THE PIONEERS OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY 13 



Since Adam Smith's time, economists have generally ac- 

 cepted his explanation of the prosperity of newly settled coun- 

 tries. "The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of 

 agriculture and of other useful arts, superior to what can grow 

 up of its own accord in the course of centuries among savage 

 and barbarous nations. . . . Every colonist gets more land 

 than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarcely 

 any taxes to pay." . . The application of this efficient labor 

 to the abundant natural resources is supposed to result always 

 in a large production of wealth. . . . "The colony of a civil- 

 ized nation which takes possession, either of a waste country 

 or one so thinly inhabited that the natives easily give place to 

 the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and great- 

 ness than any other human society." This explanation, 

 though it appears to account for the prosperity of new coun- 

 tries, does not in reality do so; for it quite overlooks the fact 

 that these conditions have not always resulted in rapid prog- 

 ress in wealth. The mere presence of a certain number of in- 

 dustrious people in a country abounding with fertile soil, for- 

 ests, mines, and fisheries, by no means insures a rapid develop- 

 ment of these resources and a consequent large production of 

 wealth. The economic advantages possessed by a people so 

 situated consist simply in the ability to produce food and raw 

 materials with a small outlay of labor. Before they can utilize 

 these advantages, certain favoring conditions must be present. 

 They must be able to dispose of these commodities in ex- 

 change for the commodities which they cannot so easily pro- 

 duce — in a word, they must have a market. 



Theoretically, it is possible for the new country to secure 

 this market by the development of manufactures at home, 

 whereby a non-agricultural population is created; and it 

 might conceivably be better for the community, both socially 

 and economically, to secure its market in that way. But, 

 practically, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for it to do 

 this; and in any case the process of doing it would be so slow 

 that the "advance to wealth and greatness" must be much 

 less rapid than that of new countries is commonly supposed 

 to be. Manufactures on a large scale cannot be carried on 

 without a permanent wage-earning class; and in a community 



