International trade

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1758394757

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136209

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Taussig, Frank William http://d-nb.info/gnd/120199459

Title:: International trade

Place of publication:: New York, NY

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XXI, 425 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Problems of verification

Collection:: Economics Books

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE AND PROTECTION 181 causes of comparative advantage stand others which are often quite as effective. It would be going too far to say that the physical causes are shown to be of secondary importance. But human causes — man’s ways of doing things — play so large a part and combine so constantly with the physical causes that it is often difficult to say which dominate. Agricultural products have always constituted the largest part of American exports. They still remain so, even tho non-agri- cultural products contribute a greater share than they did thru the nineteenth century. A new country, with abundance of fertile land, finds its labor most effective in the extractive industries. Hence the United States long was, and still is, a steady exporter of wheat, meat products, cotton. In the same way Canada is now a heavy exporter of wheat. Wheat is specially adapted to extensive culture, and is easily transportable; it is the commodity for which nature gives a clear comparative advantage to a new country in the temperate zone. The international trade of the United States was long determined chiefly by the country’s special advantages for the production of wheat and similar agricultural staples. But it is not merely the natural resources which have told, but the manner in which they were used. From the first, inventiveness and ingenuity were shown. The United States early became the great country of agricultural machinery. Especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, the skill of the makers of agricultural implements and the intelligence of the farmers who used the implements were factors not less important than the great stretches of new land. Still another factor of importance was the cheapening of transportation. From the very beginning, the Americans have been energetic and successful in overcoming the vast distances of the country. Our railroads have cheapened long hauls as nowhere else. The most striking advances in this combination of machine-aided agriculture with cheap transpor- tation were made in the last third of the nineteenth century. Then new lands were opened, and agricultural products exported, on a scale not before thought possible. It has already been pointed out that when the effectiveness of labor is spoken of, the

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