importation above the exportation represents the profit accruing to the
country. This overplus, deducting the expenses, is real wealth added to
the land. Push the two theories to their last position and the true one
will be clearly seen. Export every thing, import nothing, though the
balance of trade may be said to be overwhelmingly in our favor, there
is poverty, scarcity, death. Import every thing, export nothing, we
then will have in addition to our own all the wealth of the world in our
possession.

Secondly, it is said that a nation should be independent of foreign
nations, lest in time of war it might find itself helpless or
defenceless. Free trade, it is charged, makes a people dependent upon
foreigners. But traffic is exchange. Foreign products do not come into a
country unless domestic products go out. This dependence, therefore, is
mutual. By trade with foreign nations they are as dependent upon us as
we upon them, and in the event of a disturbance of peace the nation with
which we would be at war would lose just as much as we would lose, and
both as to the war would in that regard stand upon terms of equality. It
must not be forgotten that the obstruction of trade between nations
is one of the greatest occasions of war. It frequently gives rise to
misunderstandings which result in serious conflicts. By removing these
obstacles and making trade as free as possible, nations are brought
closer together, the interests of their people become intermingled,
business associations are formed between them, which go far to keep down
national dispute, and prevent the wars in which the dependent nation is
said to be so helpless. Japan and China have for centuries practised the
protective theory of independence of foreigners, and yet, in a war with
other nations, they would be the most helpless people in the world.
That nation is the most independent which knows most of, and trades most
with, the world, and by such knowledge and trade is able to avail itself