i82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But, in forming an opinion concerning it, it is important to steadily 

 keep in mind the fact, that international trade is trade in commodi- 

 ties, and not in money ; and that the precious metals come in only 

 for the settlement of balances. In fact, all such exchanges are, to 

 within a very minute fraction, the result of an organized and elabo- 

 rate system of barter, and the principle of barter prevails in them, 

 and determines to a great extent the methods employed. The trade 

 between England and India is an exchange of service for service. 

 Its character would not be altered if India should adopt the gold 

 standard to-morrow, or if she should, like Russia, adopt an irredeem- 

 able paper currency, or, like China, buy and sell by weight instead of 

 tale. ■ Will India give more wheat for a given amount of cloth be- 

 cause she uses silver instead of gold in her internal trade ? "Will 

 England give less of cloth for a given amount of wheat because she 

 keeps her accounts in pounds, shillings, and pence instead of in ru- 

 pees ? Unless all the postulates of political economy are false — un- 

 less "VN^e are entirely mistaken in supposing that men in their individual 

 capacity, and hence in their aggregate capacity as nations, are seeking 

 the most satisfaction with the least labor, we must assume that India, 

 England, and America produce and sell their goods to one another for 

 the most they can get in other goods, regardless of the kind of money 

 that their neighbors use or that they themselves use. A silver currency 

 does not give any additional strength to a Hindoo ryot, nor does it in- 

 crease the fertility of his soil, or add to the number of inches of his 

 rainfall. Nor does a gold currency detract in any way from the capa- 

 bility and resources of his rival, the American farmer. Nor does the 

 difference in their respective currencies affect the judgment of the 

 buyer of wheat in Liverpool. Is any single factor in the elements of 

 production and transportation, by which alone the terms of competition 

 are settled, changed by the local currencies of the several countries, or 

 the mutations thereof ? Surely no mutations were ever more sudden 

 or violent than those of the currency of the United States during the 

 late war. They were not without their effects ; but the effects were 

 not of a kind to change the terms of competition in international trade. 

 It may be that the Indian wheat-grower has been enabled by the 

 decline in silver to get labor for less wages than before, and has thus 

 gained an advantage over his competitors in America and Australia ; 

 but the evidence is all to the effect that wages generally in India in 

 recent years have advanced and not declined. But the terms of inter- 

 national competition are not altered by any division of the joint prod- 

 uct of labor and capital in one of the competing countries. The per- 

 son that has the most of a grievance growing out of the present state 

 of the wheat-trade is the American farmer, who is restricted from 

 buying in the same market in which he sells his surplus wheat to as 

 good advantage as his competitors ; but this is not due to any change 

 in the value of silver, but to the fiscal policy of his own Government. 



