acquire their riches; so that they are sure to diminish the possessions of some of their fellow-citizens as fast as they increase their own. Merchants, on the contrary, beget industry, by serving as canals to convey it through every corner of the state; and at the same time, by their frugality, they acquire great power over that industry, and collect a large property in the labour and commodities which they are the chief instruments in producing. There is no other profession, therefore, except merchandise, which can make the moneyed interest considerable, or, in other words, can increase industry, and, by also increasing frugality, give a great command of that industry to particular members of the society. Without commerce, the state must consist chiefly of landed gentry, whose prodigality and expense make a continual demand for borrowing, and of peasants, who have no sums to supply that demand. The money never gathers into large stocks or sums which can be lent at {p46} interest. It is dispersed into numberless hands, who either squander it in idle show and magnificence, or employ it in the purchase of the common necessaries of life. Commerce alone assembles it into considerable sums; and this effect it has merely from the industry which it begets and the frugality which it inspires, independent of that particular quantity of precious metal which may circulate in the state.
Thus an increase of commerce, by a necessary consequence, raises a great number of lenders, and by that means produces a lowness of interest. We must now consider how far this increase of commerce diminishes the profits arising from that profession, and gives rise to the third circumstance requisite to produce a lowness of interest.
It may be proper to observe on this head that low interest and low profits of merchandise are two events that mutually forward each other, and are both originally derived from that extensive commerce which produces opulent merchants and renders the moneyed interest considerable. Where merchants possess great stocks, whether represented by few or many pieces of metal, it must frequently happen that when they either