THE LOCALIZATION OF INDUSTRIES. 455 



ance each other. Still later navigation reached to all the shores 

 of the Old World, and finally into the Western hemisphere. 

 With every addition to the field of human knowledge and enter- 

 prise there was a corresponding increase in the volume of ex- 

 changes and in the variety of manufactures and useful conven- 

 iences. Each country and district parted with that which it had 

 in superabundance, or was particularly skilled in producing, for 

 goods that were scarce or wanting to it, or that its own artificers 

 were not accustomed to manufacture. 



The same system of operations continues extending at the 

 present day, and may do so apparently for an indefinite time. 

 Every new country brought tinder cultivation, every new dis- 

 covery of the treasures of the earth and waters, every new ap- 

 pliance adding to our powers and to our facilities of communi- 

 cation, and even every increase in itself in the sum of trading 

 operations, forms the basis of new exchanges to mutual advan- 

 tage; for the greater the quantities the smaller the profit at 

 which it will pay to exchange them. Experience keeps con- 

 stantly adding to our knowledge of the special advantages of 

 each locality, and every free movement of trade and industry 

 increases the sum of their usefulness to the human race. Scar- 

 city of food can no longer exist among nations that have kept 

 abreast of this economical revolution. The aggregate of com- 

 forts and luxuries generally attainable has multiplied enor- 

 mously, and the mere operations of exchange give directly and 

 indirectly steady and profitable employment to vast numbers. 

 Nor is this freer exchange of commodities and of ideas attended, 

 as many suppose, by increased competition between men and 

 nations, for it is accompanied by a better and more wide-spread 

 division of labor, and men by degrees cease to produce these arti- 

 cles in which they are manifestly at a disadvantage, and the dis- 

 posal of which entails loss and disappointment. Those who 

 doubt the advantages of this universal, world-wide intercourse 

 and exchange are bound in consistency to advocate the reversion 

 of society not merely to any earlier stage in its development, but 

 to that state of things which preceded its initiation that is, to 

 pure and simple cannibalism ; for an argument that is good 

 against one step in this march of progress is equally good against 

 another. As it is certain, too, that this same movement, in spite 

 of wars and governmental interferences, is constant and resistless, 

 there can be no more important question than how best to con- 

 form to and profit by it, which we may learn by observing how 

 men and nations naturally find their most suitable and profitable 

 occupations. 



The general principles determining the employment of the soil 

 of different countries and localities are tolerably simple. Com- 



