330 LAND REFORM 



but to have discovered a natural law for the regula- 

 tion of the trade and commerce of the world. Fol- 

 lowing the same line, Adam Smith's inquiry was into 

 the causes of the wealth of nations, not of a single 

 nation. In his great work^ he refers at some length 

 (book IV.) to the system of the above school (Physio- 

 crats) — a system which represents the produce of the 

 land as the sole source of revenue and wealth of every 

 country, and the work of all classes other than agri- 

 cultural to be altogether unproductive. With this 

 extreme view Adam Smith does not agree. He puts 

 labour in the first place, and holds it to be, together 

 with the produce of the land, the source of wealth — 

 the source whence all the necessaries and conveniences 

 of life are universally supplied (Vol. I, " Introduc- 

 tion "). " Both productive and unproductive labourers, 

 and those who do not labour at all," he says, "are 

 equally maintained by the annual produce of the land 

 and labour of the country" (Vol. II, book ii.). Adam 

 Smith speaks highly of the French economists, as 

 " men of great learning and ingenuity," and of Ouesnay 

 himself as the "very ingenious and profound author" 

 of their system. "This system," he adds, "with all 

 its imperfections, is perhaps the nearest approxima- 

 tion to the truth that has yet been published upon the 

 subject of political economy, and is upon that account 

 worth the consideration of every man who wishes to 

 examine with attention that very important science." 

 He goes on to speak of the good these economists 

 had done by bringing under discussion many subjects 

 that had never been examined before, and by infiu- 



^ "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." 

 First published in 1776. The doctrines of the French school of econo- 

 mists were published more than ten years before this date. 



