248 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
important for the purpose in hand is the circumstance that we have 
price figures of a kind not usually obtainable. The British Board 
of Trade publishes price figures separately for imported and 
exported articles, or rather, indices showing the movement of the 
prices of the two classes. The lack of separate price figures of this 
kind is one of the greatest obstacles to any procedure for testing 
the validity of the more complex parts of the theory of inter- 
national trade. In the present case, as in that of Canada, just 
considered, we are fortunate in having the needed data. 
Let the reader recall what has been said elsewhere! about the 
net barter terms of trade and the gross barter terms of trade. 
The net barter terms are those of the exchange of domestic goods 
for foreign goods in the very simplest manner, where nothing 
enters into the trade between countries except sales and purchases 
of merchandise. Then the net barter terms are the only terms 
that arise, and this is the only sense in which we can speak of the 
terms of trade. For the moment I ignore services; they will be 
considered presently. It is the goods transactions, thus con- 
sidered as the sole items, which the Ricardian theory in its earlier 
formulation alone took into consideration. But as the non-mer- 
chandise transactions enter, there is occasion to distinguish. The 
actual international trade of any modern country may be sepa- 
rated into two parts: first, the exchange of exported goods for an 
equal money value of imported goods; second, an excess in money 
value of the imported goods over the exported goods, or vice versa 
(as the case may be), representing the balance of the non-mer- 
chandise transactions. The distinction, be it observed, is one of 
analysis only. What in fact takes place is that one unsegregated 
mass (or flow) of physical goods moves toward the country as im- 
ports, another mass moves out as exports. For a country having 
net payments due fo it on the “invisible” account, the money 
value of the imports is greater than that of the exports; for a 
country in the reverse situation the money value of the exports is 
greater. The physical volume of the incoming goods (imports), as 
compared to the physical volume of the outgoing goods (exports), 
1 Chapter 11, pp. 113, 117.