EXPORTS IN EXCESS 73 



It is not perhaps quite so easy to see how 

 countries can go on year after year exporting 

 more than they import and not become beggared. 

 Great manufacturing countries could not do it, 

 unless they were at the same time, like the 

 United States, very largely agricultural. In 

 such countries wages are too high, and, what is 

 very important, land commands rent. But, as 

 Table No. III. shows, the countries that export 

 largely are agricultural ; and the cost of produc- 

 tion in such countries is, all things considered, 

 comparatively small. A little grain brings forth 

 an abundance ; animals worth little at first 

 become most valuable food, their own food 

 being meantime the growing grass. Nature 

 here takes the place of labour ; the labour 

 required does not cost much, and rent is, if 

 payable, trifling. The consequence is that agri- 

 cultural countries have at their disposal an 

 enormous amount of stuff, all saleable at the 

 rates of the world's markets, though it has cost 

 the countries themselves but little. This stuff 

 is available to pay, first, for the imports, and 

 then, secondly, the amounts due to other 

 countries for services performed, such as trans- 

 port, and the interest on loans and stocks so 

 largely held abroad. 



Let it now be supposed that two countries, 

 separated by a stretch of sea, and possessing 

 no shipping of their own, trade together without 

 levying any duty on their imports. Then the 

 exports of each country become the imports 

 of the other ; and the value assigned to the 



