e national wealth, to the country which
receives these immigrants? Yes, say many political economists, if they
save any part of their incomes, and employ them reproductively; because
then an addition is made to the national capital, and the produce is a
clear increase of the national wealth. But if the foreigner expends all
his income unproductively, it is no benefit to the country, say they,
and for the following reason.

If the foreigner had his income remitted to him in bread and beef, coats
and shoes, and all the other articles which he was desirous to consume,
it would not be pretended that his eating, drinking, and wearing them,
on our shores rather than on his own, could be of any advantage to us in
point of wealth. Now, the case is not different if his income is
remitted to him in some one commodity, as, for instance, in money. For
whatever takes place afterwards, with a view to the supply of his wants,
is a mere exchange of equivalents; and it is impossible that a person
should ever be enriched by merely receiving an equal value in exchange
for an equal value.

When it is said that the purchases of the foreign consumer give
employment to capital which would otherwise yield no profit to its
owner, the same political economists reject this proposition as
involving the fallacy of what has been called a "general glut." They
say, that the capital, which any person has chosen to produce and to
accumulate, can always find employment, since the fact that he has
accumulated it proves that he had an unsatisfied desire; and if he
cannot find anything to produce for the wants of other consumers, he can
for his own.

It is impossible to contest these propositions as thus stated. But there
is one consideration which clearly shews, that there is something more
in the matter than is here taken into the account; and this is, that the
above reasoning tends distinctly to prove, that it does a tradesman no
good to go into his shop and buy his goods. How can he be enriched? it
might be asked. He merely receives a certain value in money, for an
equivalent value in goods. Neither does this give employment to his
capital; for there never exists more capital than can find employment,
and if one person does not buy his goods another will; or if nobody
does, there is over-production in that business, he can remove his
capital, and find employment for it in another trade.

Every one sees the fallacy of this reasoning as applied to ind