48 TARIFF DUTIES AND CONSUMERS. 



and trouble in carrying the flour to the farmer, leaving less to be 

 divided between the man who grows the grain and the man who 

 converts it into flour. Ultimately, however, the miller might 

 grind the transporter's share of the grain, taking therefrom his 

 customary toll, and thus might secure for himself the same propor- 

 tion of the whole quantity as if the transporter had not inter- 

 vened ; but the farmer must, in any event, suffer a positive and 

 permanent loss. It is true, the farmer makes a gain by obtaining 

 the conversion of his grain into flour ; but, between his gain and 

 that of the miller and the transporter, theirs not being compli- 

 cated with a sacrifice, there is a large inequality of profitable re- 

 sult. Let this inequality be extended to a great variety and num- 

 ber of exchanges, covering the most of his purchases, then his 

 impoverishment would be merely a question of time, or else his 

 power of accumulation would be so seriously crippled as to pre- 

 vent any considerable or rapid improvement of his condition. It 

 thus appears that the circumstances of trade may be such that the 

 copious gain will fall always to the share of one of the parties to 

 the transaction, and the scanty gain invariably to the share of the 

 other, all the aggrandizing tendencies being with the former, and 

 all the depreciating tendencies with the latter. Consequently, 

 when the Post says that " trade is always carried on for the sake of 

 the profit of it," that paper states only a small part of the truth, 

 and leaves altogether out of view the very important fact that 

 there is a manner of conducting trade which inevitably results in 

 an unequal and oppressive distribution of profit among the parties 

 to such trade. 



It is this injurious kind of trade that is advocated by the Post 

 a trade that is circuitous, foreign, abounding with middlemen, and 

 making necessary a large use of the machinery of transportation. 

 External commerce, or exchanges between different nations, is far 

 less important and valuable to a country than internal commerce, 

 or exchanges between its own inhabitants But the Post considers 

 the foreign market the great consideration constantly to be kept 

 in view, as if the infrequency]of exchanges were preferable to their 

 frequency, it being unavoidable that exchanges between parties 

 distant from each other must be fewer than between parties near 

 together, and that labor must have less employment in the former 

 case than in the latter. The rapid circulation of commodities 



