led to consume the products of the industry of others, unless he furnishes them with an equivalent; but the Mexican prefers indolence to the gratification which the commodities he might procure by means of his labour would afford him. Mr Malthus has mistaken this indisposition to produce, for an indisposition to consume; and has, in consequence, been led to deny the proposition, that effective demand depends upon production.

Mr Malthus has justly stated, that the demand for a commodity depends "on the will combined with the power to purchase it ;" that is, on the power to furnish an equivalent for it. But when did any one hear of a want of will to purchase commodities ? If the will alone could procure the necessaries and luxuries of life, every beggar would become as rich as Croesus, and the market would constantly be understocked with commodities. The power to purchase is the real and the only desideratum.-It is the incapacity of furnishing equivalents for the products they wish to obtain, that involves so many in want and wretchedness. The more, then, that this capacity is increased, that is, the more industrious every individual becomes, and the more the facility of production is increased, the more will the condition of society be improved.

It is quite visionary to suppose that a deficiency of foreign demand for the products of industry can ever be occasioned by an increase of productive power. Such want of demand, when it does occur, must proceed from one or other of the following causes :-It

must either be a consequence of the comparatively high price of our commodities, or of the restrictions which have been imposed on the importation of British goods into foreign countries, and on the importation of foreign goods into Britain. Now, it is obvious that, if the falling off in the foreign demand proceeds from the first of these causes, it must have been infinitely increased had the cost of production continued undiminished. If, notwithstanding all the contrivances of our Arkwrights and Watts, to save labour and expence in the production of commodities, we are still in danger of being undersold by foreigners, it is certain that, without these contrivances, we should not have been able to withstand their competition for a single year. It would be not a little inconsequential, first to complain that our goods were too high priced for the foreign market, and then to declaim against the only means by which their prices can be reduced, and the demand increased!

It is not to increased facilities of production, but to he restraints imposed on the freedom of trade, that those commercial revulsions, we have so frequently experienced, are really to be ascribed. The inhabitants of Poland, Sweden, France, China, Brazil, &c. are most desirous to exchange their corn, timber, iron, wine, silks, tea, sugar, &c. &c. for our products. These commodities, too, are particularly well fitted for our markets, and form, indeed, the very articles our merchants are most anxious to import. It is plain, therefore, that the decline that has occasion

ally taken place in the foreign demand for our products, has not been owing to their excessive supply -for the foreigners are both able and willing to purchase them but to those impolitic and injurious regulations which fetter and restrict the freedom of importation and exportation in all commercial countries. It is not in our power, nor in that of any one country, to give universal freedom to commerce. But if we repealed our own restrictive regulationsif, instead of forcing our people to build their houses of the inferior and expensive timber of Canada, we were to allow them to use the better and cheaper timber of Norway and Sweden ;-and if, instead of forcing the cultivation of poor soils, that yield only a scanty and inadequate return, we were to import the comparatively cheap corn of Poland and the United States, there can be no doubt that the foreign demand for our commodities would be astonishingly increased; and, what is of perhaps still more importance, it would become comparatively steady.

But it has been said, that any relief which we could derive from the adoption of a more liberal commercial system, would only be temporary; that the increased power of production we possess is so vast, that we should ere long glut the market of the world with our commodities! This, it must be confessed, is rather an improbable supposition. But, assuming that we could, by means of our improved machinery, manufacture a sufficient supply of cottons to serve the market of the world, and even to sink their price below the cost of production, it could have no bad

consequence, but the reverse. The self-interest of the manufacturers would immediately suggest to them the advantage of withdrawing a part of their capital, and employing it in some other species of industry. After we had reverted to the sound principle of free trade, the demand for our commodities would be comparatively steady. It would no longer be materially affected by the circumstance of our harvests being more or less productive than ordinary, or by any of those contingencies which now exert so great an influence on our trade. And if it was found that, on an average of two or three years, we had not been able to dispose of our cottons, woollens, &c. with a sufficient profit, it would be a proof that their production had been carried to too great an extent; and as there could be no rational prospect of the demand being speedily increased, manufacturers would not be tempted, as at present, to linger on in a disadvantageous employment, but would transfer a portion of their capitals to other businesses; and the supply of goods being thus diminished, their price would rise to its proper level.

Still, however, it may be urged, that, under a liberal commercial system, we might not only be able to manufacture too much of one, but of every commodity demanded by foreigners. But admitting that such were the case, still it would not afford any ground whatever for doubting, that an increase of the powers of production would even then be attended with great and unmixed advantage. If foreigners are unable to furnish us with the equivalents

which we wish to obtain in exchange for the products we have sent abroad, we must relinquish the production of the exported commodities, and directly produce those we intended to import. Now, the real question comes to be-if a question can be raised on such a subject-Whether it is advantageous that we should be able to produce these commodities cheaply, or not? Foreign trade is beneficial, because a country, by exporting the produce of those branches of industry in which it has some peculiar advantage, is enabled to import the produce of those branches in which the advantage is on the side of the foreigner. But, to insure this benefit, it is not necessary that the whole capital of the country should be invested in those particular branches. England can furnish better and cheaper cottons than any other country; but it is not therefore contended, that she ought to produce nothing but cottons. If she were able to furnish the same supply of cottons as at present with a tenth part of the capital and labour, is it not plain that her means of producing all other commodities would be prodigiously augmented?

But it is contended, that these means would not be put in requisition; and that it is impossible so great a saving of labour could take place in a branch of industry employing a million and upwards of people, with any rational prospect of such an increase in the demand for labour in other employments, as would take up the hands that would be thrown idle. As this is an objection which has been reproduced in a thousand different shapes, and on which much stress