154 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



tion enables comparatively few men to supply the wants of the 

 whole community as regards any one article. This sets large 

 numbers free to supply new wants. This process goes on 

 gradually, for reasons. In the first place, the improvements in 

 manufacture which increase the output per man in a given 

 industry come gradually. And in the second place, the new 

 wants to which the surplus labour can minister are only gradu- 

 ally developed and gradually discovered. In the third place, the 

 channels of distribution by which what we have termed the 

 closed circuits of barter are established can only be discovered 

 tentatively and by slow degrees. But progress in wealth and 

 its distribution by barter are both compatible with increased 

 comfort all round. In trade one man's gain is not of necessity 

 another man's loss. 



