Note A2-5-12 — Chapter III

Torrens imagines an English manufacturer who employs raw material = 100 quarters of corn and manufactured wares = 100 bales of cloth (the quarter of corn and the bale of cloth supposed to be of equal value) and whose product = 240 bales in value; and compares him with an American agriculturist who, by means of the same outlay of capital, harvests 240 quarters of corn. The trade between them restores to each not only his outlay, with twenty per cent. profit, but puts them in a position to repeat their production on a larger scale. Only the quantity of fertile land can put a limit to this growth; for corn and cloth help produce each other, and the cheapness of the one promotes the cheapness of the other, which can not, by any means, be said, for instance, of the exchange between vanilla and satin. (Budget, p. 268 ff.) Compare Roscher, Colonien, p. 277 ff.