Ch. ix. Of the Commercial System. 139 



materials ; and without such an increasing im- 

 portation, it is quite obvious that the population 

 must become stationary. 



It would come to the same thing, whether this 

 inability to obtain an increasing quantity of food 

 were occasioned by the advancing money price of 

 corn, or the falling money price of manufactures. 

 In either case the effect would be the same ; and 

 it is certain that this effect might take place in 

 either way, from increasing competition and ac- 

 cumulation in the manufacturing nation, and the 

 want of them in the agricultural, long before any 

 essential increase of difficulty had occurred in the 

 production of corn. 



Fourthly. A nation which is obliged to pur- 

 chase from others nearly the whole of its raw ma- 

 terials, and the means of its subsistence, is not 

 only dependent entirely upon the demands of its 

 customers, as they may be variously affected by 

 indolence, industry or caprice, but it is subjected 

 tQ a necessary and unavoidable diminution of de- 

 mand in the natural progress of these countries 

 towards that proportion of skill and capital which 

 they may reasonably be expected after a certain 

 time to possess. It is generally an accidental and 

 temporary, not a natural and permanent division 

 of labour, which constitutes one state the manu- 

 facturer and the carrier of others. While, in these 

 landed nations, agricultural profits continue very 

 high, it may fully answer to them to pay others 

 as their manufacturers and carriers ; but when 

 the profits on land fall, or the tenures on which it 



