_3tio._ If the produce of industry consumed in a country, surpass the income of those who do not work, the balance due by the consumers must be paid to the suppliers by a proportional alienation of their funds. This vibration of the balance, gives a very correct idea of what is meant by _relative profit and loss_. The nation here loses nothing by the change produced.
_4to._ When, on the other hand, the annual produce of industry consumed in a country, does not amount to the value of the income of those who do not work, the balance of income saved, must either be locked up in chests, made into plate, lent to foreigners, or fairly exported as the price of foreign consumption.
_5to._ The scales stand even when there is no balance on either side; that is, when the domestic consumption is just equivalent to the annual income of the funds. I do not pretend to decide at present whether this exact equilibrium marks the state of perfection in a country where there is no foreign trade, (of which we are now treating) or whether it be better to have small vibrations between the two scales; but I think I may say, that all subversions of the balance on either side cannot fail to be hurtful, and therefore should be prevented.
Let this suffice at present, upon a subject which shall be more fully treated of afterwards. Let us now fix our attention upon the interests of a people entirely taken up in the prosecution of foreign trade. So long as this spirit prevails, I say, it is the duty of a statesman to encourage frugality, sobriety, and an application to labour in his own people, and to excite in foreign nations a taste for superfluities as much as possible.
While a people are occupied in the prosecution of foreign trade, the mutual relations between the individuals of the state, will not be so intimate as when the producers and consumers live in the same society; such trade implies, and even necessarily creates a chain of foreign dependencies; which work the same effect, as when the mutual dependence subsisted among the citizens. Now the use of dependencies, I have said, is to form a band of society, capable of making the necessitous subsist out of the superfluities of the rich, and to keep mankind in peace and harmony with one another.
