33 



quality and cost of production. And the grand 

 question at issue is : Whose interest whose duty 

 is it, to satisfy capitalists on these points that of 

 the people of the buying- or selling- of the con- 

 suming* or producing" Countries? There is little 

 difficulty in determining- that this duty if duty it 

 may be called ; vests in the people of the producing- 

 Country, for an opposite conclusion, would lead us 

 back to that simple state of society in which each 

 consumer (trader, family, or individual) supplies his 

 own wants. Independent, moreover, of this view, 

 as at the present day, no civilized nation supplies 

 all its own demands, to adopt the principle that the 

 consumer should be a producer also, would necessi- 

 tate his carrying- on his operations in a dozen, or it 

 mig-ht be, a hundred different places, many of them 

 under foreign rule, which would be impossible. 



But, it may be urged, if the people of the pro- 

 ducing- country are infants, as the law defines that 

 term, and incapable of performing this office for 

 themselves, will not the duty then devolve on the 

 party, next most immediately interested in its due 

 performance the consuming- nation ? I venture to 

 think not ; but rather on the Government of the 

 producing- Country, which in such circumstances 

 is, in loco parentis, and bound, always supposing* it 

 to be manifestly for the good of the country to 

 discharge those obligations which her wards, by 

 reason of their tender years, are unable to discharg-e 



D 



