Folitical Economy. 126 ? 
c,om’se, be able to obtain for them an excellent price. The better 
the price, which he is able to obtain, the greater will be his ad- 
vantage. For either, less labour will be sufficient to provide for 
his wants, if these be circumscribed ; or, the unabated, usual ex- 
ertions, will the more surely, and rapidly, procure him wealth. 
Thus we see, that the profits of mercantile transactions arise 
irom the difference of the relative value of the commodities ex* 
changed ; among which we must not forget to include the circulat- 
ing medium itself. 
Whoever, therefore, produces any commodity, or causes it to 
be produced by the labour of others, or acquires the products of 
labour for money, with a view to dispose of them again, must be 
anxious to exchange them with those, with whom their relative 
value is the highest. The better he succeeds in this, the more 
will his exertions, generally speaking, be beneficial to liimselfj 
and to the state. 
We have now to ask, in what situation the differences of rela- 
tive value are like|y to be greatest,-— .Whether when the members 
of a community trade only among themselves, or, when they ex- 
change their productions with foreign nations ? 
But, diversity of relative value, arises from diversity of taste, 
habits, talents, skill ; from peculiarities of the soil occupied ; from 
conveniences of locality ; from the nature, and quantity, of sponta- 
neous productions at hand ; from the diffin'ence of climate, of go- 
vernment, of the state of civilization, &c. &c.— Tiiese must exhibit 
stronger contrasts between distant nations, than between individu** 
als of the same political family. Therefore foreign commerce^ 
considered abstractly, that is, barely in reference to gain, un^ 
questionably^ be more* b-ene^t.cial than domestic commerce. 
I shall shew more fully in what the advantages of foreign com^ 
merce chieHy consist ; and what a country sacrifices by relinquish- 
ing, or neglecting, the intercourse with distant nations.f 
* Patterns and commodities, are more frequently new, abroad, than at home., 
and novelty always induces an increased relative value ; but novelty in com- 
merce is momentary only ; and accidental : for so soon as a new article is 
found to fetch an extraordinary price, the market becomes always stocked^ 
generally glutted with it. Foreign commerce therefore, reasoning in the ab- 
stract^ has no permanent beneiicial qualification over home trade. When we 
recur to matter of fact, the argument falls at once to the ground : for wlien«' 
ever foreign becomes sensibly more beneficial than home trade, it draws to 
itself capital, that brings on the usual level. T. C. 
f The question is not, whether foreign commerce ought to be relinquished 
Tjr neglected, but wheifiei* the citizens who pursue, it, have a right to protect 
