so that, without expatriating himself, or moving to a distance, a
capitalist has the choice of producing one or the other, the quantities
of the two articles which will exchange for each other will be, on the
average, those which are produced by equal quantities of labour. But
this cannot be applied to the case where the two articles are produced
in two different countries; because men do not usually leave their
country, or even send their capital abroad, for the sake of those small
differences of profit which are sufficient to determine their choice of
a business, or of an investment, in their own country and neighbourhood.

The principle, that value is proportional to cost of production, being
consequently inapplicable, we must revert to a principle anterior to
that of cost of production, and from which this last flows as a
consequence,--namely, the principle of demand and supply.

In order to apply this principle, with any advantage, to the solution of
the question which now occupies us, the principle itself, and the idea
attached to the term demand, must be conceived with a precision, which
the loose manner in which the words are used generally prevents.

It is well known that the quantity of any commodity which can be
disposed of, varies with the price. The higher the price, the fewer will
be the purchasers, and the smaller the quantity sold. The lower the
price, the greater will in general be the number of purchasers, and the
greater the quantity disposed of. This is true of almost all commodities
whatever: though of some commodities, to diminish the consumption in any
given degree would require a much greater rise of price than of others.

Whatever be the commodity--the supply in any market being given, there
is some price at which the whole of the supply exactly will find