THE BALANCE OF TRADE 217

trade as a whole, so largely conveyed to the ports of the
country of destination by foreign ships, that it is convenient
to adopt a treatment which applies to that arrangement even
when the conveyance is done as above stated, by the buying
country for itself. Credit can be taken under the fourth
head for any such services rendered to a country by its own
citizens, and for which those citizens take their payment at
home,
Similarly, the valuation of exports must be made as at
the point where they leave the territory of the exporting
country. If a country’s foreign obligations were wholly on
account of merchandise bought and sold, and this merchandise
were valued :—for the exports “free on board” (fo.b.), that
is packed and placed on the ship (or other means of conveyance)
 which is to carry it away; for the imports “c.if” that
is with cost, insurance, and freight, including commissions on
buying, etc., paid, the goods being ready for the labour of
the receiving country to take hold of them ; then, the values
of exports and imports should be equal, for the one is the
payment for the other.
In practice, statistics of trade movements fail to realise
these ideals, though in most countries the aim is to make the
records represent just these facts. Apart altogether from
the fact that the values of the official records are frequently
estimated values rather than actual values, and must be so
from the nature of the case, in part; in some cases they do
not aim to be “f.o.b.” values and “cif” values respectively
for exports and imports. Thus the United States records of
imports profess to represent invoice values in the countries
of origin, that is, they are the cost of the goods at purchase,
not as delivered at the boundary of the United States
territory. It is probable that, if the imports were valued at
the port of arrival, nearly one quarter of the apparent excess
of exports would disappear, taking the figures quoted at the
beginning of this chapter. In other cases, exports are, at
any rate in part, declared at the value placed on them, for
business purposes, as inclusive of freight, etc., where the custom
of the trade is to sell on such terms.
Taking up now the second head, a country which has