When a merchant buys 1000 quarters of wheat from America and pays in gold, he does so to make a profit for himself; but he cannot make a profit for himself without making an equal profit for the nation. The exchange of the wheat for gold is profitable to both seller and buyer; otherwise the bargain would not be struck. A value is added to the wheat by its being brought from Minnesota (where it is wanted, as all good things are wanted) to London, where it is much more wanted, and this increased value is greater than the cost of moving the wheat from Minnesota to London; this excess is the profit on the exchange which the buyer and seller divide between them. The exact shares in which they divide the profit between them depend on some of the most complicated considerations in the science of political economy. Indeed, political economy can no more work out a case in figures, even when every circumstance is given, than political economy can tell in pounds sterling what should be the rent of a given farm. But the point required for our present purpose is easy and certain,--unless the English buyer got _some_ share in the profit he would not give his gold for the wheat. The great principle of Free Trade is that in this, and in all similar cases, the individual shall be left to make what profit he can; that his dealings with foreigners shall be interfered with by Government in no way; that he shall not be checked in his operations by import duties, bounties on exports, staples, or any other of the numerous obsolete interferences in the statute-book. The principle is that each individual can manage his own trade better than Government can manage it for him; that, therefore, Government shall let any individual do his best in trade his own way, knowing that whatever profit an individual makes in foreign trade is an equal national profit. It may be shortly stated that in the old Protectionist theory, destroyed by Adam Smith, gold was considered to be wealth. Hence, if an individual bought foreign wheat for gold, the English suffered a national loss of wealth, and the foreign nation made a national gain. It is unnecessary to occupy space in refuting this (to us absurd) idea, as no refutation can be more satisfactory than Adam Smith's own. If I profit on the transaction of buying 1000 quarters of wheat for gold, I do so irrespectively of all other exchanges by others. Whether the firm next door to me has succeeded in selling to a Boston house £2000 worth of Sheffield cutlery or no is a matter entirely beside my bargain. My profit will depend practically on the movements in the English corn trade: a small rise in the price of wheat at Mark Lane between the date of my purchasing by cable the wheat in America and my selling it at Mark Lane, may give me a large profit, or _vice versa_. But my exchange of gold for the wheat is a separate transaction of itself: it stands entirely on its own bottom.