larger share of manufactured goods, it matters very little whether the money-price that he pays is great or small.

[4] If there were no other reason for the policy that seeks to reduce foreign commerce to a minimum, a sufficient one would be found in its effect upon the human material it employs. Bentham thought the worst possible use that could be made of a man was to hang him; a worse still is to make a common sailor of him. The life and the manly character of the sailor has been so adorned in song and prose, and the real excellences of individuals of the profession have been made so prominent, that we forget what the mass of this class of men are, and what representatives of our civilization and Christianity we send out to all lands in the tenants of the forecastle. How could they be otherwise, unless gifted with superhuman powers of resistance to temptation, since they are ordinarily shut out from all the humanizing and elevating influences of human society and its natural relationships?

And then, be it remembered, their work, while the most difficult, dangerous and severe of human employments, is also the most unproductive, the most useless. John Fitch's application of steam-power to navigation has rendered no greater service to mankind than this, of reducing the number of those who are required to conduct the interchanges of commodities between nations.

§ 208. Domestic commerce, or the interchange of services and commodities between persons of the same nation, is one of the bonds that Providence employs to bring every people into closer and firmer unity. It grows out of that differentiation of function that characterizes organisms of a higher order of life. It weaves across the country a web of intercommunication, binding part to part in the bonds of mutual service and helpfulness. The national unity rests on deeper foundations (§ 23-25), but this is one of the natural expressions of that unity, which reacts upon and strengthens the unity itself. It tends to produce that individuality of type in the part, which again produces the strong coherence of the whole body politic. In every progressive nation

TRUE AND FALSE COMMERCE.

217

this domestic commerce is continually gaining in its amount and in proportion upon commerce with other peoples. Its people are continually more and more employed in serving and helping each other-less and less in serving foreigners.

A nation that is declining in industrial coherence and independence grows faster in foreign than domestic commerce. Its people lose their diversity of pursuits, and conform more and more to a single type of character as of occupation, to the loss of true individuality. Their lines of transit run across the country in one direction,-to the seashore; they are the warp without the woof of the web. That people are sinking to a lower grade of social organization; the parts grow in likeness to each other, and their numbers, however great, are but the numerical repetition of a single specimen.

The amount of a nation's foreign commerce is therefore the worst possible test of its general prosperity. A disproportion of this to domestic commerce shows that the nation is not selfcontained and self-sufficient, but dependent upon other nations either for the supply of its necessities or a market for its labor. Yet the increased returns of exports and imports are often gravely offered in evidence of the beneficent effects of a certain course of national policy. A fair test is to be found in the average consumption of articles of prime necessity per head of the population, which continually tells quite another story.

§ 209. Every nation contains within its own providential boundaries the means of making itself independent of all others as regards the supply of articles of prime necessity. There is, therefore, no need of employing a large number of its people and a large amount of its capital in transporting those articles across the ocean. They are always of a bulky nature, and therefore manifestly unsuited for long transport.

Legitimate and natural commerce moves rather along the meridians than along the parallels of latitude. It is the interchange of the products of one climate with those of another. Its mission is to "mix the seasons and the golden hours" (Tennyson), not to "carry coals to Newcastle" by bringing to each

people the things that it could abundantly produce at home. From such natural commerce to "loose her latest chain" is the clear duty of every nation.

Or, if we take commerce in the largest sense, as meaning the whole intercourse of nation with nation, it will include the interchange of ideas, the naturalization of better political and industrial methods. And with this intellectual interchange there would naturally be associated a commerce in those articles whose artistic excellence and elaboration of workmanship cause them to present in a concentrated shape the very flower of the producing nation's intellectual life and spirit.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

THE SCIENCE AND ECONOMY OF MANUFACTURES THE

THEORY.

every other

§ 210. The progress of the industrial state, as of organized society, and indeed of organic life as a whole, is in the transition from the simple to the complex, from the state in which the parts resemble each other and the whole organism, to that in which the difference between the parts, and between the whole and the parts, is as great as possible. "As we see in existing barbarous tribes, society in its first and lowest forms is a homogeneous aggregation of individuals, having like powers and like functions; the only marked difference of function being that which accompanies the difference of sex. Every man is warrior, hunter, fisherman, toolmaker, builder; every woman performs the same drudgeries; every family is self-sufficing, and save for purposes of aggression and defence, might as well live apart from the rest" (Herbert Spencer).

With the advance of society, this uniformity disappears. From being "Jack of all trades and master of none," each member of the community confines his attention to a single pursuit, and does that one thing better and more effectively. Methods of work improve; a smaller number of workers and a less amount of labor is required to raise food for the whole community. The rest are gradually set free for other employments, some to tan skins into leather and make shoes; others to turn wool into cloth and make clothes; others to dig up iron and smelt it for tools, agricultural implements and articles of household use; others to mould clay into pottery or bricks, or quarry stone for houses; others to cut down trees and fashion them into furniture and other wood-work. Each of these trades, as the numbers of society and the consequent demand for their productions increase, is capable of continued subdivision of labor. The tanner ceases to make shoes, the carpenter to cut down

timber the weaver to spin his yarn or to fashion his cloth into garments. And at every subdivision of function, the efficiency of the workman and the skill demanded of him are increased. Arkwright, the Lancashire barber, may or may not have invented the spinning-jenny, but he stamped his name on the his tory of industry when he devised the first factory, and taught the North of England weavers and capitalists to substitute coöperation as regular as clock-work for desultory and wasteful work.

§ 211. Every change of this sort is a real gain to society at large and to each member of it. The members of the nation who had before no need or less need of each other, become more helpful and useful to each other. The farmer finds, with the artisan within reach, a ready market for his produce. He can buy with its price plenty of clothing, utensils and furniture,— plenty of the things that add to life's comfort and take away its sordidness. He can purchase improved implements that make his work easier and more fruitful. He is more closely associated with his fellow-citizens than before; every wise purchase or sale that he makes is an interchange of services, by which both parties are benefited. There is a real and growing harmony of interests between all classes; the advance of either in wealth enables the others to find a better market for what they would sell; and as wealth leads to the expenditure of larger capital and thus to more productive work, the prosperity of each enables the other to buy of it to better advantage.

§ 212. The growth of the power of association is, at the same time, growth in individual freedom. The more closely men are thus united, the more free each one is to give full play to the bent of his own character. He is not forced to make his living by an employment for which he may have no taste, and in which he can therefore never use his natural gifts to the best advantage. He can consult his liking. And men's employments and daily industries react powerfully upon general character; variety of work produces and cherishes individuality. The parts of the body politic grow in diversity from each other and from the whole body; the societary type rises with that