20 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
and it would seem that her people have but to move to the better 
region in order to enjoy its better conditions. So it would be if 
the cause of advantage in the United States were merely of a 
physical sort — climate, land, or what not — and if the Germans 
were quite as capable of utilizing the natural conditions as the 
Americans. But if the differences in effectiveness do not rest 
purely on physical grounds; if they are due to aptitudes which 
the Americans possess but the Germans do not; if the Germans 
on moving to the United States could not there apply their labor 
with the same intelligence, ingenuity, vigor, as the Americans, — 
there would be no certainty of gain from the shift. As we shall 
see, causes of this kind do operate. Not physical causes alone — 
natural resource and the like — determine the current of inter- 
national trade; the human factor counts heavily. 
At this stage of our inquiry, however, we assume that the Ger- 
mans remain in their own country. It is not material for what 
reason they do so. It may be that they are indifferent to a possible 
gain from transplanting themselves, being attached to their own 
country, familiar with its mode of life and ignorant of life abroad, 
immobile even tho they might prosper by moving. They are to 
be supposed, for the purposes of the present argument, to go their 
own way regardless of the American possibilities; the Americans 
also go their own way. And then the two groups will have no 
occasion for exchange of goods. 
The same conclusion is readily reached under the supposition 
not of barter, but of money and prices: sales of goods and trans- 
actions between individuals. 
We may make at the start any supposition whatever with regard 
to prices and wages ; it will remain to be seen what figures represent 
the definitive conditions. Suppose that in the United States 
wages are $2.00 a day, in Germany $1.00 a day. Then we have: 
In the U. S. 10 days’ labor 
” 2) i, S. 10 » 2» 
” Germany 10 ”’ ? 
" Germany 10 22 
Wages 
PER DAY 
$2.00 $20 
$2.00 $20 
$1.00 $10 
$1.00 $10 
Probpuce 
30 copper 
15 linen 
20 copper 
10 linen 
DowMmesTic 
SuprLy Price 
$0.66% 
$1.33% 
$0.50 
$1.00 
HA