WAGES AND PRICES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES 41 
it is, will appear more fully as we proceed. It has been singularly 
neglected in the exposition of the theory of international trade 
and of its application. Most writers have dealt with the subject 
as if wages and prices not only moved together, but were necessarily 
at similar levels: as if high prices all around must go with high 
wages, and low prices all around with low wages. Commonly 
they speak as if advantageous terms of international trade must 
mean that the value of money is low all around, and prices high all 
around; not only that there are high money wages, but that all 
domestic goods, all services, all lands, houses, and lodgings are 
correspondingly high. Not so; the negative may be insisted 
on once more. And since the domestic trade of every country 
quite outweighs its international trade, and the portion of its 
national dividend that comes from its purely domestic trade is 
the greater, it follows that the negative is no less important in its 
practical applications than in its theoretical significance. 
Altho the present chapter, like all in Part I, is concerned mainly 
with a theoretical formulation, most matters of verification and 
illustration being postponed to Part II, a word may be said here 
on the extent to which practical application can be made of the 
distinction between domestic and international prices. The 
needed statistical information too often is sadly lacking. In but 
few cases have we price records which separate the goods that enter 
into foreign commerce from those that come on the domestic 
market only. Most price data are prepared indiscriminately for 
any and all commodities, and most index numbers refer to one 
general (and for our purposes often confusing) price level. Some 
of the most interesting and significant points in the theory of 
foreign trade are difficult to verify — cannot readily be subjected 
to the test of conformity to the facts of the case — because we do 
not possess the data in suitable arrangement and classification. 
[t is to be observed, however, that in one important respect we 
are not entirely bare of the information we need; namely, on the 
rates of money wages. Here there are, at least for some countries 
and for recent times, instructive figures. They are more than 
instructive; they bear on the heart of the matter. The funda-