of interchange more advantageous to England. And why can Flanders do so?
It must be either because Flanders can produce the article with a less
comparative quantity of labour than Germany, and therefore the total
advantage to be divided between the two countries is greater in the case
of Flanders than of Germany; or else because, though the total advantage
is not greater, Flanders obtains a less share of it, her demand for
cloth being greater, at the same rate of interchange, than that of
Germany. In the former case, to exclude Flemish linen from England would
be to prevent the world at large from making a greater saving of labour
instead of a less. In the latter, the exclusion would be inefficacious
for the only end it could be intended for, viz., the benefit of Germany,
unless Flemish money were excluded from England as well as Flemish
linen. For Flanders would buy English cloth, paying for it in money,
until the fall of her prices enabled her to pay for it with something
else: and the ultimate result would be that, by the rise of prices in
England, Germany must pay a higher price for her cloth, and so lose a
part of the advantage in spite of the treaty; while England would pay
for German linen the same price indeed, but as the money incomes of her
own people would be increased, the same money price would imply a
smaller sacrifice.

[5] This last possible effect of a sudden introduction of free
trade, was pointed out in an able article on the Silk question, in a
work of too short duration, the _Parliamentary Review_.




ESSAY II.