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INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
not the mere chronicle of what has taken place, but a search for 
the underlying forces and for the meaning of it all. The problems 
bear on important matters of economic policy, and indeed focus 
on the fundamental question of the weight and influence of the 
various political and legislative steps by which a people’s economic 
development can be promoted. The familiar doctrine of protec- 
tion to young industries is but one among the obvious aspects of 
this large group of problems. They are by no means to be neg- 
lected in any applications of the reasoning set forth in these pages. 
But for the present purpose — that of the verification of certain 
theoretical doctrines — we may accept the dictum of Adam Smith, 
who, with one of those flashes of insight so often found in the great 
Scotchman, remarked : “Whether the advantages which one coun- 
try has over another be natural or acquired, is in this respect of 
no consequence. As long as the one country has those advan- 
tages, and the other wants them, it will always be more advan- 
tageous for the latter, rather to buy of the former than to make. 
It is an acquired advantage only, which one artificer has over his 
neighbor, who exercises another trade; and yet they both find it 
more advantageous to buy of one another, than to make what does 
not belong to their particular trades.” ! 
1 Wealth of Nations, Bk. 4, Ch. 2 (Vol. 1, p. 423, Cannan edition).