or one year; and if she attempted to make the
wine, it might require the labour of 120 men for the same time. England
would therefore find it her interest to import wine, and to purchase it
by the exportation of cloth.

To produce the wine in Portugal, might require only the labour of eighty
men for one year, and to produce the cloth in the same country, might
require the labour of ninety men for the same time. It would therefore
be advantageous for her to export wine in exchange for cloth. This
exchange might even take place, notwithstanding that the commodity
imported by Portugal could be produced there with less labour than in
England. Though she could make the cloth with the labour of ninety men,
she would import it from a country where it required the labour of 100
men to produce it, because it would be advantageous to her rather to
employ her capital in the production of wine, for which she would obtain
more cloth from England, than she could produce by diverting a portion
of her capital from the cultivation of vines to the manufacture of
cloth.

Thus, England would give the produce of the labour of 100 men for the
produce of the labour of 80. Such an exchange could not take place
between the individuals of the same country. The labour of 100
Englishmen cannot be given for that of 80 Englishmen, but the produce of
the labour of 100 Englishmen may be given for the produce of the labour
of 80 Portuguese, 60 Russians, or 120 East Indians. The difference in
this respect, between a single country and many, is easily accounted
for, by considering the difficulty with which capital moves from one
country to another, to seek a more profitable employment, and the
activity with which it invariably passes from one province to another in
the same country.[14]

It would undoubtedly be advantageous to the capitalists of England, and
to the consumers in both countries, that under such circumstances, the
wine and the cloth should both be made in Portugal, and therefore that
the capital and labour of England employed in making cloth, should be
removed to Portugal for that purpose. In that case, the relative value
of these commodities would be regulated by the same principle, as if one
were the produce of Yorkshire, and the other of London; and in every
other case, if capital freely flowed towards those countries where it
could be most profitably employed, there could be no difference in the
rate of profit, and no other differenc