Colonial Policy: [MARCH, 



elude this from being exceeeded.* Were it not that the acquisition of 

 that foreign produce was the interest of the community in other words, 

 could the given object of desire be furnished at home for a less amount 

 of produce than was required for its purchase abroad the very act of 

 engaging in that purchase would, in as far as they were consumers, 

 inflict upon the capitalists employed in it all the loss involved in diminu- 

 tion in the productive powers of labour. Not only then is the acquisition 

 of the produce of a country the only object for which another exports 

 thither its own productions, but it is in those circumstances alone which 

 make that acquisition the general interest of a country, that it is the 

 interest of its caj)italists to engage in the traffic. 



It may be safely then assumed, that in every transaction of foreign 

 commerce its only legitimate objects are to supply from abroad commo- 

 dities incapable of production at home, or to economize the labour of the 

 community by furnishing it with those articles, to obtain which at home 

 would require an increased amount of industry to be forced into their 

 production. But we have seen that the trade which a mother country 

 carries on with her colonies can be viewed in no other light than a 

 foreign trade. The value then of the dominion involved in colonial 

 relationship, as an agency for promoting commercial advantages, must 

 be sought in the demand for its application, which exists in the relative 

 inadequacy of an independent trade to the achievement of those two 

 objects. But this inadequacy can only be ascertained by an examination 

 of the circumstances in which it is capable of arising. It is necessary, 

 therefore, that we should here recapitulate the only cases in which the 

 interests of a country can dictate its engagement in foreign trade with 

 another. We must premise, however, that the mere existence of that 

 trade assumes the relative superiority of a country with which it is car- 

 ried on over every other country in the production of those commodities 

 which it is instituted to obtain. 



That in which a desire exists for those productions of the foreign 

 country which are altogether incapable of attainment at home, is too 

 obvious to require illustration. 



The cases in which economy of labour is the object are three : 



1. That in which the foreign state and the home possess equal 

 relative superiorities in the production of objects of desire to 

 both. 



2. That in which, with an equality, or even inferiority, on the 

 part of the home country, in every production of its industry, the 

 foreign country possesses a superiority in some one object of desire 

 to the home, exceeding the latter's inferiority in the rest. 



3. That in which, notwithstanding the proportion of inferiority 

 in the home country, in every single production of industry, 

 exceeded the superiority of the foreign in the given objects of 

 desire, there yet existed some third country, in which, in return 

 for a less amount of labour than the production of that object of 

 desire would require at home, the home country could procure an 



* Should any of our readers have fallen into the error of Adam Smith, in supposing 

 the existence of a capacity in foreign trade to raise the rate of profits in a country, we 

 must refer them to a luminous exposition of that error, given by Mr. Ricardo, in his 

 " Principles of i'olitical Economy," p. 132. 



