164 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
in the public interest against my own 
interest. 
Just as the advantages of home exchange 
and their distribution are measurable theoreti 
cally through the agency of consumers’ 
surplus, so are the advantages of international 
trade and their distribution. This may be 
said to indicate one of the many uses of the 
doctrine of consumers’ surplus, which, though 
it may be of speculative value only at the 
present time, may eventually be turned to 
practical account. 
Economics relates in the main to man’s 
attitude to the purchasable goods of the 
world, and therefore it is imperative to remind 
ourselves from time to time that all the goods 
of this world are not of such a kind. Indeed, 
it is the impalpable subjective things in life, 
without a price, which give to exchangeable 
goods their value. We cannot value books 
without culture, nor pictures without taste. 
In this chapter, then, some notice should be 
taken of the advantages of international 
trade which cannot be, or are not, expressed 
in pounds, shillings, and pence. As regards 
these we cannot do better than read Mill in 
one of his most eloquent passages, which will 
incidentally make it evident that his political 
economy was not, throughout at any rate, of