the real price of manufactures from the decay of manufacturing art and
industry, the declension of the real wealth of the society, all tend, on
the other hand, to lower the real rent of land, to reduce the real wealth of
the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either the labour, or the
produce of the labour, of other people.

The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, or, what
comes to the same thing, the whole price of that annual produce, naturally
divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent of
land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock ; and constitutes a
revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent, to
those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are the
three great, original, and constituent, orders of every civilized society,
from whose revenue that of every other order is ultimately derived.

The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what
has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected with the
general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the
one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other. When the public
deliberates concerning any regulation of commerce or police, the proprietors
of land never can mislead it, with a view to promote the interest of their
own particular order ; at least, if they have any tolerable knowledge of
that interest. They are, indeed, too often defective in this tolerable
knowledge. They are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs
them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own
accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence
which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation,
renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application
of mind, which is necessary in order to foresee and understand the
consequence of any public regulation.