Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/89

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IV.

The Islanders' Experience of Foreign Trade.

The benefit of foreign trade does not consist in causing an increasing quantity of gold and silver to be sent to the exporting country, but in enabling each country to supply its wants at a reduced cost by giving it the opportunity of applying a larger portion of its labour and capital to those industries in which it has the greatest advantage over other nations, or at any rate to those industries in which its disadvantage is the smallest—Foreign trade an extension of the principle of division of labour.

Captain Adam's return in a ship of his own manned by a crew of English sailors, and laden with machinery and mechanics, was hailed with great joy by everyone in the island. The ship was a speeial attraction to every boy in Isle Pleasant, and the sailors soon became general favourites. There were a dozen lads who anxiously looked forward to the first outward-bound journey of the Carrier Pigeon, as the ship was called, for each had a hope that