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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

purchased with it; for, the case of war and conquest excepted,foreign goods can never be acquired, but in exchange forsomething that had been produced at home, either imme-diately, or after two or more different exchanges. The ef-fects, therefore, of a capital employed in such a round-aboutforeign trade of consumption, are, in every respect, the sameas those of one employed in the most direct trade of the samekind, except that the final returns are likely to be still moredistant, as they must depend upon the returns of two or threedistinct foreign trades. If the hemp and flax of Riga arepurchased with the tobacco of Virginia, which had beenpurchased with British manufactures, the merchant mustwait for the returns of two distinct foreign trades before hecan employ the same capital in repurchasing a like quantityof British manufactures. If the tobacco of Virginia had beenpurchased not with British manufactures, but with the sugarand rum of Jamaica which had been purchased with thosemanufactures, he must wait for the returns of three. If thosetwo or three distinct foreign trades should happen to be car-ried on by two or three distinct merchants, of whom the se-cond buys the goods imported by the first, and the third buysthose imported by the second, in order to export them again,each merchant indeed will in this case receive the returns ofhis own capital more quickly; but the final returns of thewhole capital employed in the trade will be just as slow asever. Whether the whole capital employed in such a round-about trade belong to one merchant or to three, can make nodifference with regard to the country, though it may with re-gard to the particular merchants. Three times a greater ca-pital must in both cases be employed, in order to exchangea certain value of British manufactures for a certain quantityof flax and hemp, than would have been necessary, had themanufactures and the flax and hemp been directly exchangedfor one another. The whole capital employed, therefore, insuch a round-about foreign trade of consumption, will gene-rally give less encouragement and support to the productivelabour of the country, than an equal capital employed in amore direct trade of the same kind.

Whatever be the foreign commodity with which the foreigngoods for home-consumption are purchased, it can occasionno essential difference either in the nature of the trade, or inthe encouragement and support which it can give to the pro-ductive labour of the country from which it is carried on. If

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