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INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
of connection, such as was suggested a moment ago, might show 
that the process was not always so rapid as it seems to be on first 
inspection. The explanation of the speedy adjustment may be 
found in the sensitiveness of the British monetary system. It 
must be admitted, however, that a quick and close adjustment 
appears to exist in other countries whose systems are less sensitive. 
So far as I have been able to observe, it is found in the trade of 
Germany and France also during this very period, the decade 
or two preceding the Great War. One might be tempted to say 
that the sensitive industrial organism always and everywhere 
shrinks from the loss of its lifeblood, the vital circulating medium ; 
that it turns instinctively to some other way of meeting demands 
on the industrial structure. But this is no more than a metaphor; 
it may suggest in what direction an answer should be sought, 
but gives no answer. 
All in all, we have here a field quite insufficiently explored. The 
plain outstanding fact is that the exports and imports of goods 
adjust themselves, if not at once, certainly with quickness and 
ordinarily with ease, to the sum total of a country’s transactions 
with other countries. The balance of payments is satisfied only to 
a slight extent by any shipment of specie, chiefly thru changes in 
the commodity sales and purchases. And hence the corresponding 
changes in the barter terms of trade also appear with surprising 
promptness.