It is hardly possible, that a considerable revolution in the trade of a nation should happen suddenly, either to its advantage, or disadvantage, unless in times of civil discord, or foreign wars, which at present do not enter into the question. A sagacious statesman will, at all times, keep a watchful eye upon every branch of foreign commerce, especially upon importations. These consist either in the natural produce of other countries, or in such produce increased in its value by manufacture. In all trade two things are to be considered in the commodity sold. The first is the matter; the second is the labour employed to render this matter useful. The matter exported from a country, is what the country loses; the price of the labour exported, is what it gains. If the value of the matter imported, be greater than the value of what is exported, the country gains. If a greater value of labour be imported, than exported, the country loses. Why? Because in the first case, strangers must have paid, _in matter_, the surplus of labour exported; and in the second case, because the country must have paid to strangers, _in matter_, the surplus of labour imported. It is therefore a general maxim, to discourage the importation of work, and to encourage the exportation of it. When any manufacture begins to be imported, which was usually made at home, it is a mark that either the price of it begins to rise within the country, or that strangers are making a new progress in it. On the other hand, when the importation of manufactures consumed within a country comes to diminish, and when merchants begin to lose upon such branches of trade, it is a proof that industry at home is gaining ground in those articles. The statesman then must take the hint, and set out by clogging gently the importation of those commodities, not so as to put a stop to it all at once; because this might have the effect of carrying profits too high upon the home fabrication of them.