20 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
money wages, even tho they compel some domestic producers to 
lessen or abandon their output, are still the result and the indication 
of better conditions of the community at large. 
Another problem, and one on which there is much more occasion 
for difference of opinion among the discerning, concerns the range 
of industries in which we may expect to find varying costs. Wheat 
has been selected for illustration, because it is a commonplace in 
economics that agricultural commodities are usually produced at 
varying costs. But are not other classes of articles also produced 
at varying costs? The more ample information yielded in recent 
times by statistical inquiry, and our greater familiarity with the 
actual conditions of industry, both point to the conclusion that in 
manufacturing industries also we find, at any given time, costs not 
uniform. Side by side there are effective and ineffective producers. 
Must we not assume for the entire range of industry conditions like 
those assumed for wheat? And is not the theory of international 
trade to be readjusted accordingly ? 
It would carry us far from the main topics of the present volume 
to consider this question in all its ramifications. The discussion 
involves moot points, and illustrates once more the impossibility of 
separating the theory of international trade from the general prob- 
lems of economics. I content myself with a summary statement of 
the grounds for a negative answer; negative, that is, as regards 
any considerable modification of the theory of international trade. 
Manufacturing industries do show varying costs. Uniform costs 
are never found. But the causes of variation are different from 
those found in the extractive industries; the persistence of the 
phenomenon is due to different causes; and the consequences are 
different, both as regards domestic trade and international trade. 
The main cause of variation is in the personal element. Some 
managers of industry are more efficient than others, and cost of 
production at their hands is less. The explanations which usually 
figure in the discussions on this topic — better location of the low- 
cost establishments, better access to materials, better plant, better 
organization — are reducible to this one dominant element, the