308 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
exchange, its price tended to go down. During these same years 
he prices of domestic goods in the United States held their own 
and money wages tended to advance. After/ he crisis came the 
contrary movements. Foreign exchange and the gold premium 
eld their own, and in 1875 even showed a tendency to rise; 
whereas domestic prices and money wages in the domestic indus- 
ries sank at once and almost continuously. In the very last stage, 
in 1877 and 1878, just before the return to specie payments, the 
old premium gradually disappeared, and its movement was not 
so noticeably at variance with the fall in domestic prices and wages. 
t that closing stage all things were adjusting themselves to the 
pproaching gold basis; and the phenomena raise theoretical 
uestions of a different kind. 
he substantive course of international trade — the actual flow 
: ee aa — a 
f goods and the recorded values of the goods — reflected the influ- 
ence of these movements in foreign exchange and in the prices of 
domestic and international goods. During the first stage there was 
a repression on exports; a burden, so to speak, or at all events the 
everse of a bounty. The prices of exported goods were relatively 
ow, kept down as they were by the relatively low rates at which 
oreign exchange could be sold. After 1873, exported goods were 
elatively Kigh in price. At a time when domestic prices in general 
ere falling fast, they were kept up by the sustained good rates 
(until 1878) of foreign exchanges. As regards import prices, what 
is most significant is the lag in their movement as compared with 
he export prices. In the end they show, as is to be expected, 
changes in correspondence with international prices in general. 
ut there is a preliminary period in each of the two stages in which 
elatively a less movement appears in the import prices; and this 
is the equivalent of a bounty during the initial years of the earlier 
stage, of a burden or repression during the initial years of the 
ater stage. 
e then have, as regards this bit of economic experience, an 
explanation of the way in which, under paper exchanges, the excess 
f imports was brought about in the first stage, that of exports | 
he second. The exchanges affected prices; and the price con-