Many credit transactions affect the balance one way or another until settled. The loans made by European capital to the American government or to individuals and corporations in America, as well as the European capital expended in purchasing American enterprises, require the remitting of gold to New York, and thus offset many imports of goods to New York otherwise calling for the remitting of gold to London. In the direction opposite to this, act the interest payments and the eventual repayment of the principal loan, for these require either money or goods to be exported from America to the value of the obligations. Loans that run for years thus offset annually (in their accruing interest) a portion of the exports of the debtor country. An excess of exports may therefore at any given moment indicate either that the country is in debt or that it is getting out of debt. An excess of exports is generally looked upon as an evidence of national prosperity; but it is absolutely inconclusive on the point. Finally, after all the items of imports and credit paper purchased abroad are set opposite the items of exports and promissory papers sold abroad, the balance is paid in gold bullion and is shipped one way or the other. Evidently the amount of gold shipped is but a small fraction of the total volume of transactions.
Industrial indebtedness is represented in various forms: bills of lading for goods shipped, drafts made by the creditor on his debtor for goods shipped or property sold, checks or letters of credit of travelers, bonds and notes public and private. These are the objects dealt in by the bankers who are the agents to carry on the work of exchange.
Relations of the international flow of goods to the flow of money
3. The territorial distribution of money is both a determined and a determining factor in international trade. It appears to be determined in that the balance of all accounts for or against the country must be settled eventually in money. After any such a settlement one country has less, the other more money than before. The change in the amount of money at once reacts on prices and becomes a determining factor in international trade. The flow of money out of a country causes money to tighten, interest rates on short loans in the large cities to stiffen, and prices slightly to fall. When prices fall, imports decline, as the country is not so good a place to sell in; when prices rise, imports increase, as it is a better place to sell in. As the opposite effect is produced on exports, there occurs immediately a change in the quantity of money which continues until the national credits and debits balance and for a brief time remain in equilibrium. If the trade of a country with its neighbors continued long to give a balance of imports of goods and of debit items (exclusive of money) it would ultimately be drained of all its coin, and would default payment or cease to import. If the trade constantly gave a balance of exports and credit items, money would continue to flow in, until prices rose to unexampled heights. In fact no such extreme is even remotely approached, for a slight movement of money in either direction at once influences prices and sets in motion counteracting forces. Decade after decade the circulating medium of leading countries changes only slightly in amount, and the fluctuations during periods of so-called "favorable balance of trade" and of "unfavorable balance of trade" represent only the smallest fraction of the value of goods passing through the ports of the country.
§ III. REAL BENEFITS OF FOREIGN TRADE
Fallacious explanations of the gains from foreign trade
1. The direct advantages of foreign trade consist in the increased efficiency it imparts to productive forces. In explanation of the advantages of foreign trade it is said to be a vent for surplus production and to give a wider market to what would otherwise go to waste. This involves the same fallacy as the "lump of labor," the destruction of machinery, and the praise of luxury. If backward nations now give a vent for products which would otherwise rot in the warehouses, at length a time will come when the world will have an enormous surplus unless neighboring planets can be successively annexed. Again it is said that the great purpose of foreign trade is to keep exports in excess of imports so that money may constantly increase in amount. The ideal of such theorists is an impossible condition where the country would constantly sell and never buy. In the commercial view the sole object of foreign trade is to afford a profit to the merchants, regardless of the welfare of the mass of the citizens.
The real advantages of foreign trade
The main advantage of foreign trade is the same as that of any other exchange. It is hardly necessary to review the explanation here: the increased efficiency of labor when it is applied in the way for which each country is best fitted; the liberation of productive forces for the best uses; the development of special branches of industry with increasing returns; the larger scale production with resulting greater use of machinery and with increased chance of invention; the destruction of local monopolies.
The moral and intellectual gains of foreign commerce were formerly much emphasized. Commerce is an agent of progress; it stimulates the arts and sciences; it creates bonds of common interest; it gives an understanding of foreign peoples and an appreciation of their merits; it raises a commercial and moral barrier to war; and it furthers the ideal of a world federation, the brotherhood of man.