belong chiefly to British merchants, which is most probably the case, we suppose that, through the competition of trade, they get no higher profits than are obtained in other branches of mercantile business; and that if this circuitous commerce were given up, they would get the same, or nearly the same, profits in some other employment. However, as the colonial trade is large, and the capital which might be thus disengaged from it would, perhaps, be considerable, one effect would be to diminish in a degree the sources of profitable employment for capital; to render it more abundant in proportion to the want of it, and reduce the rate of the return on the whole amount of capital in the country. This diminution of the profits of capital, without an increase in its amount, must lower in a degree the circumstances of the capitalist, while it would benefit all other classes. There would be more capital available for direct production at home in agriculture, or manufactures; cultivation would be extended and heightened; manufacturing industry would be carried on to greater advantage; and the increased quantity of home productions thus created would serve to purchase the same, or nearly the same, quantity of sugar as was before procurable by means of the profits on the capital employed in carrying on the circuitous commerce between Russia and the colonies. Since the abundance of productive capital at home must diminish the rate of its return, we may suppose that, at first, the increased quantity of British goods created by the capital set free from the colonial trade, would purchase a somewhat smaller quantity of sugar than its profit in that trade previously purchased. But the ultimate effect of the greater abundance and cheapness of goods at home must be to increase the quantity and reduce the price of sugar. For the expense of growing sugar consists partly in the sum which is paid for the clothing and other things required on the plantations which are had from England; partly, likewise, in the sum which is paid for Russian linens. If the price of these is lowered, the price of sugar will fall; and, ultimately, we may conclude that England would get as much sugar as before, and no loss be sustained by her whatever; whilst a clear gain must accrue, both to the colonies and to Russia, from the quicker and less expensive

conveyance of goods from one of these countries to the other. A quantity of capital thus set free from a useless occupation, and employed in direct production, cannot but be beneficial to some one. That it should be ultimately injurious to England seems highly improbable: the more reasonable conclusion to be deduced from an increased quantity of goods at home, and a reduction in the price of sugar, is, that it must benefit the country generally.

Different however would be the result, of thus shortening the course of trade between the colonies and Russia, to the owners of the docks, wharfs, and warehouses in the port of London. The sugar consumed in Russia, and the linen consumed in the colonies, would disappear altogether from this country, and the dock and warehouse charges now paid here by the Russian and colonial consumers would be lost to the proprietors. The great revenue derived from these docks and warehouses is caused chiefly by the peculiarity of their situation, which enables the proprietors to demand a monopoly price for their use. they should be no longer so much in request, the advantages of this monopoly would be diminished, and though the buildings and works would remain, and might perhaps be employed in some other way, they could not be expected to yield so large a profit.

When

The possession of colonies opens a wide source of employment and enterprise in the cultivation of their soils, and the trade with them an ample field for the capital and labour of the mother country. It is one, too, which is secure from injury from the measures of state of other governments. In thus opening a wide and profitable opportunity of enterprise for a large portion of the national capital and labour, it increases the productiveness of industry, and raises the average rate of profits and wages at home. Without this field, the over-supplied state of domestic industry, the narrowly-limited extent of the national territories, and the poverty of the native soil, which must be cultivated to support an advancing population, would cause a falling off in the rate of wages and profits. No country was ever yet so favourably circumstanced in this respect as our own. The vast expansion which our extensive, fertile, diversified, and favourably situated

colonies permit to our capital and population, give the means of advancing our industry and opulence for unnumbered ages to come. Mr. Rush, the late minister of the United States in London, thus forcibly describes these advantages :— "Britain exists all over the world in her colonies. They are portions of her territory more valuable than if joined to her island. The sense of distance is destroyed by her command of ships. Situated on every continent, lying in every latitude, these her out-dominions make her the centre of a trade already vast, and perpetually augmenting-a home trade, and a foreign trade, for it yields the riches of both, as she controls it at her will. They take off her redundant population, yet make her more populous; and are destined, under the policy already commenced towards them, and which in time she will far more extensively pursue, to expand her empire, commercial, manufacturing, and maritime, to dimensions to which it would not be easy to affix limits.”*

SECTION III.

On the Foreign Trade.

We have now to examine the peculiar and distinguishing nature and effects of foreign trade.

"The commerce of one country with another," to use the words of Mr. Mill," is merely an extension of that division of labour by which so many benefits are conferred on the human race. As the same country is rendered richer by the trade of one province with another; as its labour becomes thus infinitely more divided and more productive than it could otherwise have been; and as the mutual interchange of all those commodities which one province has and another wants, multiplies the accommodations and comforts of the whole, and the country becomes thus in a wonderful degree more opulent and happy; so the same beautiful train of consequences is observable in the world at large, that vast empire of which the different kingdoms may be regarded as the provinces. In this magnificent empire, one * V. Mr. Scrope, p. 377.

province is favourable to the production of one species of produce, and another province to another. By their mutual intercourse, mankind are enabled to distribute their labour as best fits the genius of each particular country and people. The industry of the whole is thus rendered incomparably more productive; and every species of necessary, useful, and agreeable accommodation is obtained in much greater abundance, and with infinitely less expense."*

Foreign commerce contributes in a peculiar manner to that important requisite to the full development of the powers of industry-the enlargement of the market for its products.

By this enlargement of the market, the means are given not only of arranging a more minute and accurate division of employment amongst the people of the same country, but of bringing within its sphere the inhabitants of different countries, who are placed under widely different circumstances; thus establishing, at once, a more minute home division in each country, and an international division, which, from its magnitude, extent, and the variety of productions it brings within our reach, is even more beneficial in its consequences than the home division. this way, foreign commerce gives the means of heightening all the advantages arising from the division of labour; allowing, not only individuals, but nations, to confine themselves almost exclusively to those branches of industry in which from situation, climate, or other circumstances, they possess some natural or acquired superiority, and to abandon those in which they labour under a relative inferiority.

"If the people of England have acquired greater skill than their neighbours in working up cotton, while those of France excel in manufacturing silk, then, between the two countries a mechanical division of employment, mutually beneficial, may be established. By England's confining herself to the fabricating of cottons, and France to the fabricating of silks, these articles of clothing may be produced in greater abundance, than if each country directed its labour and capital to the occupation. more peculiar to the other. Again, while the mines and coalpits of England give her peculiar facilities in procuring and • Commerce Defended, p. 38.

working up tin and iron, and while the soil and climate of France give her peculiar advantages in producing wine and fruit, a territorial division of employment, mutually beneficial, may be established between the two countries: England, by working her mines, and exchanging her metals for the produce of the French vineyards, will obtain a much greater quantity of wine, than if she attempted to cultivate the grape at home, beneath an uncongenial sky; and France, by exchanging her wine for the hardware of England, will obtain a much more abundant supply of these articles, than if she attempted to work the metals for herself."

Money, from its nature, is that commodity, if it may be so called, which is most generally bought and sold. When in any country it is cheap, other commodities are dear. Gold is cheap, when commodities will purchase a large quantity of it, or, which is the same thing, when a great quantity of it is required to purchase commodities, commodities then being dear; and vice versa. It is obvious, that those commodities alone can be exported, which are cheaper in the country from which they go, than in the country to which they are sent; and that those commodities alone can be imported, that are dearer in the country to which they come, than in the country from which they are sent. No goods can be exported from any country, unless they sell for more gold in the country to which they are consigned than they have cost, including the premium, if any, that must be paid for a bill of exchange; and no goods can be imported into any country, unless they sell there for more gold than they have cost in the country whence they are brought, including that premium, if any. When the value of gold, therefore, is low in England, it will be exported thence, on the principle that all commodities which are free to seek a market, go from the place where they are cheap, to the place where they are dear. But as, in the fact that gold is cheap, is implied the correlative and inseparable fact that other commodities at the same time are dear, it follows, that, when gold is exported, few other commodities can be exported, and that none whatever could be exported, if the value

Col. Torrens on Production, p. 249.