nothing. On the other hand, the armed labourers, taken as a class, are entirely fed by the labours of posterity, while occupied in consuming the capital on which alone posterity can trade.

Napoleon. Bravo! Bon homme Richard; you would have a great sovereign think like an American trader, like one of your shop-keeping generals; you would send the soul of Sylla and Cæsar to the ledger; you American planters do not feel the pride of dominion and glory,-of vast territories and wide sway.

Dr Franklin. True, we are a plain race. Civil war, assassination, and proscription have no charms for our great men. We have founded an empire destined to be wider than the Roman, yet has not one drop of American blood been ever shed by treason. The language has been spread through vast regions, not as yours, imposed by your iron legions on Europe, but by peaceful colonization and extension. In the mean time, we have been honestly labouring to gain the intelligence and refinement we know we want. In despite of the general contempt of the English men of letters, my countrymen have persevered; and having become strong and rich they will become learned and wise. When that peaceful, fertile, and free land is adorned by science and the arts, when it has fixed the habit of peace on the world, and brought men to labour for production and happiness, where will be the glory of the conquerors, whose veterans, with hearts as iron as their corslets, have cut down an undisciplined enemy or trampled the peace and virtue of their own country in blood and dust. Then may come the fortunate time, when the heroes of the world, instead of ending a few years' desolation in exile or by poison, will be forced by society to remain in congenial solitude from the first, and the deity of Public Justice will again return to earth.

Napoleon. Enough, Doctor, this philosophizing is worse than Moscow.

THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

XVIII. COMMERCE, IN RELATION TO THE GENERAL INTERESTS OF SOCIETY.

NATURE having made mankind dependant one upon another for the supply of their mutual wants, the interchange of the products of their labour to this end was a thing of necessity. From this necessity commerce had its origin, and with its progress civilization advanced, industry increased, and the comforts and enjoyments of life were multiplied.

Commerce, by the means which it affords to industry for the exchange of its products, enables this, in all situations, to direct

its operations to that object, which yields the greatest return, and to the production of such articles as are most peculiarly adapted to soil and climate. Commerce encourages industry, and industry in return supports commerce; they act and react upon each other to their mutual advantage. The more industry multiplies its products, the more employment there is for commerce in their distribution. The greater the diversity of employments in a community, the greater is its industry, and the more industry is subdivided the more productive it becomes. But it is by the employment of natural powers in aid of haman labour, and by means of machinery, that production is most rapidly accelerated; and it is therefore by those public measures, which lead to these productive results, that commerce is most to be encouraged.

An apprehension, however, prevails, though without just cause, that the encouragement of domestic manufacture, by duties on the import of foreign manufacture, would restrict and curtail foreign commerce. The effect is directly the reverse. The measure increases internal industry, and with the increase of that, foreign commerce increases. There is not an article of our exports, which we should export the less of, in consequence of our importing less of foreign manufactures, excepting, perhaps, that portion of cotton, which, if we did not manufacture it ourselves, would have entered into the manufacture of the foreign cotton goods, which we should have imported. But even in respect to that, commerce is a great gainer by the measure in question; for the employment for both navigation and capital in transporting the cotton for a given quantity of goods from the Southern states for manufacture in the more Northern, is more than double what there would have been in transporting to Europe that portion of our cotton which would have entered into the manufacture of an equal quantity of goods there. And our commerce having the exclusive supply of this material for the home manufacture, but less than half the supply of it for the foreign, will gain twice as much by supplying the increasing use of it at home, as it will lose by any diminished use of it from that cause abroad.

Our exports are of the sea, the forest, mechanic arts, agriculture, and of manufacture; and what article is there, which comes under these heads, that any nation will require the less of, because we require less of British manufacture? Not one, with the previous exception of cotton. Our exports then will continue undiminished, and the net proceeds of them will be invested in foreign products, and though some of the objects of investment will be changed, the amount of investment will be undiminished. Of our foreign commerce, that is most to our advantage, which is with people, whose climates and industry are different from ours, and who take from us for their consumption the products natural

to our climate and industry, and give us in exchange therefor other products peculiar to their climates and industry.

Such is the commerce of our Northern states with the West and East Indies, South America, Africa, and the Atlantic Islands; and of our outhern States with Europe. In this trade, our industry is encouraged by the peculiar returns it gets for its reward. Of these returns, after our own wants are supplied, a large surplus remains, in which consist the profits of the trade. With that portion of this surplus, which results from the commerce of the Northern States with the East and West Indies, &c., we now enter into another branch of our foreign commerce, which is with nations, whose climate and industry are similar to ours,-the nations of Europe.

In this branch of commerce, we, in a great measure, expend the profits gained in the former branch, and we do it to our disadvantage in the purchase of various manufactures, most of which, were it not for the discouragement which the importation of them thus produces, would be furnished by our own industry. And were this industry sufficiently encouraged to do so, that surplus would then be employed to import other articles which our wants would require, instead of manufactures; but which, until that be the case, we must forego the use of, for want of the means of making the purchase.

The additions to public wealth from commerce are made up of the profits gained by the parties on both sides, in the exchange of commodities. The farmer, when he exchanges his beef, pork, and flour with the merchant for tea, coffee, and sugar, and consumes them, adds nothing to his property, although he does to his enjoyments. But when he exchanges them for money, and with that employs the builder, carpenter, and joiner to enlarge his accommodations and multiply his conveniences, he not only adds to his comforts, but he increases his wealth, and at the same time imparts benefits to the persons whom he employs.

The merchant, on his part, exports this beef, pork, and flour, and receives from abroad a greater quantity of tea, coffee, sugar, and money in exchange for them, than he gave the farmer. Of this additional quantity, that which remains after paying the expenses incurred in the operation, is the profit or product of his capital and industry, and is, to the amount of it, so much added to his general capital. And he, by repeating this operation, with means each time increased, continues to add more and more to capital, till he finds that as this is augmented, the profits on its employment are diminished. Now, therefore, he is induced, with a view to greater profit, to give a portion of it another direction. This he does by employing it in the purchase of mill-sites, the erection of buildings, the construction of machinery, the establishment of manufactories, &c.; by doing which he not only increases

his own wealth, but adds to that of the community. For in this country, in the present state of its industry, when agricultural production exceeds the home and foreign consumption together, every additional employment of labour in other occupations may be considered, to the value of the products of it, so much clear gain to the nation, or in other words, so much more gained than would have been gained, had not the labour been thus employed.

Navigation not only affords one of the most productive sources of the increase of public wealth, but it also supplies powerful means to be employed in public defence. It rears up a class of patriotic, hardy, and daring men, always ready for the public service when called for; and it is no small advantage to the nation to have constantly at command so efficient a force, free of any expense to support it. Notwithstanding, however, the importance of navigation to the public prosperity and security, that portion of it which is employed in foreign commerce, is the only one of all the divisions of industry, which receives no compensation for what it contributes towards the protection of the industry of others against foreign competition.

When the husbandman pays more, in consequence of the duty on imports, to the home manufacturer for the cloth bought of him, the husbandman gets as much more in return, from the same cause, for the wool which he sells the manufacturer, and thus the thing is equalized between them. But it is not so with the shipowner in foreign trade. Though he pays more for the materials which enter into the construction of his ship, in consequence of the duties laid on the import to encourage the home production, he gets no return for it. He cannot, on that account, add any thing to the rate of freight, because he, being in open competition with the foreign ship-owner, must carry as low as he does, or else remain unemployed. Therefore, were a drawback allowed in ship building, at so much per ton, to the amount of the duties on the foreign materials used in their construction, it would, in respect to the general system of encouragement, be no more than placing this branch of industry upon a just equality with the others, and we should then be able with our ships to enter into competition against foreign shipping upon more equal terms. The effect of doing this, however, would be rather to increase ship-building than to profit ship-owners; for the increase of ships would, by competition, reduce the rate of freight, and lower the profit of ship-owners to about the same level it was at before. But every other individual, who produced an article for export, or consumed an article of import, would, in the reduction of freight, be a gainer; for every diminution of expense in the transportation of an article increases the consumption of it, by lowering its price to the con

sumer.

That portion of navigation, which is employed in the coasting trade, is of more consequence than that employed in the foreign. Its tonnage is greater, and is rapidly increasing with the increasing industry of the country. Like the navigation in foreign trade, it is productive of wealth by the value which it adds to commodities by their transport; and it is so in an equal degree with that. For when one employment of vessels is more profitable than the other, vessels are turned from one to the other employment, until the profit is equalized between them.

Navigation in the coasting trade, in respect to its influence in exciting to production in the different divisions of industry, operates with double the effect that our navigation in foreign trade does, because our foreign navigation divides its influence, employing one half of it at home to the encouragement of home industry, and carrying the other half abroad to the equal encouragement of foreign industry. Whereas the coast-wise navigation, though it divides its influence between the places it connects in intercourse, yet employs the whole of it at home, to the encouragement of home production. Our inland and coast-wise trade is beyond comparison more important to national interests than our foreign commerce. It employs more tons of navigation than the foreign; and the vessels it employs make several interchanges of merchandise, while the vessels employed in the foreign trade are making but one. It employs more capital, in proportion as the amount of goods to be exchanged by it is greater; and the capital employed affords equal profit in proportion to its amount. The home market for the surplus products of our various industry, with the exception of two or three articles of Southern produce, is probably of four times the extent of the foreign market.

The interchange of domestic products among ourselves excites our interest doubly as much as does the interchange of products between us and foreign nations. When commerce exchanges the cotton of the Southern states for the productions of the Northern, it promotes equally the industry of both. But when commerce exchanges it with foreign nations for their cotton goods, it encourages industry in only one section of the Union, discourages it in another, and promotes it abroad. And by our consumption of the foreign cotton goods, with which our foreign commerce thus supplies us, the cotton-planter of the Southern states is only about half as much encouraged in the cultivation of cotton, as he would be by our consumption of an equal quantity of cotton goods of home manufacture. For the home manufacturer uses none but cotton of domestic cultivation; whereas the foreign manufacturers use about as much cotton produced in other countries, as they do of cotton of this country, in the manufacture of their goods. Therefore, in consuming foreign cotton goods, we encourage the culture of cotton in foreign countries as much as in our own.