STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 509 notion that only physical goods are bought and sold among nations. To be true, our monthly government reports of the foreign exports and imports of the United States include only the physical merchandise and raw materials which are loaded or unloaded as ship cargoes, and which pass inspection of our customs officials at our various ports. This part of our total sales to and purchases from foreign countries is known as our “visible” trade, and the statistics upon it have long been collected by our various customs houses and consolidated in the monthly foreign trade report of United States ex- ports and imports issued by the Department of Commerce in \Washineton. The “Invisible Trade.”—Yet this buying and selling of physical (and therefore ‘‘visible”’) goods between nations constitutes only a portion, albeit the largest and most funda- mental one, of our total international traffic. For as a nation, we also are buyers and sellers in the “invisible” trade in what, for want of a better term, are known as ‘“‘ser- vices.” This elastic term of “services” covers a multitude of different transactions. If an American exporting firm hires a British vessel or a Canadian railroad to carry its goods into Great Britain or Canada, it is importing transportation service. If either cargo is insured in the course of transit by a foreign insurance company, this service too constitutes an American import. When a foreign immigrant here sends money back to the “old country,” America may likewise be said, in the economic sense, to be importing the service of his hands and brains from the country whither his funds are sent. When furthermore, the American ventures abroad, whether to study in the Sorbonne, to admire cathedral towns, or simply to enjoy a vacation in any foreign country, the grim laws of economics score his expenditures down as another American import— whether of learning, artistic appreciation, or mere pleasure. Gold is also, of course, bought and sold between nations, and is naturally a visible import or export. Because of its special