exclusive privilege of selling them, may
elevate their price above the natural price; and the
consumers at home, not being able to obtain them
elsewhere, are obliged to purchase them at a higher
price." Vol. i. p. 201.

But how can they permanently support the market price of
their goods above the natural price, when every one of
their fellow citizens is free to enter into the trade?
they are guaranteed against foreign, but not against home
competition. The real evil arising to the country from
such monopolies, if they can be called by that name, lies,
not in raising the market price of such goods, but in
raising their real and natural price. By increasing the
cost of production, a portion of the labour of the country
is less productively employed.

[41] Are not the following passages contradictory to the
one above quoted? "Besides, that home trade, though less
noticed, (because it is in a variety of hands) is the most
considerable, it is also the most profitable. The
commodities exchanged in that trade are necessarily the
productions of the same country." Vol. i. p. 84.

"The English Government has not observed, that the most
profitable sales are those which a country makes to
itself, because they cannot take place, without two values
being produced by the nation; the value which is sold, and
the value with which the purchase is made." Vol. i. p.
221.

I shall, in the 24th chapter, examine the soundness of
this opinion.

[42] See page 198.

[43] M. Say is of the same opinion with Adam Smith: "The
most productive employment of capital, for the country in
general, after that on the land, is that of manufactures
and of home trade; because it puts in activity an industry
of which the profits are gained in the country, while
those capitals which are employed in foreign commerce,
make the industry and lands of all countries to be
productive, without distinction.

"The employment of capital, the least favourable to a
nation, is that of carrying the produce of one foreign
country to another." _Say_, vol. ii. p. 120.

[44] "It is fortunate that the natural course of things
draws capital, not to those employments where the greatest
profits are made, but to those where their operation is
most profitable to the community."--Vol. ii. p. 122. M.
Say has not told us what those employments are, which,
while they are the most p