ual or nation. Given the aggregate surplus products of all the people of a country severally, and we have the amount of its entire trade. Given the aggregate surplus products of the people collectively, and we have the amount of its foreign trade. Illustration: Suppose a community of one hundred individuals, each producing three hundred dollars' worth a year, -aggregate revenue, thirty thousand dollars. If each person desires to consume only one hundred dollars' worth of his own articles, he will have left for trade two hundred dollars' worth, aggregate in the community, twenty thou sand dollars. But if, after exchanging around with his neighbors, it is found that each member of the community has one hundred dollars which he does not wish to part with for any thing he can get at home, we have the aggregate surplus available for foreign trade, ten thousand dollars. Ordinarily, individuals or peoples do not wish to part with all their products. Ohio, for example, does not wish to dispose of all her wheat. A share must be kept for home consumption. The surplus will be exchanged for other commodities abroad. Exactly the amount to be so retained will depend, within certain limits, on the degree of disposability. The more the wheat is in demand,— that is, the more of desirable things are offered for it,the less will the producers be inclined to retain it; the greater effort will they make to dispense with its use themselves, or substitute other things for it at home. But this result will be limited by the necessities of the people. It cannot be calculated on to increase very largely the amount available for trade. It will, of course, be remarked, that the amount of surplus, in particular countries, will vary with the character of their products. We can suppose an entire people engaged in industry, of which they make no use themselves. such a case, their trade would be to the amount of their whole production and their whole consumption. In fact, In this condition of things is never realized. The nearer it is The more vital approached, the more general the trade. and primitive the articles produced, the greater will be the share consumed at home. Ohio has no such trade, proportionately, as Rhode Island; not necessarily because the latter produces more, but that she produces more of what she does not want. The people of Birmingham consume but an infinitesimal part of the articles they produce. We have here the principle that the wealth of a people is not determined by the extent of its trade. We have said that the trade of a community, whose whole production was exchanged, would be equal to its production and consumption. It would be so, but that would be determined by its production only. It would be this alone which it would carry in its hands into the markets of the world, and on this would depend what it should get there. What persons or communities will trade most largely with each other? Other things equal, those whose productions differ most. Two tailors will not traffic much together. Both will trade with the shoemaker and hatter. Indiana will not trade extensively with Illinois; but both will trade largely with Louisiana and Massachusetts. Russia and Sweden will make very few exchanges, because their productions are as much alike. Both will deal largely with the West Indies. What determines the character and kind of products each country will afford? 1st, Soil and physical conformation. One will be a wheatraising, another a wool-growing country. Each will spontaneously turn its industry in that direction where it will produce the greatest values with the least outlay of labor and capital. This must be where the natural adaptations of the land are followed. This operates, in respect to nations, precisely as we see it in smaller communities, where one farm is especially fitted for grazing, another for tillage, another for timber. 2d, Climate. From the Arctic regions to the tropics, from Siberia to Hindostan, is infinite variety, both of heat and moisture. Some countries are deluged with twenty-five feet of water in a season ; * others parch the year round with ten inches. Some are locked with frost eight months in twelve; others are open the year round. It is evident that the conditions which are admitted to have given rise to the differing species of fruits and grains and vegetables will control their increase. 3d, Social condition. Take, for examples, England and Brazil, — one distinguished for the high moral and mental endowments of its citizens; the other having a heteroge neous population, in a poor and semi-barbarous condition. The latter would, plainly, seek to enrich themselves from the spontaneous yield of the soil, from the wild wealth of the pampas and the forests, from the precious ores and stones along their streams and in natural caves, rather than till the ground to the fertility of a garden, sink shafts into the solid rock, cast up highways upon the rivers, and work iron into the needle and lancet. 4th, Difference of race. This is additional to differences of social condition, and looks to those peculiarities of industrial character in the races of man, which are no less distinguishable than their peculiarities of stature, complexion, and feature. These do not affect the degree of production only, as greater or less, but multiply the fashions, and complete the varieties of wealth. All the causes here enumerated conspire to give a great extent and activity to trade. It is in the commerce of the world that we have illustrated THE TERRITORIAL DIVISION OF LABOR. The Chinese raise tea and silk. This is their specialty, * The mountains south of Bombay receive three hundred and twenty inches of water a year, mostly in three months. the form of industry to them most profitable. The Cubans produce sugar; and the Sicilians, oranges, for the same reason. England excels all nations in useful manufactures; France, in those of taste and beauty; while the United States has its great industrial power in cotton and wheat. Under the operation of natural laws, each country employs and disposes of its labor, without any arbitrary enactments, in just the way most congenial and profitable; in other words, in that way which develops its greatest industrial power, and secures the largest possible production. Suppose, on the contrary, that we of the United States should determine to raise our own oranges. We could do so, and create a supply equal to the demand. The cost of one orange would probably be equal to the cost of raising a bushel of wheat, which would procure for us abroad one hundred oranges. The loss would be equal to ninety-nine out of every hundred oranges. We should force a certain part of the labor engaged in other pursuits into the business of raising oranges. The supply would be fully equal to the demand; for, at the rate of a bushel of wheat for each orange, few oranges would be wanted. The people would lose the enjoyment of ninety-nine out of every hundred oranges they would otherwise consume, and could just as well have, if allowed to pay for them in wheat. If we turn to the advantages alleged of the division of labor individually, we shall find that each one of them holds good in the application of the principle territorially. Indeed, it may be assumed that it is here more active and efficient, since the differences of communities range higher than those of individuals. On the other hand, the limitations prescribed are indefinitely removed when we come to the field of national industry; and the disadvantages disappear altogether. That would be a bold philosophy that should declare a people one-sided which does not produce every thing it consumes. So far from being considered a defect, *See Production, ch. iv. et seq. that races or nationalities should develop very strongly in special directions, it is highly desirable. While it takes nothing from the individual excellence, each contributes with a greater generosity to the completeness of the whole. From these general considerations of trade, we deduce the following principles: 1st, That individuals must produce a surplus of their own commodities to have an opportunity to trade, and must trade to make it an object to produce a surplus. Wants create wealth, and wealth creates wants. 2d, That every nation is interested in the production of every other nation. Any thing which impedes the production of any individual or community injures the trade of the world. Such causes, for example, are pestilence, as the cholera, yellow-fever, and plague; the convulsions of nature, as earthquakes and inundations; war, as in the case of the late war in India, which sensibly affected the trade of the world, and, still more striking and recent, in the case of the great Rebellion in the United States, which was felt, it may almost be said, by every human being on the globe. Not a consumer of cotton, high or low, civilized or savage, but suffered in consequence. 3d, That this mutual interest exists between any two nations, whether they have direct commercial intercourse or not. For example: there may be a German principality that purchases nothing of the United States, yet it may purchase largely of the cotton yarn of England. That causes a demand for American cotton; that benefits the Southern States; that, in turn, helps the trade of the North; and that, again, the producers of the West, on whom the North depends for agricultural supplies. By such ramifications, exchange extends itself through the world. 4th, Since, by the laws of trade, those countries which lie most remote from each other, and are most unlike in soil, climate, civilization, and ethnical characteristics, are most |