The wool imported was more than was required to produce the cloth exported, and from this it follows that the whole export represented foreign wool. The cotton, silk, flax, dyeing-materials, &c. exported were all foreign, and the food imported was adequate, or nearly so, to feed the people who produced the goods exported. Such being the case, it would follow that the total exports of British and Irish produce could scarcely have amounted to even £15,000,000, and it certainly could not have exceeded that sum--and that would give about 10s. per head, or one-fourth as much as in 1815. The difference between the two periods is precisely the same as that between the farmer and the shoemaker. The man who, by the labour of himself and sons, is enabled to send to market the equivalent of a thousand bushels of wheat, has first _fed himself and them_, and therefore he has _the whole proceeds_ of his sales to apply to the purchase of clothing, furniture, or books, or to add to his capital. His neighbour buys food and leather, and sells shoes. He _has been fed_, and the first appropriation to be made of the proceeds of his sales is to buy more food and leather; and all he has to apply to other purposes is _the difference_ between the price at which he buys and that at which he sells. Admitting that difference to be one-sixth, it would follow that his sales must be six times as large to enable him to have the same value to be applied to the purchase of other commodities than food, or to the increase of his capital. Another neighbour buys and sells wheat, or shoes, at a commission of five per cent., out of which he has _to be fed_. To enable him to have an amount of gross commissions equal to the farmer's sales, he must do twenty times as much business; and if, we allow one-half of it for the purchase of food, he must do forty times as much to enable him to have the same amount with which to purchase other commodities, or to increase his capital. Precisely so is it with a nation. When it sells its own food and leather, _it has fed itself_, and may dispose as it will of the whole amount of sales. When it buys food and leather, and sells shoes, _it has been fed_, and must first pay the producers of those commodities; and all that it can appropriate to the purchase of clothing or furniture, or to the increase, of its capital, is the _difference_; and, to enable it to have the same amount to be so applied, it must sell six times as much in value. When it acts as a mere buyer and seller of sugar, cotton, cloth, or shoes, it has _to be fed_ out of the differences, and then it may require forty times the amount of sales to yield the same result. These things being understood, we may now compare the two years above referred to. In the first, 1815, the sales of domestic produce amounted to.................... £38,600,000