_4to._ The superior dexterity of other nations in working up their manufactures, their knowledge in the science of trade, the advantage they have in turning their money to account in the intervals of their own direct circulation, the superior abilities of their statesman, the application of their public money, in one word, the perfection of their political oeconomy. Before I enter upon the method of removing these several inconveniencies, I must observe, that as we are at present treating of the _relative_ height of the price of manufactures, a competition between nations is constantly implied. It is this which obliges a statesman to be principally attentive to the rise of prices. The term _competition_ is relative to, and conveys the idea of emulation between two parties striving to compass the same end. I must therefore distinguish between the endeavours which a nation makes to _retain_ a superiority already got, and those of another which strives to get the better of it. The first I shall call a competition to _retain_; the second, a competition to _acquire_. The first three heads represent the inconveniencies to which the competitors to _retain_ are liable; and the fourth comprehends those to which the competitors to _acquire_ are most commonly exposed. Having digested our subject into order, I shall run through the principles which severally influence the removing of every inconvenience, whether incident to a nation whose foreign trade is already well established, or to another naturally calculated for entring into a competition for the acquisition of it. In proposing a remedy for the particular causes of augmentation here set down, we must suppose every one entirely simple, and uncompounded with the others; a thing which in fact seldom happens. This I do for the sake of distinctness; and the principal difficulty in practice is to combine the remedies in proportion to the complication of the disease. I now come to the first of the four causes of high prices, to wit, consolidated profits. The whole doctrine of these has been abundantly set forth in the 10th chapter. We there explained the nature of them, shewed how the subversion of the balance, by a long preponderancy of the scale of demand, had the effect of consolidating profits in a country of luxury; and observed, that the reducing them to the proper standard could never fail of bringing those who had long enjoyed them, into distress. The question here is to reduce them, when foreign trade cannot otherwise be retained, let the consequences be ever so hurtful to certain individuals. When the well being of a nation comes in competition with a temporary inconvenience to some of the inhabitants, the general good must be preferred to particular considerations.