164

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

in  the  public  interest  against  my  own
interest.
Just  as  the  advantages  of  home  exchange
and  their  distribution  are  measurable  theoretically ­
  through  the  agency  of  consumers’
surplus,  so  are  the  advantages  of  international
trade  and  their  distribution.  This  may  be
said  to  indicate  one  of  the  many  uses  of  the
doctrine  of  consumers’  surplus,  which,  though
it  may  be  of  speculative  value  only  at  the
present  time,  may  eventually  be  turned  to
practical  account.
Economics  relates  in  the  main  to  man’s
attitude  to  the  purchasable  goods  of  the
world,  and  therefore  it  is  imperative  to  remind
ourselves  from  time  to  time  that  all  the  goods
of  this  world  are  not  of  such  a  kind.  Indeed,
it  is  the  impalpable  subjective  things  in  life,
without  a  price,  which  give  to  exchangeable
goods  their  value.  We  cannot  value  books
without  culture,  nor  pictures  without  taste.
In  this  chapter,  then,  some  notice  should  be
taken  of  the  advantages  of  international
trade  which  cannot  be,  or  are  not,  expressed
in  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence.  As  regards
these  we  cannot  do  better  than  read  Mill  in
one  of  his  most  eloquent  passages,  which  will
incidentally  make  it  evident  that  his  political
economy  was  not,  throughout  at  any  rate,  of