The dependence of the ante-bellum South upon the North and upon Europe for the most substantial and the most trivial appurtenances of civilization, is perhaps less in dispute than any topic here treated. The extent of this dependence, with the accompanying neglect of provision for production of the commodities at home, is evidenced by its continuance for years after the war. It might be said, not only in justification of this practice, but in apology for the total one-sidedness of the old South, that the section was animated by a natural and universal law, in responding to and acting upon the principle of comparative economic advantage. And certainly the most absolute conception of the territorial division of labor could not require a more exclusive devotion to the making of cotton and a more complete reliance upon other less peculiarly favored districts for supply not only of manufactured goods but of food stuffs and other raw materials, than the South displayed. But, however, strictly in conformity with the superficial dictates of this policy from an international and even national point of view, the program was ruinous to the section, the country and, in a broad sense, to the deeper economic welfare of the world. Easy yielding to the principle did not suggest to the great bulk of the South's statesmanship the reflection that the section after all was in only partial compliance; that even for the most efficient production of cotton as such, there needed to be a wholesome admixture of manufacturing and of other agricultural interests. Accompanying and directly by agency of the post-bellum activities in industry is seen not a less but a more economical and larger output of the staple. Some of the most humorous passages in the literature of the economic history of the South were called forth by the need of the section to go to the North for a thousand and one essentials of daily existence, and in their very humor they serve to show the seriousness of the situation.