380 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
trade there could be no industries in their present modern form, 
and without industries there could be no trade. Trade as at present 
carried on is an extremely complicated system of interchanging the 
productions of industry, and may be said to be the key that unlocks 
the industries of the people. No one could devote himself to that 
particular branch of industry for which his own capabilities or his 
surroundings best qualify him, unless he could exchange the pro- 
duce of his industry for any other produce of industry that he may 
require through the trader; and the extent to which the division 
of labour is now carried, with the consequent enormous increase of 
production, has been made possible only by the facilities for 
exchange offered by the ingenuity and organization of trade. 
The trade and industries of a nation being therefore inter- 
dependent, and so closely related to one another that the importance 
of the one cannot be considered as greater than that of the other, 
it is no disparagement to Plymouth to rank her as a trading port 
rather than a centre of industry. It is evident that trade, which 
is the process by which exchanges are effected between man and 
man, can only be conducted where facilities of communication 
enable those exchanges to be made, and if this be a trading port, it 
must be so because it offers certain facilities of communication. 
In the economy of this great nation, which has carried the study 
of economy, both theoretical and practical, further than any other, 
a particular locality may be said to perform its own particular 
function in the economical body corporate, and, following the 
analogy of biology, the function will correspond with the structure. 
The structure of the locality in which coal and iron abound causes 
those economical functions to be performed that are peculiar to the 
great centres of industry; the structure of good and safe ports is 
equally the cause of the economical function of trade carried on 
within them. 
Regarding the economy of this nation as a great, a gigantic 
organization, which it undoubtedly is, each part performing its 
function according to its capabilities, or, as I prefer to say, accord- 
ing to its structure, it is well to inquire, What is the true function 
of Plymouth in the economy of the nation? and what is the 
structure that fits it for that special function? If in the fulness 
of our energy and strength we seek, as Plymouthians, to perform 
a function unsuited to our structure, we shall not succeed, and we 
waste our gifts, whether of mind or matter, whether of talent or 
