and this fall of a penny is what is called the lowering of the exchange. This therefore is the connexion existing between a fall in the foreign exchanges and an over-issue of the currency. The fall in the exchanges may be caused by over-issues; but it may also be caused by two or three things besides. An over-issue has a certain tendency to cause a fall in the foreign exchanges; but there are two or three things which may overrule it, and produce a contrary appearance. Hence, a fall in the foreign exchanges is a probable symptom of an over-issue, but not a certain one; the only certain one, or, to speak more correctly, the most certain one, being a fall in the currency price of gold in the gold market.

No part of any of the preceding results is dependent on the employment of bills of exchange. If such things had never been invented, the only consequence would have been, that the agent of the absentee in Ireland must have shipped the commodities purchased with his rents to some port in France, where the absentee must have applied to receive them. It is easy to see the various conveniences arising to different persons from the actual practice; and in these conveniences, and in nothing else, consists the operation of the bills of exchange.

Neither is any part of the results dependent on the impossibility of making remittances in money. Gold coins will not leave Ireland or any other country, at all events in any large quantities at a time, as long as the state of the currency is such that a coin will purchase at home the same quantity of metal as is contained in itself and something more; or, in other words, as long as the currency, gold and paper together, is not in a state of undue depreciation from excess. For as long as there is not this depreciation, the gold coins will be employed in purchasing a quantity of gold greater than that contained in themselves; which will be sent abroad in preference to the coins. In spite of this, however, some coins will from time to time be carried to foreign countries, through inadvertence, extravagance, or ignorance. And the amount of such coins may, on the whole, be by no means inconsiderable; and a greater or less portion may, by possibility, find their way to the absentees. But even if this should happen, it does not in the slightest degree affect the accuracy of any of the preceding results. For the coins are only in the same circumstances as any other commodities that have been brought into Ireland from foreign countries; and consequently their exportation will cause a new stream of Irish commodities towards the places from which the materials of new coins can be procured, in the same manner as was specified in the case of gold and silver in their rude state.

If, instead of an Irish absentee who lives in Paris, the case is taken of an absentee from Northumberland who lives in London, it may still be proved that his absence does no pecuniary harm in the aggre gate, even to Northumberland. For, let his rents, for example, be remitted to him quarterly by the post, in the shape of bank notes for a thousand pounds-which seems as clear of all transfer of commodities as it is possible to imagine. But it is plain that if these remittances go on uncounteracted, they must cause a diminution to an unlimited extent in the quantity of the circulating medium in Northumberland, and consequently a corresponding rise in its value there. But if this does not happen to an unlimited extent-and it is quite plain that it does not

happen-it can only be because the circulating medium pours into Northumberland from other quarters. Or, in other words, because the abstraction of the rents causes a certain increase in the value of currency in Northumberland, which produces its own check, by causing currency to pour in from other quarters in the shape of purchases made in Northumberland; and so leaves every thing as it was at first, with the exception of the trifling rise in the value of currency necessary to make it pour in from without. It is true, that instead of the amount of the rents being expended from time to time among the tailors and carpenters of one village in Northumberland, the increase of custom will be extended over the whole county, and perhaps two or three neighbouring counties besides. But, unless it can be proved that the tailors and carpenters of this village have a claim to carry on a forced trade in preference to the others, there can be no foundation for complaint.

The taxes which an absentee will escape by living abroad, are, all such taxes upon consumption as fall upon the articles which he would have consumed if he had staid at home. But though he thus escapes a portion of taxation, he continues to pay all such taxes as are laid upon the sources of his revenue. And, before it can be proved that there would be any justice in laying a distinct tax upon absentees, it is necessary to determine accurately what an absentee in justice ought to pay, and to compare it with what he does pay. For example, if an absentee has the sources of his property in Ireland and lives in France, there is a claim on him for contribution towards the maintenance of the public security by which his property is preserved in Ireland, and another for contribution towards the public security by which his person is preserved in France. But to say that in either of these quarters there is a claim to the full amount of what might be made on him if he had both his property and his person in one country, would be like affirming that a man who sups at one inn and takes his bed at another, ought to pay for both bed and supper at both. It would be in vain to urge, that where he took his bed he might have taken his supper also if he had chosen. It is precisely because he did not choose to take it there, that he is quit of the demand. Men were not born for the purpose of paying taxes, but for the purpose of living as happily as they can; and to claim the same amount of taxation from an absentee as from a resident, would be clearly contrary to the rules which direct men's ideas of justice in other cases. What the precise portion is, which an absentee ought to pay, it may not be very easy to determine. One thing, however, is clear, namely, that he may possibly pay the right quantity now, but could not if, by means of a tax on absentees, he were made to pay the same as a resident. And if to make him pay the whole would be unjust, so to make him pay an increase upon his present quantity, without being able to prove that his present rate of payment was insufficient, would be too odious in the performance, and too frivolous in the result, to be undertaken by any government which valued the good opinion of mankind.

It has been said in parliament, that if the theory of Mr. M'Culloch were true, it would follow, that it would be no loss to Ireland if it paid a tribute to a foreign power. This is the fallacy of supposing

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a new tribute, and confounding it with the transfer of an old one. new tribute was to be imposed on Ireland, as, for instance, by the Pope, then, since this must be taken from somebody in Ireland in addition to all they, in any shape, paid before, it would be so much clear loss; but if an Irishman was to be chosen for Pope himself, and continue to receive his rents as formerly, the fact of his sitting in St. Peter's chair would cause no loss either to Ireland or to himself, any more than if he had been sitting in his chair in Connaught. Or if an Irishman should sell his rents to the Pope or the King of France, the fact of these rents being afterwards remitted in butter to these potentates would cause no loss to Ireland, any more than if they had sent to request to purchase a cargo of butter in any other manner.

It may perhaps be asked, how this theory would hold good if all Ireland were to become absentees. This is the sophism of putting an impossible case. The absentees are a race who toil not, neither do they spin. If they were of any other description of persons, they could not be absentees. It is therefore impossible that their absence should ever prevent their sources of revenue from continuing to be wrought at home. Hence if every man in Ireland who can be an absentee should become one, there would be no check to the production of their revenue, and no loss from its being remitted to them abroad.

Having disposed of the pecuniary part of the question, there remains the moral one. And this reduces itself to determining, for example, whether the quantity of bastardy produced by the presence of the squire, the young squire, the gamekeeper, the huntsman, and the whipper-in, is greater than is occasioned by the want of moral lessons in their absence; and the same in other cases. If the question was of the production of habits of submission and passive obedience, much might be said for the effects of the residence of the higher classes; but morality is a plant which can grow without landlords, and is quite as often trampled on as cherished through their presence.

By clearing the ground on the subject of absenteeism, much light has been thrown on the subject of commerce in general. Mr. Cobbett has brought forward the old objection, that all that one man gains by trade, another loses. The fallacy of this lies in the double use of the word all. If two men are to divide a heritage between them, no man can say that the entire half of each claimant is taken from the other; for each gets the whole of what was bestowed on him by the testator. But it is perfectly true, that if one can overreach the other in settling the terms of the division, all that he gains the other will lose. It is true, therefore, of a certain debateable part, but it is not true of the whole or of the mass. So again, if a man in Yorkshire and another in Middlesex agree to exchange estates, the whole exchange cannot possibly be a gain made by one from the other, though the debateable part which is concerned when they higgle about the terms, will be so. In the same manner in commerce, what one gets by higgling upon the terms is lost by the other; but the whole, the mass of the things exchanged, is not gained by one at the expense of the other. The higgling of the parties merely serves to bring their bargain to a conclusion; as in a court of law, the allowing each party to make the most he can of his own case, is the way that brings out justice in the end. And as in the case adduced of an exchange of estates, so commerce in the main is the

exchange of goods for some mutual advantage; and not an exchange of wrongs. The supposition in fact defeats itself; for if it were true, then both sides would cheat both, and each of the parties to an exchange come back empty-handed.

It also becomes easy to see how commerce enriches nations. Take, for example, the case of Venice, which was situated on a territory that produced nothing, and yet maintained fleets and armies, and was the bulwark of Europe against the Turks. Where did this wealth or power come from? Manifestly it arose, because at every exchange of the pepper of the East against some part or other of the commodities of Europe which must necessarily have gone into the East to pay for them, some portion not of the pepper but of the pepper's price, was made to stick in Venice as the profits of the merchants, and vice versa. The riches of Venice, therefore, were levied either on the consumers of Indian goods in Europe, or of European goods in India, or on both. Whether they were levied on both or paid exclusively by one, would depend on whether the desire for the interchange of goods in India and in Europe was mutual, or whether one party had to pay a high price for what it received, in consequence of the necessity of forcing its own commodities by low prices. But all this is clearly by consent; and for men to have accused Venice of injuring them by letting them have pepper, would be as absurd as to shut up the butchers and brewers' shops, that men might not be induced to spend their money upon meat and drink. Hence in any country, the consumption of foreign commodities instead of domestic ones, causes a portion of wealth to stick by consent with the merchants, instead of being consumed as it would otherwise have been; and this accumulation forms a real source of national wealth. That it must all have come from the country, or from some country, is true; as it is true of all accumulation whatever. But it is there, and it would not have been there if it had not been for the appetite for foreign commodities. If the merchants in the two interchanging countries are equally divided, then the advantages are shared between both. But if all the merchants, for example, in Portugal are British, then the advantages of the commerce on both sides are monopolized by Britain.

The same kind of light is thrown on the subject of free trade. Since every thing, for example, from France, must be paid for in the end by English commodities of some kind, French gloves, to take them as an instance, must be paid for in cutlery, or some other English commodity. Or it may happen that they are paid for in gold, and that the cutlery or some other commodity is sent to South America to buy more gold in its place, which makes no difference. Hence to determine that gloves shall be made in England for four shillings a pair, when the cutler, by the intervention of his wares, can procure them from France for two, is taking two shillings out of the mouth of the cutler, that the public may be obliged to put four into that of the glove-maker for the same thing. In fact it is preventing the public from buying gloves at a shop which sells them for two shillings, in order that they may be obliged to go to a shop on the other side of the way, and buy them for four. In which process, it is clear that there is a throwing away, in a national sense, of all the capital and labour expended upon making the same article at an unnecessary

price. The gloves are the same at four shillings, that they might have been at two; hence all the capital and labour thus clumsily employed in creating the difference, might have been available to something else. It is true that glove-makers are supported; but then these individuals might equally have been supported by doing something that was useful, instead of something that is of no use. The question reduces itself, to whether glove-makers exist that glove-makers may be supported by the public, or that the public may have gloves. But if a glove-maker is to be supported by the public when the trader at the next door will furnish gloves at half-price, all other kinds of traders must have the same right, and there is an end of all connexion between utility and trade. If such a principle was carried to its full extent, society would be one great poor-house, where each individual claimed to be supported, not according to the merits of his labour, but according to some eleemosynary and arbitrary scale.

The conclusions from the whole appear to be, first-That it is perfectly indifferent to the domestic production of any country, what kind of commodities its citizens consume, and where; the simple solution being, that if they consume foreign goods at home, domestic produce, or something for which domestic produce has been given, must be sent abroad to procure them; and if they go abroad to consume, then the amount of their expenditure must in the same shape be sent after them. From whieh it follows, that all ideas of any effect on wages, wealth, or power, to arise from abstaining from the consumption of foreign commodities either abroad or at home, are without foundation in truth. Secondly, That though it may be inseparable from a state of war, that the belligerents should endeavour to capture or destroy the property of each other when they meet it on the seas, it is irrational and foreign to the object of the contest to make any opposition to the interchange of the unwarlike produce of the belligerents, which may take place by means of neutrals; and that consequently the neutrals, who have a direct and lawful interest in the preservation of their traffic, have a right to resist all endeavours to prevent such interchange, by all the means by which they might resent any other invasion of their lawful traffic. And lastly, That by the discovery and declaration of the truth upon this question, a great step has been made towards the destruction of national prejudices, and the diminution of national miseries. The interest of mankind is to encourage every thing that leads to a community of feeling among mankind; and nothing has been more strongly worked upon for the production of contrary results, than the belief that the interchange of residence and of productions was injurious to nations. It would hardly be extravagant to foretell, that as one consequence of the discovery of Mr. M'Culloch, there will never be another commercial war. Men have found out, that nature has not filled the carth with her bounties, with a design that they should be prohibited from enjoying them. They begin to discover that the commercial, like the physical world, is fearfully and wonderfully made; and that in this as in other instances, the ills which men suffer from nature are small in comparison of those which they inflict upon themselves.