160 Political Economy* 
‘ Foreign jconsniiiptionj bn the contrary, has no limits, and the 
merchants— the agents between domestic producers, and foreign 
consumers, are constantly on the watch to extend its sphere. 
Therefore foreign commerce is the surest, and perhaps the on- 
ly means, of maintaining the staple commodities of a nation, at pri- 
ces which will insure to the mass of the people the enjoyment of 
substantial comforts, and allow them to be rational beings, and men, 
instead of mere drudges, and beasts of burthen. 
Lauderdale has well described the Surprising effects of a 
little deficiency, or excess, in the supply of a commodity, on its 
market^value,^ A trifling quantity less in the market, than the 
demand would require, often doubles the price of the whole stock 
on hand. — A trifling excess, as rapidly brings it downs But, when 
the holders are not in disti'essed circumstances, the rise from a de- 
mand, in the smallest degree larger than common, is much more 
dertain, quick, and considerable, than depression from the opposite 
Cause. 
When I shewed before, how the supposed information of a defi- 
ciency of crops in England, and the consequent exportation of 
200,000 blls. of flour, caused the country to gain 1,200,000 dollar s^ 
though the merchants lost money by their speculation, I did not 
pursue the consequences further ; because my only object was, to 
shew immediate, numerical accession to the national wealth, in 
Consequence of the foreign, commercial operation, to which that 
information had led. It is obvious, however, that, on account of 
the general advance of the price of flour, caUsed, in the supposed 
case, by the foreign demand, the domestic consumers of that article 
also^ had to pay ^12 instead q/*^8. 
If this domestic consumption throughout the Atlantic statesj 
amounted, during the elevation of the price, in consequence of fo- 
reign demand, to 500,000 barrels, then the foreign demand, 
though, in its direct effects, wwth to the nation only g 1,200,000, 
would be worth, to the agricultural interest, two millions of dollars, 
besides.— The home trade, according to yoiir mode of estimatmg 
it, would be indebted to the foreign trade, for an immediate, addi- 
tional importance to the amount of the stated sum. But, what is 
of infinitely more consequence, the millers, and farmers, would re- 
ceive an additional compensation of two millions of dollars for their 
labour, through the home trade^ as operated upon by the foreign 
trade j this shews, that the foreign trade prevents the consumers 
* A-n inquiry into toe nature and origin of pnbhc rvealih. 
