form of unsold
goods, producing (for a longer period or a shorter) nothing at all;
a portion of this is called into greater activity, and becomes more
constantly productive. But to this we must add some further advantages.
2. If the additional demand exceeds what can be supplied by setting at
liberty the capital which exists in the state of unsold goods; and if
the dealer has additional resources, which were productively invested
(in the public funds, for instance), but not in his own trade; he is
enabled to obtain, on a portion of these, not mere interest, but profit,
and so to gain that difference between the rate of profit and the rate
of interest, which may be considered as "wages of superintendance."
3. If all the dealer's capital is employed in his own trade, and no part
of it locked up as unsold goods, the new demand affords him additional
encouragement to save, by enabling his savings to yield him not merely
interest, but profit; and if he does not choose to save (or until he
shall have saved), it enables him to carry on an additional business
with borrowed capital, and so gain the difference between interest and
profit, or, in other words, to receive wages of superintendance on a
larger amount of capital.
This, it will be found, is a complete account of all the gains which a
dealer in any commodity can derive from an accession to the number of
those who deal with him: and it is evident to every one, that these
advantages are real and important, and that they are the cause which
induces a dealer of any kind to desire an increase of his business.
It follows from these premises, that the arrival of a new unproductive
consumer (living on his own means) in any place, be that place a
village, a town, or an entire country, is beneficial to that place, if
it causes to any of the dealers of the place any of the advantages above
enumerated, without withdrawing an equal advantage of the same kind from
any other dealer of the same place.
This accordingly is the test by which we must try all such questions,
and by which the propriety of the analogical argument, from dealing with
a tradesman to dealing with a nation, must be decided.
Let us take, for instance, as our example, Paris, which is much
frequented by strangers from various parts of the world, who, as
sojourners there, live unproductively upon their means. Let us consider
whether the presence of these persons is beneficial, in an _industrial_
point of v
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