soil and the mine and the manufactures of foreign lands.

In this way every nation becomes like a great business firm. It
exports (that is, sells,) certain things, and it imports (that
is, buys,) certain things; and if it sells more than it buys it is
making money; if it buys more than it sells it is spending money.
This is usually expressed by saying that the "balance of trade"
is in its favor or against it.

In a country like the United States, or any other great nation, the
amount of exporting and importing, of buying and selling almost every
conceivable article under the sun, is carried on in the millions and
millions of dollars; and so perfect has the organization for doing
this business become in every great country, that the products of
the most distant countries can be bought in almost every village;
and any important event in any country produces a perceptible effect
wherever the mail and telegraph go.

The organization for effecting this in every country is so excellent
and so wonderful, that it is like a machine.

In fact, it is a machine, and with all the faults of a machine.
Now one of the faults of a machine, a fault which increases in
importance with the complexity of the machine, is the enormous
disturbance which may be produced by a cause seemingly trivial.
That such is the case with the machine which the commerce of every
great nation comprises, every-day experience confirms. So long
as the steamers come and go with scheduled regularity, so long
will the money come in at the proper intervals and be distributed
through the various channels; so long will the people live the