pears that tailors, shoemakers, &c. can live by their trades, without any purchasers! We might as well be told, that we can live without eating or drinking! This sublime genius, no doubt as a set off, tells us, "that the man who was formerly employed by the wealthy resident landlords, can employ his capital and industry in some other way." But as "it is no evil that his former customers were annihilated," what harm would it be if all the other customers were annihilated also? A tradesman, no doubt, might live after a manner, by picking paving stones; but we cannot understand how, even at that, he could subsist, if he had no customers to employ him at it who would pay him for his labor. Mr. M'Culloch admits that the places to which absentees repair, are "benefitted, though in a very small degree." If, then, those places are benefited by their presence, would not their own country, on the same principle, be benefited also? Besides, it is to be observed, that even when the articles purchased by resident gentry, are not all of native growth, the country has an advantage in their sale, thereby giving employment to numerous shopkeepers and tradesmen, which it cannot have if those articles are sold abroad. And if this be the case with foreign materials, how much more so, when the commodities sold to residents are of native manufacture?

But let us say a few words on Commerce. If absenteeism be an evil to agriculture and manufacture, it is diffi cult to show how it can be useful to commerce, which proceeds from both. But here, as in the former instance, common sense is nonplused by mystical economy. The absentee advocate says: that in buying "foreign commodities, you are giving just the same employment to British labor, as if you had laid out your whole income in commodities of home growth; you are giving employment, namely, to that labor which was employed in making the British commodities with which the foreign commodities that you consume were bought."-Morning Chronicle, September 16, 1825.

If the foreign commodities are regularly imported into England, and consumed in England, it is a fair exchange, because the wholesale and retail dealers in England would get a profit thereon; but surely, as the same paper states,

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the case of the man who has French goods sent to him in Ireland, and that of the man who goes himself and consumes them in Paris, are "not precisely similar?" Would it be the same if a farmer were to manure one of his neighbour's fields instead of his own? Indeed if he were to manure his neighbour's field on the condition that he should be allowed to feed his own sheep on his neighbour's turnips, he would manure not only without loss, but even with profit to himself: because he would export manure from his own farm, and import an increased quantity of animal food.

"If the French goods," says Gardiner, "imported into Ireland, are returns for Irish goods exported to France, the imports balance the exports, and replace the capital that was exported; there is exactly as much property in Ireland, and exactly as much property in France as there was before the transaction took place; and if I stay in Ireland I expect my revenue for those goods, by which the tradesman of whom I purchased them got a profit, which profit he would not get if I were to buy them in France. I do not know how I can consume either Irish or French goods in Paris, without taking over, or having sent to me, British property to purchase them with. If an import is made of French goods into Ireland, the importer will have to remit or export the amount to France, in bills of exchange or merchandize: an absentee cannot assist him, for he is an exporter also. He wants not only to export himself, but also funds for his support in France. If he buy a bill of exchange, he merely gives British property for British property: if he buy gold, he does the same : if he take a bill on France he prevents an import of the same amount if he take gold, there will be two exports and only one import; that is, the export which procured the gold and the gold itself."-p. 11.

When we speak of commerce, then, we speak in a national point of view, and form a comparative estimate of the value or loss that is produced by absenteeism, in the respective nations which are affected by it.

What does England receive for what is sent from England? Is it not an exchange of the productions of British capital and industry, for those of French capital and industry? But the matter, so far as absentees are con

cerned, is materially different. The exchange in that case, is not an exchange of the productions of British capital and industry, for the productions of French capital and industry; but it is an expenditure of British capital in France, for the productions of French capital and industry. British industry is lost by this exchange; for the articles received are to be consumed for the employment of as much more French capital and industry; while just as much British capital and industry either remains unemployed, or is forced to seek new channels. The exchange, such as it is, is made in France, of French property for British property; no exchange takes place in England, except of British property for British property, for the purpose of taking one of the portions to France, and thereby augmenting the aggregate capital of France, and diminishing that of EngJand.-See Gardiner, p. 10.

The assertion" that as absenteeism doth not diminish the general capital of Europe, it is no evil to a country," is mere nonsense. It is true, that if 2,000,000l. of British revenue be expended in foreign countries, the general wealth of the whole world will not be diminished; but to say that it does not benefit the immediate country in which it is expended, and injure the country from which it is withdrawn, is too absurd for even a fool to swallow!

If those who bring their rents, whether in gold or silver, to the Continent, bring, or send back an equal equivalent to their country, the matter would be different to what it is. If they, as their advocates attempt to prove, employed as many hands at home in the retail, as well as in the wholesale trade, as they would if they were residents, then, indeed, the evil would be considerably less than it is. But this, the economists never did, never can prove to the satisfaction of common sense. It is true that no nation can prosper, unless its prosperity be beneficial to others; but it is also true that no nation can prosper, by rendering another prosperous at its own expense. If the commerce between nations be reciprocal, it may be mutually beneficial. If it be not founded on fair principles, it may be beneficial to foreign nations, whilst it is injurious to home trade; but in this case, as in most others, where the foreign nations are most wealthy, their advantages of commerce are still greater; whilst the losses to the poorer

country are more evident. If we see two in a trade, one with a large accumulating capital, the other with a small one, and that the former has numerous sales, while the latter has few, the one may prosper on smaller profits than the other. But if the profits of the former are more on each article than the profits of the latter, then the odds against the weaker trader are still more disproportionate. If the one gain a pound whilst the other gains only a shilling, he must take a lower station in the community than the other, and if he do not reduce his expenses to the lowest scale, he must ultimately be destroyed, whilst his neighbour flourishes in the same proportion as he declines. What is true here of individuals, is, perhaps, still truer of nations. Nothing is more absurd than the doctrine of some economists, "that if the exports to any country exceed the imports from it, the balance of trade with that country is in our favor." It is the profit to our country on the commerce, not the extent of the commerce that should be considered. If goods are exported from England to any country, and other goods, the produce of that country, are purchased with the proceeds, for the purpose of being imported into England, the goods exported, and the goods imported are exactly of the same nature in the country to which the goods are sent, and for which the import is made. But the English merchant expects to get a profit, which he cannot have, unless the goods imported are of more value than those which he exported. Hence, unless the value of the imports exceeds the value of the exports, there can be no profit. When a man spends more than his income, his exports exceed his imports. When a nation exports at a losing rate more than she imports, so far from gaining by her increased exports, she is arriving daily nearer the gulph of ruin.

If a country transmits 4,000,0007, in money, or if you will, commodities to that amount annually, and receives 1,000,000. or even 2,000,000l. in exchange, it is clear that country, instead of being "progressively improving," is going back yearly.

It is also clear that although her imports and exports as to quantity, may appear in every other respect, to flourish, yet as to profit on trade or commerce, they are manifestly retrograding; and, unless her mode of doing business be altered, certain destruction must come upon her.

Suppose that the value of our annual exports in profit, average 30,000,000%, and that the value of our imports for the same period, in return, average 26,000,000/., is it not clear that we are losing 4,000,000l. annually? When we export, we expect to receive not only thirty millions back, but even a profit besides, or something that we can sell for a profit, otherwise the commerce is not beneficial to us; but if we receive 4,000,0007. less, it is clear that we must "live by the loss, and pocket the profits."

If our exports to the Continent are 30,000,000%. annually, 4,000,000% of which are exported to absentees who refund nothing, is it not evident that we can receive back only 26,000,000Z. ?

But the absentee advocates will say: "what signifies that? Is not the whole world open to you? If your imports from the Continent of Europe, are less than your exports to it, can you not extend your trade with the Indies or the Americas? so that the exports and imports may balance each other, which, indeed, they must do, as nobody exports without intending to import, (except the absentees of whom we are now treating). But suppose, as we have seen, that on account of the absentees in Europe, we lose 4,000,000l. annually, between our exports and imports, does any one imagine that by extending our trade, even to every part of the globe, we shall receive more than the net produce of our goods, much less the 4,000,000Z. we have lost on the continent of Europe; particularly as those other countries are just as anxious to import nothing without exporting, and that to their own advantage, as we are ourselves?

And if absenteeism be so injurious to the wealth of a country, must it not be more so in proportion to the number of absentees? No merchant will export, or import to the same extent, if he find so large a number of persons would be absentees as would materially injure the home consumption. He would not import as much to a country from which 5,000 rich proprietors absent themselves, as to one in which they permanently reside.

Every export, the amount of which is to be spent abroad, is an export with an import: but with absenteeism there is an export without an import; therefore, absenteeism is a positive evil to a country.