in one
country, does not regulate the relative value of the commodities
exchanged between two or more countries.

Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally
devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most
beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably
connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry,
by rewarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar
powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and
most economically: while, by increasing the general mass of productions,
it diffuses general benefit, and binds together by one common tie of
interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout
the civilized world. It is this principle which determines that wine
shall be made in France and Portugal, that corn shall be grown in
America and Poland, and that hardware and other goods shall be
manufactured in England.

In one and the same country, profits are, generally speaking, always on
the same level; or differ only as the employment of capital may be more
or less secure and agreeable. It is not so between different countries.
If the profits of capital employed in Yorkshire, should exceed those of
capital employed in London, capital would speedily move from London to
Yorkshire, and an equality of profits would be effected; but if in
consequence of the diminished rate of production in the lands of
England, from the increase of capital and population, wages should rise,
and profits fall, it would not follow that capital and population would
necessarily move from England to Holland, or Spain, or Russia, where
profits might be higher.

If Portugal had no commercial connexion with other countries, instead of
employing a great part of her capital and industry in the production of
wines, with which she purchases for her own use the cloth and hardware
of other countries, she would be obliged to devote a part of that
capital to the manufacture of those commodities, which she would thus
obtain probably inferior in quality as well as quantity.

The quantity of wine which she shall give in exchange for the cloth of
England, is not determined by the respective quantities of labour
devoted to the production of each, as it would be, if both commodities
were manufactured in England, or both in Portugal.

England may be so circumstanced, that to produce the cloth may require
the labour of 100 men f