COMMERCE. 



127 



There can be no doubt but that the assurance of the con- 

 sumption is the sole regulation of the crop. If the cultivator 

 be denied the opportunity of disposing of the superfluity of his 

 produ6tions, he will be careless about an abundance which 

 will not be profitable, and will confine himself to the planting 

 and rearing of what is simply necessary. When he perceives 

 that the commodities remain unsold for want of purchasers, 

 he will diminish the number of his daily labourers, and the 

 expences attendant on the improvement of the soil, invoking, 

 as his sole refuge, a scarcity, which, by fixing a regular price 

 on the different produ6lions, may repay him for his time, fa- 

 tigues, and expences. 



The heaviest and most inevitable originate in the distance. 

 As it surcharges the efFe6ts in their conveyance and transport, 

 it weakens the principle of a6livity, and utterly prevents a 

 competition with the prices of foreign productions. Great 

 Britain, as an island, has comparatively but a small distance 

 from the sea to the lands situated in the interior. France, by 

 the means of rivers and canals, facilitates the approach to 

 her ports, and in this manner acquires an advantage over other 

 rival nations, by the irresistible recommendation of an inferior 

 price. 



In Peru, the produdlions are to be brought from a distance 

 of forty or fifty leagues. In transporting them, all the delays 

 and embarrassments of roads scarcely practicable, are to be en- 

 countered ; and, as an internal consumption is entirely out 

 of the question, they are afterwards to be exposed to the risks 

 of a prolonged navigation, the extent of which, the difficulty 

 of procuring vessels, and the bulk of the merchandizes, super- 

 add 



