gains will generally be fair and equal: where they are known to one party only, bargains will often be unequal, knowledge taking its advantage of ignorance.

10. Thus he that carries one thousand bushels of wheat abroad to sell, may not probably obtain so great profit thereon, as if he had first turned the wheat into manufactures, by subsisting therewith the workmen while producing those manufactures: since there are many expediting and facilitating methods of working, not generally known; and strangers to the manufactures, though they know pretty well the expense of raising wheat, are unacquainted with those short methods of working and thence, being apt to suppose more labour employed in the manufactures than there really is, are more easily imposed on in their value, and induced to allow more for them than they are honestly worth.

11. Thus the advantage of having manufactures in a country does not consist, as is commonly supposed, in their highly advancing the value of rough materials, of which they are formed; since, though six-pennyworth of flax may be worth twenty shillings when worked into lace, yet the very cause of its being worth twenty shillings, is that, besides the flax, it has cost nineteen shillings and sixpence in subsistence to the manufacturer. But the advantage of manufactures is, that under their shape provisions may be more easily carried to a foreign market, and by their means our traders may more easily Cheat strangers. Few, where it is not made, are

judges of the value of lace. The importer may demand forty, and perhaps get thirty shillings for that which cost him but twenty.

12. Finally, there seem to be but three ways for a nation to a quire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours this is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life, and his virtuous industry.

April 4, 1769.

B. FRANKLIN.

ON THE PRICE OF CORN, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR.

To Messieurs the Public.

I AM one of that class of people that feeds you all, and at present is abused by you all; in short, I am a farmer.

By your newspapers we are told that God had sent a very short harvest to some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favour of Old England; and that now we should get a good price for our grain, which would bring millions among us, and make us flow in money that to be sure is scarce enough.

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But the wisdom of government forbad the exportation.

Well, says I, then we must be content with the market-price at home.

No, say my lords the mob, you sha'n't have that: bring your corn to market if you dare; we'll sell it for you, for less money, or take it for nothing.

Being thus attacked by both ends of the constitution-the head and tail of government, what am I to do?

Must I keep my corn in the barn, to feed and increase the breed of rats? be it so; they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed.

Are we farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of our honest labour? And why? One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter's wedding, and proclaims to all the world, that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! Has he not read the precept in the good book, "Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn;" or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?

O, but the manufacturers! the manufacturers! they are to be favoured, and they must have bread at a cheap rate!

Hark ye, Mr. Oaf:-The farmers live splendidly, you say. And pray, would you have them hoard the money they get? Their fine clothes and furni ture, do they make them themselves, or for one another, and so keep the money among them? do they employ these your darling manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation?

Or

The wool would produce me a better price, if it were suffered to go to foreign markets; but that, Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at home, that our dear manufacturers may have it the cheaper; and then, having your selves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!

I have heard my grandfather say that the farmers submitted to the prohibition on the exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe that when the manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should also have their cloth cheaper. But the deuce a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from that day to this. How so? Why, truly, the cloth is exported; and that keeps up the price.

Now if it be a good principle, that the exportation of a commodity is to be restrained, that so our people at home may have it the cheaper; stick to that principle, and go thorough stitch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your leather, and shoes, your ironware, and your manufactures of all sorts, to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I will warrant you till people leave off making them.

Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy till England becomes another Lubberland, where it is fancied the streets are paved with pennyrolls, the houses tiled with pancakes, and chickens, ready roasted, cry, Come eat me.

I say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it, and carry it through. I hear

it is said, that though it was necessary and right for the m- y to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was contrary to law; and also, that though it was contrary to law for the mob to obstruct wagons, yet it was necessary and right. Just the same thing to a tittle. Now they tell me, an act of indemnity ought to pass in favour of the m to secure them from the consequences of having acted illegally. If so, pass another in favour of the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of example.-If so-but I say no more than I have said before, when you are sure that you have got a good principle, go through with it.

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You say, poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a higher price, unless they had higher wages. Possibly.-But how shall we farmers be able to afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn?

By all that I can learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more, if the exportation had been allowed: and this money England would have got from foreigners.

But, it seems, we farmers must take so much less, that the poor may have it so much cheaper.

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This operates then as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good thing, you will say. But I ask, why a partial tax? why laid on us farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, Messieurs the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good