14>6 Foktical Economy, 
In political discussions in particular, we should never ask^ 
< what man ca?z, but what he wzV/ do ?’ He will do much, when con-= 
stantly stimulated, as he is in a great commercial nation, by new 
objects of desire, brought home from every quarter of the globe ; 
when kept in unceasing wakefulness by an infinite and constantly 
changing combination, of interests and passions ! Remove all this 
impulse, you see him, as in the interior of the island of Cuba, in 
the midst of an earthly paradise, surrounded by hundreds of acres, 
and by innumerable herds of cattle — his own — lying on a skio^ 
and dreaming away a useless existence in apathy and sloth. 
Much good, therefore, arises from foreign intercourse, merely 
as far as it stimulates, as far as it diffuses animation, and life^ 
through the body politic ; and perhaps, on allowing their proper 
weight to the different conditions I have pointed out, you will 
agree with me, that the benefits of foreign commerce cannot be 
correctly computed from the mere arithmetical results, exhibited 
by the balance sheets of the merchants.* 
In further contrasting the immense importance of the honiq^, 
tvitli the insignificance — as you conceive it — of the foreign trade, 
you compute the amount of the former by estimating the gross^ 
annual, agricultural produce of Great Britain at 150 millions ster= 
ling, and the produce of the labour of the manufacturers, and me- 
chanics, for home consumption at 50 millions, which, with a pro- 
portionate allowance for Ireland, makes the v/hole amount of the 
home trade of the British empire, according to your idea, equal 
to 220 millions sterling. 
But trade^ agreeable to your own, and correct definition, is bar- 
ter, is exchange of commodities between different persons. 
When a man, therefore, cultivates a potatoe patch, and, after 
the potatoes have come to maturity, digs them out, and eats them 
up himself, he can hardly, on that account, pretend to be a trader, 
nor insist that the value of his potatoes should count in a gener^li 
computation of the ammunt of domestic commerce. 
Trade requires circulation^ and v/hen wxmean to ascertain the 
amount of internal circulation, we have obviously to deduct, from 
the total amount of the proceeds of agricultural, and manufectur- 
ing labour, so much as does not circulate^ that is, so much of the 
proceeds of their work, as the labourers consume themselves. But^ 
as there are seven millions of cultivators in the British empire,.. 
Xo. Nor the evils. T. G. 
