Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/108

 to send there, they must consent to a reduction in its exchange value. Instead of getting eight pairs of boots for their forty yards of matting, they will perhaps eventually have to consent to take only four; and at this rate of exchange we may imagine that a permanent trade is set up between the two countries. If this is the case, the island abandons altogether the production of an article (boots) in which her industrial disadvantages are the greatest, and devotes a larger portion of her labour and capital to the production of the commodity (matting) in which her industrial disadvantages are the least. In the same way, San Francisco gives up a trade in which her superiority is small to devote herself to one in which it is great; and by this means the industrial efficiency of each country is brought to its highest possible perfection. The advantage to each country is very apparent; the islanders now obtain boots at one-fourth of the labour and trouble which it was formerly necessary to give for them. The San Franciscans, before the