212 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

of considerable changes in the circumstances, changes which
make a different distribution of the productive powers
desirable in the interests of efficiency.
It may be noted, as a possible source of gain from
international trade, in addition to the above - mentioned
two, that differences in the requirements of different peoples
may enable a nation to secure a profit for itself, by the
production of goods which are little valued by its own
members but are of considerable value in the estimation of
some other nation. Thus the extent to which the asphalt of
Trinidad, the nitre of Chili, or the rubber of Brazil could find
profitable application in the industries of the producing
peoples, is slight, but the high value which these products
have in Europe makes them a source of considerable wealth
to the countries in question.
It has been very properly said that in foreign trade a
means is found to realise the advantages of the division of
labour, that is the specialisation of labour and the division
of tasks, in a fuller way than can be realised within the range
of a single nation’s industry. The countries whose natural
resources, or whose people’s characteristics, render them most
effective as producers of particular kinds of goods, can make
a living by selling them, The advantages which skilled
artisans realise in being able to employ themselves at tasks
where their skill tells greatly, in enabling them to achieve
greater results than they could reach in other trades, are
worked out on an international scale. It is, on the whole, an
advantage to a carpenter that he can procure, by exchange of
his products for those of others, the food and clothing needed
for himself and his family. He procures them in greater
abundance and of superior quality to those he could have produced
 by devoting his energies to agriculture in part, and to
cloth-making in part, and so on. The restricting his efforts to
a comparatively narrow field of action has serious disadvantages
 to the artisan, but they are abundantly outweighed
by the correlative gains secured. Something of the same
kind holds of nations. They gain by procuring some of the
commodities they require from other nations, giving in
sxchange their own products. The gain is not unattended