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CHAPTER III.

Of Trade-Barter-Exchanges.

THE first stages of human industry would exhibit little inequality of wealth, and no suffering from poverty. The product of labour would be distributed from one hand to another, by the exchange of equivalents, or barter; one producer exchanging his stock with another for a different commodity, until all were supplied with comforts, and conveniences. This simple, easy, and equitable mode of exchanging equivalent for equivalent, is the natural dictate of the mind, and it is this simple principle which directs the commerce of the world, in all its complicated relations, and modifications of refinement. The intervention of coin, paper money, and other measures of value, being the mere symbols, or representatives, of the real equivalents which thus pass in exchange.

In this era of labour, extortion, injustice, and monopoly would not be known; the bulk of the commodities passing in exchange, being equally a hindrance to monopoly, and a check to injustice. Hoarding and accumulation could not be attributes of such an age. Cupidity and avarice might be felt stirring up the evil principle of the soul, to oppress its brother; but it would be confined to the restless bosom of its creator, until other modes of trade and commerce had been suggested by the ever progressive ingenuity of insatiate

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In this pastoral age of honest simplicity, which, it cannot be doubted, every indigenous people have enjoyed in their primitive era; and which was partially, even the condition of this country, upon its first settlement—we perceive the principle of justice, which ought now to obtain, in relation to the distribution of wealth, that industry should be the only measure of its own value; as the revolution of the earth round the sun, is the only true measure of time, notwithstanding the substitution of pendulums and clocks, which it governs and corrects, and which so aptly illustrates the justice of this measure of value, in respect to industry and its fruits.

Let it not be imagined that I desire to throw back society to the pastoral state, because its primitive relations disclose the principle of justice, which secures to every man a proper equivalent for his labour. We may surely profit by an analysis of the present complicated relations of society, without attempting the futile, and preposterous task of throwing it into convulsions, or stripping it of its foliage and fruits, arising from civilization and refinement.

In the process of barter, or exchange of one commodity for another, the standard, as well as measure of value, is true and invariable. He who sells fifty bushels of wheat for an acre of land, possesses a perfect knowledge of what he is to receive as an equivalent. There is no elasticity, no variation, in a given amount of wheat, land, or any other article of trade. But when the equivalents passed, are in the form of the symbols of wealth, money, whether gold, silver, or paper, certainty of standard, or measurement exists no longer. Here LAW begins to be substituted for fact, and the tremendous power of CAPITAL commences the appli

cation of its lever, to remove the relations of equity between the buyer and seller; to strip the PRODUCER of the just wages of his labour, and frequently to crush industry beneath its overpowering weight.

The only true and just medium of exchange, is gold and silver, in a commercial state of society. But this also depends on the rectitude and good faith of law makers, that they do not vitiate the coin, or vary its quality. For property depends upon the caret of value, as much as upon just weights and measures. The nominal dollar must be a dollar, as the nominal pound must be a pound, or fraud intervenes; and property is abstracted without an equivalent.

CHAPTER IV.

Of Capital-Capitalists, &c.

NATIONS no sooner become a little advanced in the production of labour, and familiar with the exchange of equivalents, in the way of barter, than they grow impatient of the restrictions of this contracted mode of commerce, to facilitate and extend which, they invent and introduce the symbols of wealth, by which means the accumulation of industry begins; wealth becomes more unequally distributed; and a new era of affluence commences, under the form of CAPITAL.

CAPITAL is the superabundant aggregate stock of labour, in the hands of individuals, government, and nations. Some writers have mystified the question by restricting it to stock, cash, ready money, or some current representative of labour, easily convertible into gold, silver, or commodities. But this meaning is too contracted. A CAPITAL may consist of land, houses, farms, stock, slaves, manufacturing machinery, or any other mode of labour, as a stock of goods, ships, stores, or cattle.

All capital, therefore, is produced by the working men of a nation, although they seldom attain to, or possess it, owing to a wrong principle, regulating the distribution of wealth, by which capital is almost solely acquired by the idle speculator, the wary monopolist, or the sordid accumulator.

Capital in itself is not an active agent of wealth,

but a passive instrument, whose ability to produce depends on its application by the hands of labour. It may engross, and monopolize, and stimulate, but it cannot produce.

Many, and very serious errors are afloat in regard to capital. A man, who is proprietor of a large property, of houses, and farms, which he rents out, fancies he produces all their crops, and pays all the taxes to government. This is delusion; it is the tenant whose labour produces the crop, and whose labour pays the tax. So the merchant fallaciously conceives that he pays all the imposts to government; whereas he pays only in proportion to his absolute consumption. He who has a large family, and no capital, pays more annually in duties, and taxes, than many capitalists worth a million. It does not now require to be demonstrated, that it is the consumer, who pays all the charges on the article consumed.

The two great constituents of the wealth of nations, are LABOUR and CAPITAL: the first may be termed the active, constant, and never failing source of wealth; the latter, the passive instrument, by which industry' multiplies its products, when properly employed and directed; but when dormant and inactive, capital possesses no utility, beyond the mere quality of being susceptible of a possible application, to the purposes, enjoyments, and comforts of life.

Capital, according to its application, may be made to repress and check-or to stimulate and advance industry. When invested in corporations and monopolies, it produces the first; and when divided and dispersed among the active sons of labour, it begets the last, the most happy and beneficial consequences. An industrious mechanic, or manufacturer, may be unable to

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