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INTERNATIONAL TRADE

EXCESS OF EXPORTS OVER IMPORTS, UNITED STATEs, 1880-1914.

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1910 1914

doubled ; but the relation between the two showed on the whole
little change. The excess of exports was fairly regular and always
great.
The main explanation of this accentuated excess of exports Is to
be found in the appearance of a new item in the international
account — new at least in its magnitude. This was the remittance
of large sums by immigrants who had established themselves
within the country to relatives and friends in their native
countries.
These transactions were connected both as cause and as effect
with that steady movement of hundreds of thousands of persons
annually into the United States which is so conspicuous a feature
of the economic and social history of the country during the period.
That phenomenon was itself quite extraordinary; and it led to
extraordinary international payments. The remittances, as was
just intimated, were not merely the consequences of the immigration;
 they served also in good part to cause it. They were consequences
 in so far as the newcomers — often men in their prime,
coming without families — were able to save a large part of their
comparatively liberal earnings, and sent large sums home partly to
support relatives, partly for investment there, in the purchase
of land. But they operated also as a cause of immigration in
that the funds were in good part sent for the purpose of enabling