of necessity keep in its own hands. The building of ships of war
can not safely be left to individuals; nor, perhaps, the manufac-
ture of gunpowder. However, in France, cannon, muskets, cais-
sons, and tumbrils are bought of private makers, and seemingly
with benefit. Perhaps the same system might be further extend-
ed. A government must act by deputy, by the intermediate
agency of a set of people, whose interest is in direct opposition
to its own; and they will of course attend to their own in prefer-
ence. If it be so circumstanced as to be invariably cheated in
its bargains, there is no need to multiply the opportunities of
fraud, by engaging itself in production and adventure; that is to
say, embarking in concerns, that must infinitely multiply the oc-
casions of bargaining with individuals.

But, although the public can scarcely be itself a successful
producer; it can at any rate give a powerful stimulus to indivi-
dual productive energy, by well-planned, well-conducted, and
well-supported public works, particularly roads, canals, and har-
bours.

Facility of communication assists production, exactly in the
same way as the machinery, that multiplies manufactured pro-
ducts, and abridges the labour of production. It is a means of
furnishing the same product at less expense, which has exactly
the same effect, as raising a greater product with the same ex-
pense. If we take into account the immense quantity of goods
conveyed upon the roads of a rich and populous empire, from
the commonest vegetables brought daily to market, up to the
rarest imported luxuries poured into its harbours from every part
of the globe, and thence diffused, by means of land-carriage,
over the whole face of the territory, we shall readily perceive the
inestimable economy of good roads in the charges of production.
The saving in carriage amounts to the whole value the article
has derived gratuitously from nature, if, without good roads, it
could not be had at all. Were it possible to transplant from the
mountain to the plain the beautiful forests that flourish and rot
neglected upon the inaccessible sides of the Alps and Pyrenees,
the value of these forests would be an entirely new creation of
value to mankind, a clear gain of revenue both to the landholder
and the consumer also.

Academies, libraries, public schools, and museums, founded
by enlightened governments, contribute to the creation of wealth,
by the further discovery of truth, and the diffusion of what was
known before; thus empowering the superior agents and direct-
ors of production, to extend the application of human science to
the supply of human wants. ^p0146.* So likewise of travels, or voyages
of discovery, undertaken at the public charge; the consequences
of which have of late years been rendered particularly brilliant,

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