loss in parting with gold--that the foreign trade can only be
profitable to England so long as the value of the exports exceeds
that of the imports, so that a continual accumulation of gold may go
on.

Now, first, we may meet this with the abstract scientific argument
that there is no character by which gold can be diagnosed as wealth
from steel or broadcloth. Our merchant who buys wheat for gold could
buy from the Americans wheat for cutlery or wheat for broadcloth. The
reason he gives gold for the wheat is merely because he makes a
better profit by giving gold than by giving anything else in exchange
for the wheat. The nation therefore gets a better profit that way
too.

Descending a little from this abstract argument, our opponent says,
"If you go on buying wheat for gold, and cannot sell your cutlery and
broadcloth out of the country for gold, you _must_ run out of gold."
But the fact has been proved by many years' experience not so to be:
for many years our imports have been some L150,000,000 sterling more
than our exports, while our stock of gold in the Bank of England (and
the gold in circulation) remain the same from year to year. This is
one of those many things (like the supply of meat to London) which
will regulate itself perfectly and insensibly (without any violent
disturbances in trade or the money market) if Government will only
leave the matter entirely alone. If our stock of gold is at all short
our merchants give a little less per quarter for American wheat; the
trade is checked; the sensibility of the market--the experience of
our corn-traders--is such that the balance is preserved with very
slight oscillations. The refusal of the Americans (enforced by an
import duty) to purchase our cutlery, etc., _does_ partially check