THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL VALUES
615
case of International Trade.1 It is quite conceivable, if the
inhabitants of a country, or a large section of them, are willing
to do as much for less remuneration, reckoned in commodities,
that the same efforts and sacrifices will procure less gold in the
world’s market. Accordingly gênerai prices will fall in that
country ; and in particular the price of exports ; thus the country
will be able tɔ undersell others where higher wages (in one, and
not the least natural, sense of the term) prevail.
In the section on the effects produced on international ex-
change by duties on exports and imports (Book v. ch. 4) Mill
employs a principle which was noticed above as omitted in his
first chapter : the converse of the proposition that an improve-
ment in the production of exports may be prejudicial to a
country. For when he concludes (Zoe. cit.~ par. 4) that by an
export tax in certain cases ‘ England will gain not only the whole
amount of the duty but more,’ is not this ‘ more ’ attributable
to the tax qua impediment ? If the tax were intercepted as a
transit duty, or otherwise,8 this plus would still accrue to the
exporting country. The case considered is that which corresponds
to Fig. 4 (2) and (4) in our Part II.
The difference above pointed out between the results of a tax
on exports and one on imports4 may seem not to have altogether
escaped Mill. For, while in the case of exports the taxing country
may gain ‘ not only the whole amount of the duty, but more,’ in
the case of imports we read (fifth of the paragraphs relating to
imports) 1 taxes on imports are partly paid by foreigners.’
In the following section (People’s Edition, p. 515Z>) there is a
little inaccuracy. It is not true that ‘ a tax on rare and high-
priced wines will fall wholly on the growers, or rather on the
owners of the vineyards.’ If the tax is specific the price will be
raised by the monopolist.5
In the section on Protectionism some of the expressions in
the 7th paragraph 6 seem appropriate to the case which I have
considered in Part I. : that of a country for whose exports there
is an urgent demand in foreign countries benefiting itself by an
import tax.7
On the famous passage about ‘ infant industries ’ I have
nothing to add to what has been said by Professor Sidgwick as
to the removal of a barrier, so to speak, blocking the initiation of
1 ProfessorJ. S. Nicholson, Inhismasterly article on ‘Wages’ in the Encycloptsdia
Britannica (vol. xxiv., p. 309α), hints at this exception to the Ricardian principle.
2 There is a misprint in the fifth sentence of this paragraph. For ‘ so great ’
read ‘ a greater. ’
3 Ante, p. 41. 4 Ante, p. 435. δ Marshall, Principles, v. 13, 4.
6 People’s Edition, p. 5545. 7 Part I. p. 46, and Part II. p. 435.