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They have commonly neither inclination nor fitness to enter into

combinations; and the clamour and sophistry of merchants and

manufacturers easily persuade them, that the private interest of

a part, and of a subordinate part, of the society, is the general

interest of the whole.

In Great Britain, the superiority of the industry of the towns

over that of the country seems to have been greater formerly than

in the present times. The wages of country labour approach nearer

to those of manufacturing labour, and the profits of stock

employed in agriculture to those of trading and manufacturing

stock, than they are said to have done in the last century, or in

the beginning of the present. This change may be regarded as the

necessary, though very late consequence of the extraordinary

encouragement given to the industry of the towns. The stocks

accumulated in them come in time to be so great, that it can no

longer be employed with the ancient profit in that species of

industry which is peculiar to them. That industry has its limits

like every other; and the increase of stock, by increasing the

competition, necessarily reduces the profit.