72 HOME TRADE AND FOREIGN TRADE 



This is an important feature of the explanation 

 we are about to give. 



We may be perfectly sure that in reality the 

 trade of the countries, like those in Table No. II., 

 which export largely, in ordinary foreign trade 

 follows the usual rule, that imports must in value 

 exceed exports. The exports of these countries 

 must, therefore, include supplementary exports 

 to which there are no imports corresponding. 

 What, then, becomes of these exports ? They 

 must, like all other exports, become imports 

 somewhere. And they do so. They are re- 

 ceived as imports by countries like those in 

 Table No. I. It follows, therefore, that the 

 imports shown in Table No. I. are excessive, 

 just as the exports shown in Table No. II. are 

 excessive. These exports which become imports, 

 as all exports must, represent debts paid by one 

 set of countries to another set ; debts for services 

 performed, such as carrying goods from one 

 country to another ; and debts for interest and 

 dividends due on bonds, railway stocks, and 

 similar loans, previously raised in the creditor 

 countries, for the use of the debtor countries. 



It is therefore not at all difficult to understand 

 how it is that a country which imports very 

 largely may still go on and prosper. The 

 ordinary imports must exceed the exports in 

 value, because the former contain in their value 

 the cost of carriage, which the latter do not. 

 The imports to which there are no correspond- 

 ing exports, being payments of amounts due, go 

 to swell the national capital year after year. 



