Note 773 — Chapter II · : THE APOGEE AND DECLINE OF THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL. JOHN STUART MILL

Ricardo, moreover, gives an exposition of the advantages of international trade in terms that Bastiat might have adopted. “Under a system of perfectly free commerce each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically: while by increasing the general mass of productions it diffuses general benefit and binds together, by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilised world. It is this principle which determines that wine shall be made in France and Portugal, that corn shall be grown in America and Poland, and that hardware and other goods shall be manufactured in England.” (Ricardo, Works, p. 75.)