第106章

It was then insinuated by the school to the landed proprietorsthat it is just as foolish to establish manufactures by artificialmeans as it would be to produce wine in cold climates ingreenhouses; that manufactures would originate in the naturalcourse of things of their own accord; that agriculture affordsincomparably more opportunity for the increase of capital thanmanufactures; that the capital of the nation is not to be augmentedby artificial measures; that laws and State regulations can onlyinduce a condition of things less favourable to the augmentation ofwealth.Finally, where the admission could not be avoided thatmanufactures had an influence over agriculture, it was sought atleast to represent that influence to be as little and as uncertainas possible.In any case (it was said) if manufactures had aninfluence over agriculture, at least everything is injurious toagriculture that is injurious to manufactures, and accordinglymanufactures also had an influence on the increase of the rent ofland, but merely an indirect one.But, on the other hand, theincrease of population and of cattle, the improvements inagriculture, the perfection of the means of transport, &c.had adirect influence on the increase of rent.The case is the same herein reference to this distinction between direct and indirectinfluence as on many other points where the school draws thisdistinction (e.g.in respect of the results of mental culture), andhere also is the example already mentioned by us applicable; it islike the fruit of the tree, which clearly (in the sense of theschool) is an indirect result, inasmuch as it grows on the twig,which again is a fruit of the branch, this again is a fruit of thetrunk, and the latter a fruit of the root, which alone is a directproduct of the soil.Or would it not be just as sophistical tospeak of the population, the stock of cattle, the means oftransport, &c.as direct causes; but of manufactures, on thecontrary, as an indirect cause of the augmentation of rents, while,nevertheless, one's very eyesight teaches one in every largemanufacturing country that manufactures themselves are a chiefcause of the augmentation of population, of the stock of cattle,and of means of transport, &c.? And would it be logical and just toco-ordinate these effects of manufactures with their cause -- infact, to put these results of manufactures at the head as maincauses, and to put the manufactures themselves as an indirect(consequently, almost as a secondary) cause behind the former? Andwhat else can have induced so deeply investigating a genius as AdamSmith to make use of an argument so perverted and so little inaccordance with the actual nature of things, than a desire to putespecially into the shade manufactures, and their influence on theprosperity and the power of the nation, and on the augmentation ofthe rent and the value of the land? And from what other motive canthis have taken place than a wish to avoid explanations whoseresults would speak too loudly in favour of the system ofprotection? The school has been especially unfortunate since thetime of Adam Smith in its investigations as to the nature of rent.