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits.These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in general they bear no regular proportion to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood.If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high.When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.
Secondly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place only in the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of those employments.
The demand for almost every different species of labour is sometimes greater and sometimes less than usual.In the one case the advantages of the employment rise above, in the other they fall below the common level.The demand for country labour is greater at hay-time and harvest than during the greater part of the year; and wages rise with the demand.In time of war, when forty or fifty thousand sailors are forced from the merchant service into that of the king, the demand for sailors to merchant ships necessarily rises with their scarcity, and their wages upon such occasions commonly rise from a guinea and seven-and-twenty shillings, to forty shillings and three pounds a month.In a decaying manufacture, on the contrary, many workmen, rather than quit their old trade, are contented with smaller wages than would otherwise be suitable to the nature of their employment.
