Let the nuiiiitcnance bo stretched out to the support of
m additional million of human beings, and the wealth
)f the holders of this maintenance is thereby stretched
)ut to a capacity for purchasing, either the immediate
)roducts of their industry, or the equivalents given in
ixchange for these products. The additional mainte-
lance given in return for the new iriiports, goes to the
jupport of the people who labour in preparing the new
)r additional exports. It is thus that with every stretch
n the agiiculture of a country, there is room for a cor-
responding stretch in its foreign trade. But should
the population of that country have access to no other



FOREIGN TRADE. 147

agricultural produce than that which is raised within its
own territory, then, with the difficulty or the impossi-
bility of extending the agriculture, will there be found
a like difficulty or impossibility of extending its foreign
trade. It is by an exchange adverse to him that the
export merchant is brought to the test and the feeling
of this difficulty. It is when imports cannot find a
sale, because there is not wealth in the country to pur-
chase them, that foreign trade meets with obstructions
to its increase. It is then that the tendency to an ex-
cess is counteracted by the heavy diminution which
profit suffers, from an unfavourable exchange. The
limit, in fact, of our agriculture, is also the limit of our
commerce; and so again, do we find the margin of
cultivation to be a place in the science of political eco-
nomy, whence another of its important lessons may be
drawn.
