162

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

things  if  all  foreign  trade  were  effectively
interdicted.
In  addition  a  country  usually  reaps  a  benefit
out  of  foreign  commerce  in  that  it  gets
cheaper  things  of  which  it  would  not  be  entirely ­
  deprived  were  foreign  trade  suppressed.
Generally  speaking  all  exchanging,  whether
intra-national  or  international,  results  in
advantage.  People  produce  what  they  do  not
want  in  order  to  exchange  it  for  what  they
do  want,  when  that  happens  to  be  the  most
economical  way  of  attaining  gratification.
But  conceivably  people  may  now  and  then
be  driven  by  competition  into  a  course  of
action,  involving  foreign  commerce,  which
eventuates  in  a  less  economical  way  of
satisfying  their  wants.  They  may,  for
instance,  be  induced  to  divert  some  labour
and  capital  from  an  industry  subject  to
increasing  returns  with  a  view  to  enlarging
the  output  from  an  industry  subject  to  decreasing ­
  returns  ;  so  that  on  the  whole  they
lose  in  the  long  run  without  knowing  it,
though  gains  were  reaped  by  traders  at  each
step  of  the  exchange.  It  is  theoretically
conceivable,  indeed,  that  both  national
parties  to  the  exchange  might  lose.  These
peculiar  phenomena  are  of  little  or  no  importance ­
  practically,  but  from  the  point  of