44 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
$1.00, wheat would sell for $1.00 and linen for $0.665. In other 
words, wages were assumed to be not, indeed, on the same level 
in the two countries, but at one and the same level in all industries 
thruout the United States and at one and the same level in all 
industries thruout Germany. 
The familiar fact, however, is that there is no uniformity of 
wages within any country. There are differences within each 
country as well as differences between countries. The workmen 
who produce wheat in Germany may receive lower wages than 
those producing linen in Germany; and the wheat laborers in the 
United States may be in a position of similar disadvantage. Ob- 
viously such differences could not persist if there were perfect 
freedom of movement from occupation to occupation within each 
country; just as the differences of commodity income and of sub- 
stantial prosperity between countries could not persist if there 
were perfect international freedom of movement. To designate 
the actual situation within countries it will be convenient to use 
Cairnes’s phrase ‘non-competing groups.” The workers in the 
several occupations (or groups of occupations) may be said to be 
in groups which do not completely compete one with another. 
There are persistent obstacles to transfer from one group to 
another, and therefore persistent differences of wages, not smoothed 
out by the movement of men from the lower-paid groups to the 
higher. 
Given this sort of situation, it follows that the prices of goods are 
not in accord with the quantities of labor devoted to producing 
them. Even tho wheat and linen be produced in the United 
States with the same amount of labor, the two articles will not sell 
for the same price if the wheat producers get lower wages. On 
the other hand, two articles may sell for the same price even tho 
produced with different amounts of labor. Wheat and linen may 
be produced by different amounts of labor in Germany ; yet, if the 
rates of wages are inverse to the labor amounts — higher where 
the days of labor are few, lower where they are many— wheat 
and linen will sell for the same price. International trade, how- 
ever. like domestic trade, is proximately a matter of money sale