At first, I grant, the immediate inhabitants profit by this fortunate circumstance.

But soon comes competition, and the price of coal and iron falls, until this gift of Nature becomes gratuitous to all, and human labor is only paid according to the general rate of profits.
Thus natural advantages, like improvements in the process of production, are, or have a constant tendency to become, under the law of competition, the common and _gratuitous_ patrimony of consumers, of society, of mankind.

Countries therefore which do not enjoy these advantages, must gain by commerce with those which do; because the exchanges of commerce are between _labor and labor_; subtraction being made of all the natural advantages which are combined with these labors; and it is evidently the most favored countries which can incorporate into a given labor the largest proportion of these _natural advantages_.
Their produce representing less labor, receives less recompense; in other words, is _cheaper_.

If then all the liberality of Nature results in cheapness, it is evidently not the producing, but the consuming country, which profits by her benefits.
Hence we may see the enormous absurdity of the consuming country, which rejects produce precisely because it is cheap.

It is as though we should say: "We will have nothing of that which Nature gives you.