160 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
ry 
RL 
advances. Money incomes and monetary standards in India and 
the East rose also, but not at all in proportion to the changes in 
the West. The advantageous position of the Occident in its 
trade with the Orient was maintained and became even more 
advantageous. The people of the West have had higher money 
incomes, and thereby have been enabled to buy more easily the 
products of the East, which, tho rising in price, have not risen as 
much as have Western incomes. The converse has taken place 
in the East. 
This general situation, favorable to the West in the way to 
which the reader’s attention was called at the outset, no doubt 
developed with some marked complications, and perhaps with the 
concurrence of processes not contemplated in the simple theoretical 
formulation. The variants and modifications are not necessarily 
inconsistent with the theoretical analysis. But I would not be 
supposed to maintain or even suggest that the trade between 
Europe and the East furnishes a ready verification of the theory 
of international trade. The subject is one (among many such) 
for which we need laborious examination of the historical course of 
events and careful scrutiny of the statistical material. Without 
research of this kind no verdict for or against the presumptions of 
theory can be reached. 
[t may be doubted, indeed, whether we shall ever have at our 
disposal the data needed for any clear conclusions on this phase of 
the history of commerce. What has been said in the preceding 
paragraphs rests on the most general and familiar information. 
A detailed investigation, if such prove feasible, proceeding 
from the same points of view, would doubtless bring out aspects 
of the case not here touched at all. Such an investigation might 
confirm the interpretations suggested, might run counter to them, 
might suggest new or modified hypotheses for the explanation of 
unexpected phenomena. After all was done, the trade between 
the Orient and the Occident would probably be found to present 
not so much a verification of theory as an example of the com- 
plexities of the problems of verification.