152 ADAM SMITH. 



the legal rate be fixed a little above the market rate. 

 This opinion has been most unanswerably exposed and 

 refuted by Mr. Bent-ham, in his admirable ( Defence of 

 Usury/ published about the time of Dr. Smith's decease, 

 v. The capital of a country can only be employed in 

 one or other of these four ways in agriculture, mines? 

 works, fisheries ; or in manufactures ; or in the wholesale 

 trade, foreign and domestic ; or in the retail trade. Dr. 

 Smith considers it clear, that agriculture puts in motion 

 most productive labourers, manufacturers next to agricul- 

 ture, then retail trade, and wholesale trade least of all. 

 He also holds that agriculture augments the capital of 

 the community most rapidly, manufactures next, then 

 retail trade, and lastly wholesale. The wholesale trade 

 he divides into three branches, properly speaking into 

 four the home trade, the foreign direct trade of con- 

 sumption, the foreign indirect or round about trade 

 of consumption, and the carrying trade. The first he 

 considers the most beneficial employment of capital, 

 because it replaces two national capitals; the second 

 and third are, according to him, less beneficial, be- 

 cause they replace one national and one foreign capital; 

 while the carrying trade replaces two capitals, both 

 foreign. I believe the views contained in this chap- 

 ter are pretty generally admitted to be erroneous, that 

 is to say, as regards the relative importance assigned 

 to different branches of trade or employments of capital. 

 This seems, as regards the comparison of agriculture, 

 manufactures, and trade, to follow, from what has been 

 stated under the third subdivision of this subject, and from 

 what is more fully explained in the Appendix. In truth 

 Dr. Smith here, as elsewhere, while he differs with the 



