AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING NATIONS. 221 



CHAPTER XIL 



COMPARISON BETWEEN AN AGRICULTURAL AND A MANUFAC- 

 TURING NATION. 



No nation in Europe can be called purely agricultural 

 or purely manufacturing ; in all, these characters are more 

 or less united. 



But when a nation has formed within itself centres of 

 manufacturing industry, the products of which are every- 

 where diffused, and when the existence of a large portion 

 of its inhabitants essentially depends upon the prosperity 

 of its manufacturing establishments, it is justly styled a 

 manufacturing nation ; whilst the nation which exports a 

 large proportion of the products of its soil, and has only 

 a few manufactures to supply its most urgent local wants, 

 is an agricultural nation. 



Several causes conspire in establishing this distinction. 



A nation which possesses an extensive and fertile soil, 

 capable of furnishing occupation to its whole population, 

 cannot but be agricultural ; but if its population exceed 

 the demands of agriculture, there must necessarily be 

 either an emigration of a part of it to other countries, as 

 has been frequently observed in the north, of a formation 

 of manufacturing establishments to provide them with 

 employment 



Whenever, by the revolutions which have so frequently 

 taken place in Europe, a part of the population has been 

 forced to migrate into desert countries, of an almost barren 

 soil, these colonies have in the first place drawn from the 

 soil, by labor, all that it was able to furnish, and manufac- 

 turing industry has then become a powerful auxiliary to 

 agriculture, in ensuring them a subsistence. The popula- 

 tion of mountainous countries everywhere affords exam- 

 ples in support of these principles. 



We shall even observe that in those mountainous coun- 

 tries, where the frugality of the inhabitants makes labor 

 cheap, manufacturing industry has maintained itself and 

 prospered, until machinery has superseded manual labor, 

 and made it an insufficient auxiliary in the execution of 

 products. 



Manufactures have then established themselves wherever 

 science and the mechanic arts have made the greatest pro- 

 19* 



