INTERNATIONAL  TRADE  155

that  the  marginal  cost  of  wheat  may  drop  to
20s.  In  France,  at  the  same  time,  reciprocal
effects  will  have  _  been  wrought  on  cotton
producing  and  wheat  producing,  so  that
costs  there  may  have  become  respectively
40s.  and  18s.  Further  trade  will  bring  about
further  alteration  in  relative  costs  of  production ­
  in  both  of  the  countries,  and  finally  a
position  may  be  reached  in  which  the  comparative ­
  costs  are  38s.  Cd.  and  19s.  in  both
countries  when  England  is  exporting  76,000
pieces  of  cotton  goods  annually  and  receiving
from  France  154,000  bushels  of  wheat.  This
would  be  the  position  of  equilibrium,  for
comparative  costs  would  be  identical  in  the
two  countries,  and  England  would  be  sending
goods  to  France  of  the  annual  value  of  £146,300
(38s.  6d.  X  76,000),  and  receiving  from  France
goods  of  the  same  annual  value  (19s.  x
154,000).  Were  trade  to  expand  still  further,
France  receiving  more  than  76,000  pieces  of
cotton  goods  and  exporting  to  England  more
than  154,000  bushels  of  wheat,  over  the  last
step  in  trade  loss  would  be  incurred.  This
step  would  therefore  be  retraced,  under  the
influence  of  the  new  difference  between  comparative ­
  values  which  it  created.
The  objection  may  be  raised  that  though
the  state  of  affairs  depicted  above  is  possible,