branches of the manufacture, with their French rivals, it by no means
follows that they could do so when the efflux of money from France, and
its influx into England, had lowered the price of silk goods in the
French market, and increased all the expenses of production here.

On the whole, England probably, of all the countries of Europe, draws to
herself the largest share of the gains of international commerce:
because her exportable articles are in universal demand, and are of such
a kind that the demand increases rapidly as the price falls. Countries
which export food, have the former advantage, but not the latter. But
our own colonies, and the countries which supply us with the materials
of our manufactures, maintain a hard struggle with us for an equal share
of the advantages of their trade; for _their_ exports are also of a kind
for which there exists a most extensive demand here, and a demand
capable of almost indefinite extension by a fall of price. Contrary,
therefore, to common opinion, it is probable that our trade with the
colonies, and with the countries which send us the raw materials of our
national industry, is not more but less advantageous to us, in
proportion to its extent, than our trade with the continent of Europe.
We mean in respect to the mere amount of the return to the labour and
capital of the country; considered abstractedly from the usefulness or
agreeableness of the particular articles on which the receivers may
choose to expend it.


NOTES:

[1] _Elements of Political Economy_, by James Mill, Esq., 3rd
edit., pp. 120-1.