ith him plenty of things which were
in abundant supply at home and consequently cheap, he would almost
certainly be able to bring back a large number of things which were
plentiful in a far-away community, and consequently cheap for him to
acquire, and scarce in his own district and consequently sure of a good
market. This difference of standard of value in different countries was
a great stimulus to foreign trade, also a great help to bringing mankind
together, though it sometimes ended in disillusionment. It has been
asserted that even within the memory of man an English merchant traded
with a primitive community in which gold and silver were exchangeable
weight for weight. For some years he did a very pleasant and profitable
trade by taking a cargo of silver and bringing back with him the same
weight in gold, the value of which in England happened to be sixteen
times as great, or more. Unfortunately, when he made his last voyage he
was met at the mouth of the river by a friendly native, who informed him
that the community was waiting for him with tomahawks, and he hastily
put to sea again. For the rest of his life he cherished a grievance
against this curious people with which he had dealt, according to his
own view, on perfectly equitable terms, having sold them a commodity at
a price to which they were accustomed, and which they regarded as quite
correct, with the result that they proposed to murder him because they
found that the price was not in accordance with that current in other
parts of the world.

By this business of exchange of commodities between one community and
another, the process of specialization or division of labour which has
already been referred to as its basis has been developed to
extraordinary lengths. Its effect has been to increase enormously the
wealth available, while at the same time the concentration of the
individual has narrowed down his work so that he now no longer
specializes on making one commodity, but on making a part of a fraction
of a commodity.

Adam Smith's chapters on division of labour are so well known that there
is no need to point out the very great economic benefits that arise from
it. Clearly, any man who spends all his working time upon one particular
process of productive activity acquires thereby a skill and rapidity in
carrying out his part of the operation which would be impossible to any
worker who has to carry the manufacture of an article from the beginning