ABSTRACT
Some items of human consumption are the spontaneous gifts of nature, and require no exertion of man for their production; as air, water, and light, under certain circumstances. Being neither procurable by production, nor destructible by consumption, they come not within the province of political economy. Commercial, in like manner as manufacturing industry, concurs in production, by augmenting the value of a product by its transport from one place “to another. A nation, or a class of a nation, engaged in manufacturing or commercial industry, is not a whit more or less in the pay of another, than one employs in agriculture. Two equal values are worth one the other, although perhaps the fruit of different branches of industry: and when Poland barters its staple product, wheat, for the staple commodity of Holland, East and West India produce, Holland is no more in the pay or service of Poland, than Poland is of Holland.
