204 Colonial Policy : [MARCH, 



would still be her interest to continue the American corn trade/ because 

 she would save bv all the difference between the cost of her equivalent 

 and the 15,000/. it would have cost her to grow corn at home. Say, for 

 instance, that, with a capital of 14,500/., she could produce any one 

 commodity for which she could obtain from France gold to that amount. 

 By employing her industry in the manufacture of that commodity, as 

 the means for the purchase of American corn, she would still continue to 

 save, after making allowances for the cost of carriage, 500/. in every 

 15,0007. 



Having thus ascertained the cases in which this interest would arise, 

 the securities for its attainment are the next most obvious subjects of 

 inquiry. There cannot, however, be a stronger security than an union 

 of interest on the part of the foreign country. Yet, in all the cases put, 

 this has a demonstrable existence. In that in which the foreign country 

 was the exclusive producer of the object of desire to the home, the reali- 

 zation of the ordinary profits of stock will be a never-failing induce- 

 ment to its production. So long, then, as a desire of possession exists in 

 sufficient strength to induce those affected by it to part with an equiva- 

 lent adequate to accomplish this result, so long will the gratification of 

 their desires be ensured. It will be immaterial that the home country 

 is inferior in its entire powers of production, not only to the producing 

 country, but to all the other countries in the world, in every article of 

 life. Assuming only the productive power of the foreign country to 

 co-exist with the purchasing power of the home, possession can in this 

 case know no other limit than desire. 



But while, in the first of the other cases we have put, the general 

 interest of America would be no less promoted in acceding to the inter- 

 change, than that of England in seeking it, in all an average return of 

 profit would, in like manner as in the previous case, be an adequate 

 security for the employment of capital in the production of the articles 

 which it was the interest of the latter to purchase from thence. But 

 what would thus be the interest of all the capitalists and consumers in 

 the two countries, the enterprise of their merchants would assuredly 

 discover ; while competition would secure the pushing of that interest 

 to its utmost extreme. 



The high profits of stock, consequential upon the discovery of such 

 advantageous interchange, would allure the reciprocal competition of 

 merchants. This would only leave off from increasing at the point at 

 which increase would be unprofitable. But this could not happen until 

 the interchange ceased to return the ordinary profits of stock upon the 

 capital employed in effecting it. The very arrival, however, of competi- 

 tion at that point would have already proved that the commodity had 

 been brought into the market at the lowest price which the labour of 

 production would permit. We trust, then, we have established, upon 

 the unshakeable basis of demonstration, this inevitable result that, in 

 every unrestricted interchange with foreign countries, so long as there are 

 any objects of desire to the consumers of the home, which it is their 

 interest to obtain from abroad, and there is a single commodity which is 

 capable of production at home with greater facility than in any one other 

 country within the expansive range of commercial intercourse so long 

 will the strongest of all human agencies, self-interest, ensure to those 

 consumers the possession of that object of desire at the lowest possible 

 cost which the labour of production and the realization of the ordinary 

 profits of stock in both countries will permit. 



