Foreign Commerce. 53 
who consumed it, whether landed proprietors 
or their servants, or manufacturers, have it 
now in their power to purchase some other 
article with the overplus of their income. 
The manufacturer and the merchant, per- 
petually watching the state of the market, 
observe what particular article comes into 
demand, and direct their labourers accord- 
ingly. If the article thus extended in its sale 
requires no additional extent of land for the 
production of the raw material, the change 
produces no ultimate effect on population: if 
otherwise, population is diminished. 
These considerations enable us to form a 
ready estimate of the influence of foreign com- 
merce on population. ‘The theorem on this 
subject may be reduced within very narrow 
bounds. Whenever an article manufactured 
for the foreign market requires for the pro- 
duction of the raw material a portion of our 
own soil, which is capable of producing food, 
the tendency of foreign commerce is to dimi- 
nish our population, except in so far as it is 
compensated by an equivalent importation of 
the necessaries of life. Where an article is 
‘manufactured for the foreign market, from 
foreign raw materials, or where the materials 
are procured. from subterranean mines, from 
the sea, from land incapable of producing 
