GREAT BRITAIN, II 
257 
kind not easy to put fingers on, is found within our grasp ; a recon- 
dite theorem is confirmed. 
I turn now to another aspect of the problem. The concrete way 
in which the inhabitants of a country get the benefit of more 
favorable terms of trade — gross or net —is that their money 
incomes rise, while the prices of imported commodities fall. With 
the same labor they can buy more of imported goods. More 
favorable terms of trade mean rising money incomes; less favor- 
able terms, falling money incomes. We should expect in Great 
Britain a tendency toward rising money incomes from 1880 until 
1900; thereafter either falling incomes, or a check in the upward 
movement. 
Let the reader glance at the chart again. On it he will observe 
a lower line; it indicates the movement of money wages from 1880 
to 1913. The slope 1s upward until 1900. Thereafter it shows 
no marked inclination either way, certainly not before 1913. 
The relation between money wages and the barter terms of trade 
is clear, certainly for the earlier period. As the terms become 
more favorable, money wages rise. After 1900, when the change 
in the barter terms is in the other direction, the rise in wages halts. 
Money wages remain nearly constant. The period after 1900 was 
one of rising prices and rising money incomes in the world at large ; 
and the upward movement might be expected to show itself in 
Great Britain. Yet as regards money wages, there is no such 
tendency; a striking contrast to the conditions of the previous 
period, when they moved upward in the face of falling commodity 
prices. For the period as a whole there is unmistakably an in- 
verse relation between the movement of wages and the changes 
in the barter terms of trade. It is precisely the sort of cor- 
relation we should expect on grounds of theory. 
We may turn back now for a moment to the Canadian case, 
described in the last chapter. The international trade of Canada 
from 1900 to 1913 evidently followed a course quite the reverse of 
the British. Great Britain was not only a lending country, but 
was rapidly increasing her loans; Canada was borrowing heavily.