_2do._ In speaking of a standard, in the last chapter, I established a distinction between one regulated by the height of foreign demand, and another kept as low as the possibility of supplying the manufacture can admit. This requires a little explanation. It must not here be supposed that a people will ever be brought from a principle of public spirit, not to profit of a rise in foreign demand; and as this may proceed from circumstances and events which are entirely hid from the manufacturers, such revolutions are unavoidable. We must therefore restrain the generality of our proposition, and observe, that the indispensible _vibrations_ of this foreign demand do no harm; but that the statesman should be constantly on his guard to prevent the _subversion of the balance, or the smallest consolidation of extraordinary profits with the real value_. This he will accomplish, as has been observed, by multiplying hands in those branches of exportation, upon which profits have risen. This will increase the supply, and even frustrate his own people of extraordinary gains, which would otherwise terminate in a prejudice to foreign trade. A statesman may sometimes, out of a principle of benevolence, perhaps of natural equity towards the classes of the industrious, as well as from sound policy, permit larger profits, as an encouragement to some of the more elegant arts, which serve as an ornament to a country, establish a reputation for taste and refinement in favour of a people, and thereby make strangers prefer articles of their production, which have no other superior merit than the name of the country they come from: but even as to these, he ought to be upon his guard, never to allow them to rise so high, as to prove an encouragement to other nations, to establish a successful rivalship. _3tio._ The encouragement recommended to be given to the domestic consumption of superfluities, when foreign demand for them happens to fall so low as to be followed with distress in the workmen, requires a little farther explanation. If what I laid down in the last chapter be taken literally, I own it appears an absurd supposition, because it implies a degree of public spirit in those who are in a capacity to purchase the superfluities, no where to be met with, and at the same time a self-denial, in discontinuing the demand, so soon as another branch of foreign trade is opened for the employment of the industrious, which contradicts the principles upon which we have founded the whole scheme of our political oeconomy. I have elsewhere observed, that were revolutions to happen as suddenly as I am obliged to represent them, all would go into confusion.