[A2-4-6] Thus even J. Steuart, Principles, IV, 2, ch. 8.
[A2-4-7] Compare Soetbeer in Hirth's Annalen des deutschen Reiches, 1875, p. 731 ff.
[A2-4-8] British Europe had from 1854 to 1863, a yearly surplus amount (Mehrbetrag) of imports of at least 266, and at most 1190 millions of marks, in the average, 764 millions; from 1864 to 1873, of at least 802 millions, and at most 1388 millions, an average of 1104 millions; whereas, on the other hand, Australia, besides its great exportation of gold, exhibits a great excess of exports of commodities over imports. France, too, from 1867 to 1869, had attained to an average surplus importation (Mehreinfuhr) of 211 million marks; which is related to the fact that, according to L. Say, it received about from 600 to 700 million francs a year in interest from foreign countries; and that from 200 to 300 million francs were expended by foreigners, etc., traveling in France. Similarly, in the case of governing countries vis-a-vis of their dependencies; whence even the old mercantilists entertained no doubt of the enrichment of the former. Thus France, in 1787 ff., had a yearly importation of 613 million livres, and an exportation of 448 millions, because the colonies sent to France 150 millions more than they drew therefrom. (Chaptal, De l'Industrie, Fr., I, 134.) Hungary, from 1831 to 1840, had a yearly exportation of 46 million florins to Austria, and an importation of only 30 millions. (List, Zollvereinsblatt. 1843, No. 49) Algiers drew from France in 1844 to the amount of 83 million francs, and found a market there for only 8 millions (Moniteur), which no one will consider an enrichment of France. The great preponderance of French exports in 1831, 1848 and 1849, of Austrian, between 1874 and 1876, a sign of diminished purchasing capacity! When England, in March, 1877, imported to the amount of £35,230,000, and exported to the amount of £16,921,000 (against £27,451,000 and £17,739,000 in March, 1876), the Economist sees therein a sign that many outstanding debts were called in.
SECTION V.
THE ADVANTAGES OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE.
The truth that no exportation is permanently possible without importation, and that, in international trade, also, both sides better their condition, was clear to the Italians in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the Netherlanders.[A2-5-1]
Every nation can, through its instrumentality, for the first time, acquire not only those commodities which nature entirely refuses to it, but such also which it can itself produce only at a great cost.[A2-5-2] And here it is not so much the absolute costs of production as the comparative which are decisive.[A2-5-3] The country A may be superior to the country B in all kinds of productiveness; but when this superiority for the group of commodities x amounts to only 50 per cent., and for the group y, on the other hand, to 100 per cent., it is to the interest of A, which possesses only a limited quantity of the factors of production, to produce a surplus of the commodities y, and to exchange that surplus against what it wants of x.[A2-5-4] B, also, would willingly agree to this, even if it were not to get the commodities y entirely as cheap as A might supply them, but still decidedly cheaper than their production would cost in B itself. But, if both parties derive advantage from international trade, there is no necessity whatever that this advantage should be equally great on both sides. As in every struggle over prices, the gain here also is greatest on the side of the nation whose desire to hold fast to their own commodities is farthest from being outweighed by the want of the foreign commodity, and which, at the same time, employs most productively the equivalent received in imports in exchange for its exports.[A2-5-5] Yet, in estimating this productiveness, it is necessary to take the whole national life into consideration.[A2-5-6]
The international distribution of the precious metals is subject to the same law. These, also, are procured most cheaply by the nation which, directly or indirectly (by the production of counter values wished for by the whole world), employs the most productive economic activity upon them, and at the same time (it may be by especially well developed credit), is in the least urgent need of them.[A2-5-7] Therefore, on the whole, their value in exchange is wont to be lowest among the richest and most highly cultivated nations.[A2-5-8] Such a relative cheapness of gold and silver is not only a symptom of economic power, but considering the preëminent energy of these very commodities, at the same time, a means to procure most foreign commodities with a smaller expenditure of one's own forces.[A2-5-9] Hence, a great change in the distribution, hitherto usual, of the precious metals, produced, possibly, by great advances made in production here, or by an increase in consumption there, or by means of commercial prohibitions, etc., may be just as advantageous to the country which receives more as hurtful for the country which pays more;[A2-5-10] and both, all the more as the revolution in prices enhances the most productive elements of the nation there, and here the most unproductive.[A2-5-11] Hence, even when it cannot, in general, be said that one branch of commerce, carried on in a normal manner, should necessarily remain behind another in economic productiveness, those which have nothing to fear from a disturbance of their balance by the measures of foreign states are distinguished by the greatest security, and those are capable of the greatest growth which exchange articles to be manufactured (Fabrikanden), and the means of subsistence against ordinary manufactured articles.[A2-5-12] [A2-5-13]
[A2-5-1] M. Sanudo, in Muratori Scriptores, XXII, 950 ff., and the Netherland decree of February 3, 1501, in the Journal des Economistes, XIII, 304. Then, Salmasins, de Usuris (1638), p. 197. Child, Becher and Temple had all made their studies in Holland. Compare, besides, even Plato, De Rep., II, 371.
[A2-5-2] J. S. Mill rightly calls it a remnant of the mercantile system that Adam Smith still saw the principal utility of foreign trade in the market for the home production which is thereby increased. But this utility is to be looked for not so much in what is exported as in what is imported. (Principles, II, ch. 17, 4.)