GREAT BRITAIN, II 
iyi se 
Re hag HAT 
259 
Britain. It will be seen that the trends of the two lower curves 
are markedly downward for the period as a whole. Whichever 
of the methods of measurement is applied — gross terms or net 
terms — it appears that Canada gave progressively less of physical 
exports in exchange for a given quantity of physical imports. As 
regards the gross barter terms, this progressive gain was the natural 
concomitant of the heavy borrowings. It was to be expected that 
Canada, getting a growing excess of imports over exports in terms 
of money, should also get more imported commodities in proportion 
to her commodities exported. But for the verification of theory it is 
particularly significant that the net barter terms also become more 
favorable. The Canadians not only got more of physical goods 
in proportion to the goods they sent out, but they got, on better 
terms, those imported goods which may be regarded as coming 
in payment for their own exported goods, and which had no 
relation to the borrowings. And these advantages are further 
reflected in the upper line of the chart, which shows the course of 
money wages in Canada. The movement of Canadian prices and 
wages has been fully described in the preceding chapters; the 
course of money wages is here charted merely in order to show 
the contrast, or rather the natural inverse correlation, between the 
course of money wages and that of the terms of trade. Just as 
the Canadian case is a simpler one than the British (being as it is 
an almost pure experiment in international borrowing), so the 
verification of general reasoning is more marked and more une- 
quivocal.l 
The question now suggests itself whether the monetary phenom- 
ena in Great Britain during this period show the same sort of 
accordance with theoretic reasoning as has been found for the 
terms of trade. Did gold imports and exports, bank loans and 
bank deposits, the total circulating medium and prices, move in 
the manner we should expect? To this question I am unable to 
give an answer. As regards Canada, Professor Viner’s researches 
! The figures on which the chart is based are given in full in Appendix II, p. 414, 
where due acknowledgment is also made to Mr. A. G. Silverman, by whom they 
were compiled.