articles which we now import, while
those which we are now prevented from importing would cost us more than
might be inferred from their _present_ price in the foreign market. And
general prices would fall; to the benefit of those who have fixed sums
to receive; to the disadvantage of those who have fixed sums to pay; and
giving rise, as a general fall of prices always does, to an appearance,
though a temporary and fallacious one, of general distress. [5]

It is right to observe that the measures of the British Legislature
which have been falsely characterised as measures of free trade, must,
from their extremely insignificant extent, have produced far too little
effect in increasing our importation, to have actually led, in any
degree worth mentioning, to the results specified above.

It is of greater importance to take notice, that these effects may be
entirely obviated, if foreign countries can be prevailed upon
simultaneously to relax their restrictive systems, so as to create an
immediate increase of demand for our exports at the present prices. It
is true that exports and imports must, in the end, balance one another,
and if we increase our imports, our exports will of necessity increase
too. But it is a forced increase, produced by an efflux of money and
fall of prices; and this fall of prices being permanent, although it
would be no evil at all in a country where credit is unknown, it may be
a very serious one where large classes of persons, and the nation
itself, are under engagements to pay fixed sums of money of large
amount.

10. The only remaining application of the principle set forth in this
essay, which we think it of importance to notice specially, is the
effect produced upon a country by the annual payment of a tribute or
subsidy to a foreign power, or by the annual remittance of rents to
absentee landlords, or of any other kind of income to its absent owners.
Remittances to absentees are often very incorrectly likened in their
general character to the payment of a tribute; from which they differ in
this very material circumstance, that tribute, if not paid to a foreign
country, is not paid at all, whereas rents are paid to the landlord, and
consumed by him, even if he resides at home. The two kinds of payment,
however, have a perfect resemblance to each other in such parts of their
effects as we are about to point out.

The tribute, subsidy, or remittance, is always in goods; for, unless the
count