Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/86

funds should return to them immediately and regularly, in order that they may put them back into their businesses. The harvest must be followed without break by plowings and the sowing of the seed; the Workmen of a Manufacture must be kept in continuous employment; a fresh set of articles must be begun as soon as the first set is finished; materials must be replaced as they are being consumed. It would not be safe to interrupt the labours of an enterprise once set on foot, and they could not be taken up again just when one wished. The Undertaker has thus the greatest possible interest in getting his funds returned to him with the utmost promptitude by the sale of his crops or of his goods: on the other hand, it is the Consumer's interest to find the things he stands in need of when he wants them and where he wants them; it would be extremely inconvenient for him to be obliged to purchase his provision for a whole year at the moment of harvest. Among the articles that are commonly consumed there are many that require long and expensive labours, labours that can only be undertaken with profit upon a very large quantity of material,—so large that the consumption of a small number of men or of a limited district could not be enough to carry off the work of a single Manufactory. The undertakings which have to do with work of this kind must, then, necessarily be few in number, at a considerable distance from each other, and consequently very far from the homes of a great majority of the Consumers: there is no man above extreme poverty who is not in a position to consume several things which are neither gathered nor manufactured except in places far removed from his home and equally far removed from each