CHAPTER 23 
Tae Unrrep StaTES, I. UNTIL 1900 
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THE international trade of the United States during the century 
preceding the Great War presents phenomena analogous to those of 
Great Britain. More especially the influence of loan operations 
is abundantly illustrated. The illustration runs, of course, the 
opposite way; the United States was a borrowing country, not a 
lending one. Statistical data on prices are unfortunately not avail- 
able with as much detail as for Great Britain; and hence it is only 
in the more conspicuous aspects that the consequences of the capital 
movements can be traced or the conclusions of theory tested. It 
happens also that for the later years of the period, with which the 
present chapter deals (before the Great War), some complicating 
factors entered which probably would make any clear verification 
impracticable even with the most complete figures. 
I do not propose to follow in detail the history of the movements 
in the country’s trade. They have often been described, and the 
reader who is interested can readily turn to other sources of full 
information.! It will be enough for the present purpose to sum- 
marize the main happenings, and to note their significance. 
The relation between exports and imports — that is, between 
their money values — is naturally the phase about which our 
information is most full and trustworthy. The accompanying 
chart shows how that relation stood from 1821 to 1914. For rea- 
sons which will appear in the next chapter, the chart is not carried 
beyond 1914. 
As in Great Britain, so in the United States, there is a mid-way 
point between two main currents. The year 1873 marks a turn of 
the tide in the United States in essentially the same way as the year 
1 See especially the paper on the Balance of Trade of the United States, by C. J. 
Prion 8 : H. Williams, and R. S. Tucker, in the Review of Economic Statistics, 
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