o
an additional price for our corn. Because, in the general distribution
of the labour of the world, we have prevented the greatest amount of
productions from being obtained by that labour in manufactured
commodities; we should further punish ourselves by diminishing the
productive powers of the general labour in the supply of raw produce. It
would be much wiser to acknowledge the errors which a mistaken policy
has induced us to adopt, and immediately to commence a gradual
recurrence to the sound principles of an universally free trade.

"I have already had occasion to remark," observes M. Say, "in speaking
of what is improperly called the balance of trade, that if it suits a
merchant better to export the precious metals to a foreign country than
any other goods, it is also the interest of the state that he should
export them, because the state only gains or loses through the channel
of its citizens; and in what concerns foreign trade, that which best
suits the individual, best suits also the state; therefore, by opposing
obstacles to the exportation which individuals would be inclined to
make of the precious metals, nothing more is done, than to force them to
substitute some other commodity less profitable to themselves, and to
the state. It must however be remarked, that I say only _in what
concerns foreign trade_; because the profits which merchants make by
their dealings with their countrymen, as well as those which are made in
the exclusive commerce with colonies, are not entirely gains for the
state. In the trade between individuals of the same country, there is no
other gain but the value of an utility produced; _Que la valeur d'une
utilite produite_."[41] Vol. i. p. 401. I cannot see the distinction
here made between the profits of the home and foreign trade. The object
of all trade is to increase productions. If for the purchase of a pipe
of wine, I had it in my power to export bullion, which was bought with
the value of the produce of 100 days' labour, but Government, by
prohibiting the exportation of bullion, should oblige me to purchase my
wine with a commodity bought with the value of the produce of one
hundred and five days' labour, the produce of five days' labour is lost
to me, and, through me, to the state. But if these transactions took
place between individuals, in different provinces of the same country,
the same advantage would accrue both to the individual, and, through
him, to the country, if he w