INCREASING RETURNS 
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85 
per unit are therefore going down — such a country will not only 
have a comparative advantage in manufactured goods, but will 
probably have a growing comparative advantage. The more it 
produces of such goods, the greater may be its advantage for ex- 
porting them; and hence it will turn its labor cumulatively in this 
direction. While it will have costs which (in the long run) are 
uniform for each several article of export, its costs will tend also to 
decline for each several article. In that sense — considering suc- 
cessive stages, not any given stage — it will have varying costs. 
This sort of advantage, even tho it generates itself and goes on 
crescendo, does not persist indefinitely. It rests primarily on 
human causes, not on those of the physical world without. It is 
subject to the vicissitudes of industry and in some degree to man’s 
deliberate action. England seems to have had some cumulative 
advantage of this kind during the first half or two-thirds of the 19th 
century. As time went on, other countries entered on the same 
paths; and they were probably aided in doing so by protective 
duties on their manufactures, that is, by deliberate action. At all 
events the international division of labor, while still affected by 
England’s matured position, was gradually controlled more and 
more by forces of a deeper and more permanent character, and this 
particular sort of advantage no longer played a part in shaping 
England’s foreign trade. At a later period, during the closing years 
of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th, the United 
States also experienced a burst of industrial advance, and with it an 
astonishing development of external economies; and with this 
again a re-alignment of the effectiveness of labor in the several 
branches of production. Here, too, while agriculture was affected 
somewhat, manufactures werefaffected more. The proportion of 
manufactured exports tended to increase; and what was no less 
significant, the proportion of manufactures among the imports 
tended to decrease. Here, too, the change, cumulative tho its 
moving forces were, was not likely to progress indefinitely. As in 
the case of England, it did leave its permanent impress on the inter- 
national trade of the country, as well as on its domestic trade. But 
as time went on, other countries were likely to enter on similar