TI1E WEALTH Ol' NATIONS.

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sent abroad, we must not imagine that it is sent abroad fornothing, or that its proprietors make a present of it to foreignnations. They will exchange it for foreign goods of somekind or another, in order to supply the consumption eitherof some other foreign country, or of their own.

If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign coun-try in order to supply the consumption of another, or in whatis called the carrying trade, whatever profit they make will bean addition to the neat revenue of their own country. It islike a new fund, created for carrying on a new trade; domesticbusiness being now transacted by paper, and the gold andsilver being converted into a fund for this new trade.

If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for homeconsumption, they may either, first, purchase such goods asare likely to be consumed by idle people who produce nothing,such as foreign wines, foreign silks, &c.; or, secondly, theymay purchase an additional stock of materials, tools, and pro-visions, in order to maintain and employ an additional num-ber of industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, thevalue of their annual consumption.

So far as it is employed in the first way, it promotes prodi-gality, increases expense and consumption, without increas-ing production, or establishing any permanent fund for sup-porting that expense, and is in every respect hurtful to thesociety.

So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes in-dustry; and though it increases the consumption of the society,it provides a permanent fund for supporting that consump-tion, the people who consume reproducing, with a profit, thewhole value ot their annual consumption. The gross revenueof the society, the annual produce of their land and labour, isincreased by the whole value which the labour of those work-men adds to the materials upon which they are employed ;and their neat revenue by what remains ot this value, afterdeducting what is necessary for supporting the tools and in-struments of their trade.

That the greater part of the gold and silver, which beingforced abroad by those operations of banking, is employed inpurchasing foreign goods for home consumption, is and mustbe employed in purchasing those of this second kind, seemsnot only probable, but almost unavoidable. Though someparticular men may sometimes increase their expense veryconsiderably, though their revenue does not increase at all,