[Footnote 8: In 1913 the total premiums collected by all kinds of insurance companies reported (Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1914, pp. 549-557) were about $1,512,000,000, and the amount returned to policy holders the same year was $918,000,000, or about 61 per cent of all premiums, the amount not returned ($584,000,000) being 39 per cent.
Premiums received Returned to policyholders
Amount Percent
Life insurance
reserve companies ..$715,000,000 $470,000,000 67
assessment companies 138,000,000 106,000,000 76
Other kinds ……… 659,000,000 342,000,000 52
——————- —————- —
Total ……….. $1,512,000,000 $918,000,000 61
]
[Footnote 9: See above, secs. 2 and 5.]
PART IV
TARIFF AND TAXATION
CHAPTER 13
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
§ 1. Political and trade boundaries. § 2. Benefits of international trade. § 3. Choice of the more advantageous occupations. § 4. Persistence of differences between nations. § 5. Doctrine of comparative advantages. § 6. Equation of international exchange. §7. Balance of merchandise movements. § 8. Cancellation of foreign indebtedness. § 9. Par of exchange. § 10. International monetary balance and price-levels.
§ 1. #Political and trade boundaries.# By international trade is meant, in general, trade between persons resident in different countries; comparatively rare is the case in which one of the two parties to a trade is a whole nation acting through its government as a unit (e.g., in the purchase of munitions of war in neutral countries). Outside of a communistic group such as the family, trade is a necessary accompaniment of division of labor. As territorial division of labor began between neighboring tribes,[1] international trade was the earliest kind of regular interchange of goods. Indeed the very word "market" meant originally the boundary between tribes. Thus, from primitive times when wandering savages gave bits of flint or copper in return for salt or fish, individuals have sought to adjust their goods to their desires through trade with men of other political groups. With the progress of the world in the means of communication and transportation, international trade has widened in extent and grown in volume.