circumstance tending to increase the necessity for going to a
distance, and to increase in amount with every one tending to diminish
the distance within which it must be maintained. As it now stands with
the great farming interest of the Union, the proportions are probably
as follows:--

Exchanges in the family................... 55 per cent.
" in the neighbourhood............ 25 "
" in the nation................... 15 "
" with other nations.............. 5 "
---
Total.................................... 100

It will now be obvious that any law, domestic or foreign, tending to
interfere with the exchanges of the family or the neighbourhood, would
be of more serious importance than one that should, to the same
extent, affect those with the rest of the nation, and that one which
should affect the trade of one part of the nation with another, would
be more injurious than one which should tend to limit the trade with
distant nations. Japan refuses to have intercourse with either Europe
or America, yet this total interdiction of trade with a great empire
is less important to the farmers of the Union than would be the
imposition of a duty of one farthing a bushel upon the vegetable food
raised on their farms to be consumed in their families.

The great trade is the home trade, and the greater the tendency to the
performance of trade at home the more rapid will be the increase of
prosperity, and the greater the power to effect exchanges abroad. The
reason of this is to be found in the fact that the power of production
increases with the power of combined exertion, and all combination is