Essays on the Progress of NationsBaker & Scribner, 1846 - 647 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
17th century aggregate agriculture American amount annually aristocracy average balance of trade banks bar iron Belgium Britain British bushels canals causes census census of 1840 cent century church circulation civilization classes climate clothing coin comforts commerce comparatively consumed consumption copper cotton crop cultivated debt decennial degree of latitude Dict dollars duties effect elected emigrants England and Wales equal estimated Europe exports flour follows foreign France free trade freight gallons grain half imported improvements inhabitants invention Ireland iron labor land laws less machinery manufactures McCulloch mechanic arts metals millions mind mines nations nature nearly northern slave official value party perhaps period persons physical population pounds pounds sterling principal productive industry profits proportion quantity rail roads ratio of mortality Russia Scotland silver southern Spain specie square miles sterling sugar supply tariff tariff of 1842 tion tons Total twenty United wealth wheat whole wool York
Popular passages
Page 177 - To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must in almost all cases be either a useless or a hurtful regulation.
Page 73 - The French people recognize the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul...
Page 176 - The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbors, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
Page 199 - Netherlands, and about the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century was brought thence to England by protestant refugees. Lewis Roberts, in ' The Treasure of Traffic,' published in 1641, makes the earliest mention extant of the manufacture in England.
Page 176 - Whether the advantages which one country has over another, be natural or acquired, is in this respect of no consequence. As long as the one country has these advantages, and the other wants them, it will always be more advantageous for the latter, rather to buy of the former than to make.
Page 250 - United States Bank of Pennsylvania, which was soon after followed by nearly all the banks south and west of the State of New York. No other country ever felt so quickly and sensibly, and suffered so severely, the disastrous effects of excessive importations of foreign goods, and an unfavorable balance of trade; for no other country ever had so small an amount of specie in proportion to the extent of their commerce; and in no other country was the credit system ever carried to so great an extent,...
Page 405 - Of these tunnels, as they are called, there are said to be forty-eight, the entire length of which is at least forty miles." He states the total length of canals in Great Britain, excluding those under five miles, at 2,581 miles.
Page 276 - Nay, they sell the finest of their own cloth to France, and buy coarse out of England for their own wear. They send abroad the best of their own butter into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland or the north of England for their own use. In short, they furnish infinite luxury which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste.
Page 276 - ... immediately rectify by finding out that upon the end of an account between a nation and all they deal with abroad, whatever the exportation wants in value to balance that of the importation must of necessity be made up with ready money.