ed. Each country, therefore, usually pays tribute to the other; and
to produce this fruitless reciprocity of exaction, the industry and
trade of both countries are diverted from the most advantageous
channels, and the return to the labour and capital of both is
diminished, in pure loss.

9. The same principles which have led to the above conclusions, also
suggest a remark of some importance with respect to the probable effect
of a change from a restricted to a comparatively free trade.

There is no doubt that our prohibiting the importation of a particular
article, which, but for the prohibition, would have been imported,
enables us to obtain our other imports at smaller cost. The article for
which we have the greatest demand, and for which our demand is most
increased by cheapness, is that which we should naturally import
preferably to any other; now of this article we should import the
quantity necessary to pay for our exports, on terms of interchange less
advantageous to us than in the case of any other commodity. If our
legislature prohibits this commodity, the other country will be obliged
to offer any other article on easier terms, in order to force a
sufficient demand for it to be an equivalent to what she purchases from
us.

The steps of the process, money being used, would be these:--We prohibit
the importation of linen. The exportation of cloth continues, but is
paid for in money. Our prices rise, those in Germany fall, until silk,
or some other article, can be imported from Germany cheaper than it can
be produced at home, and in sufficient abundance to balance the export
of cloth. Thus by sacrificing the cheapness of one commodity, we gain
the cheapness of another: but we sacrifice a greater cheapness to gain a
less, and we sacrifice cheapness in the article which we most want, and
would import by preference, while our compensation is cheapness in an
article which we either could produce more advantageously at home, or
which we have so little desire for, that it requires a species of bounty
on the article to create a demand.

Restrictions on importation do, however, tend to keep down the value and
price of our remaining imports, and to keep up the nominal or money
prices of all our other commodities, by retaining a greater quantity of
money in the country than would otherwise be there. From this it
obviously follows, that if the restrictions were removed, we should have
to pay rather more for some of the