302 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
The course of the net barter terms has no very marked trend. 
Such trend as there is would indicate that the net barter terms were 
less favorable during the earlier stage (before 1900) than in the 
later. For about a decade — 1886 to 1896 — there is a discernible 
upward movement, 4.e. less favorable terms. After 1900 there is no 
clear tendency to change. Certainly the net barter terms are 
quite as favorable after 1900 as before ; if anything, more so during 
the later stage rather than less so. Tested in this way —as 
regards the net barter terms — the United States was exchanging 
its goods with foreign countries on no worse terms after 1900 than 
before. 
The gross barter terms show great irregularity of movement, yet 
a general trend not dissimilar. The irregularity is to be expected, 
in view of the abrupt changes which repeatedly take place in the 
international trade of the United States. Agricultural commod- 
ities dominate in the exports, even tho less overwhelmingly so in 
the later years than in the earlier. The variations of the crops 
‘notably cotton) from year to year, and of their prices, bring about 
sudden changes in the recorded exports. The disturbed conditions 
of the decade 1890-1900 also go far to account for irregular move- 
ments; especially a great burst, during the second half, in the 
exports of all kinds of commodities. The chart shows that in 
1898-1900 the excess of exports took a sudden leap, and that 
the gross barter terms of trade became correspondingly unfavor- 
able — the curve mounts. The physical volume of the exports 
was becoming much greater as compared with the physical volume 
of the imports. After 1900, however, this relation no longer 
appears. The gross barter terms of trade, like the net barter 
terms, indicate nothing that is noticeably unfavorable to the United 
States. It is true that the money value of the exports continued 
to exceed by very large amounts the money value of the imports — 
almost as much so as during the unusual years 1898-1900. Yet 
when correction is made for the prices of imports and exports, and 
a calculation is made of movements in the physical quantities 
of the two (as is done in this procedure) it appears that the 
United States was getting her total imports in exchange for her