on which Emigration and Colonization will be carried on.
From the causes now enumerated, unless counteracted by others, the progress of things enables a country to obtain, at less and less of real cost, not only its own productions but those of foreign countries. Indeed, whatever diminishes the cost of its own productions, when of an exportable character, enables it, as we have already seen, to obtain its imports at less real cost.
§ 3. —except the products of Agriculture and Mining, which have a tendency to Rise.
Are no causes of an opposite character, brought into operation by the same progress, sufficient in some cases not only to neutralize but to overcome the former, and convert [pg 480] the descending movement of cost of production into an ascending movement? We are already aware that there are such causes, and that, in the case of the most important classes of commodities, food, and materials, there is a tendency diametrically opposite to that of which we have been speaking.