2.10 Revenue Derived by One Nation From Another
The notion of trade - importing and exporting goods - has been discussed and the conclusion reached that neither nation benefits more than the other, the goods in each instance being exchanged for equal value, but there are other ways in which it is reckoned that a nation may gain at the expense of another.
It is sometimes considered that foreign nationals who immigrate to work in a nation gain at the expense of the consumers of the host nation, but this matter does not hold: even though they have foreign citizenship, they are producers and consumers in the location where they work, and any who purchase of them still get equal value in return for whatever is given. Even where foreign nationals cross a border to work, and carry their entire wages home to spend, the wages they receive are in equal measure to the labor they contribute to production in the host nation.
On the other hand, when a skilled tradesman or laborer leaves a nation permanently to ply his trade elsewhere, his productive capability is considered to be lost to the nation to which he has emigrated. It is true that his productive capacity as well as his income are removed, but what is not considered is that the reason he chose to emigrate was to seek opportunity to ply his trade - had sufficient opportunity remained at home, so would he have remained at home. And due to the absence of domestic opportunity, he would not have been equally productive if prevented from leaving.
In regard to capital loaned from one nation to another, there is no gain or loss in the transaction: the borrower repays with interest, and the interest is the cost of having the capital to be productive. As with the laborer, if there were need of capital at home, it would have been loaned at home rather than seeking a more profitable purpose abroad.
Where one nation borrows from another not for productive proposes, but for barren consumption, there is no product to compensate for the interest paid to a foreign creditor. This was common in France, when the nobility borrowed from foreign nations to feed "the prodigality of court" - but even in this, there was arguably a benefit, in that the capital borrowed from abroad did not detract from the capital available to domestic production.
Some thought is given to the purchase of land by foreigners, but again the location of a productive individual determines the location of his production, and his citizenship is of little consequence. Especially in terms of land, the improvements made to the land that render it more productive remain in the host nation and, in time, pass to the hands of domestic citizens. Until that time the product of the land and the wages of the laborers remain within the host nation.
Specific reference is made to sending companies abroad to loot the fortune of foreign nations, but when they do so by productive means, more is gained than lost by the nation they seek to loot: land is cultivated, roads are built, workers are paid and trained to produce. The host nation seems to lose only the profits retained by the master agent, which it would never have been able to produce if that individual did not establish a productive facility on their soil.
There's a final bit about the objection to the exportation of specie from one nation to another as a method by which wealth is drained. Aside of the fact that specie is no different than any other commodity, the instance sin which its export was prohibited merely led the owners to convert it to other commodities, which would then be transported home, and converted back to specie when sold in the domestic market. As such, prohibitions of this nature are an exercise in absurdity and inconvenience.