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the agriculture, will there be found a like difficulty or 

 impossibility of extending its trade." " The com- 

 merce which is pushed beyond the agricultural basis 

 to the extent of employing an excrescent ten thousand 

 men, that is ten thousand men more than can be 

 maintained by the produce of our own territory ; does 

 not effectuate the same addition to a country's re- 

 sources, as if the agricultural basis were itself extended 

 by means of reclaimed lands, or if an improved hus- 

 bandry, so far as to afford the additional subsistence 

 often thousand men." " The advantages of having 

 a population beyond this, beyond the means of our 

 own soil to support, is far too problematical to be 

 worthy of the contention and the keenness, by which 

 the rivalry of merchants is characterised." * " The 

 great dread of our mercantile statesmen is that of 

 being undersold by foreigners ; while yet the chief 

 effect of the commercial superiority they are so anxious 

 to preserve, is just to enlarge the sale of British 

 exports beyond the possibility of their being paid for, 

 either by the luxuries or the goods not agricultural, 

 that came in return for them from other lands. In 

 which case there is a surplus of exports that must be 

 be paid for in agricultural produce. The population 

 is thereby enlarged beyond the power of the country 

 to feed them from her own stores ; or, which is the 

 same thing, the trade is increased beyond the limits of 

 our agricultural basis. These are additions made by 

 this to the weight or dimensions of the superstructure; 

 but without addition either to the strength or ampli- 

 * Dr. Chalmers, page 231. 



