supposed; for example, the exchanges were "in favor" of the United States in 1874-77, there being an apparent trade balance of $164,000,000 in 1877 and a still larger in 1876 and a larger one in the two years preceding, but the import of specie was small in all those years, averaging about $25,000,000 a year, and the rest of the excess of exports went to pay interest due to foreigners, freights on the cargoes both ways, and so on. It is difficult to use without abusing the terms "against" and "in favor of" in this connection, and the reader is cautioned not to employ them; although "discount" and "premium" on international bills of exchange are matters extremely important to observe and to know the grounds of. Were there no counterworking principle, bills of exchange drawn _on_ capitalist and creditor countries, like Great Britain, whose imports are apt to be strongly in excess of the exports, and whose public policy is wise enough to put no obstacles in the way of the free receipt of imports, would be at a _discount_ in countries sending exports thither. This counterworking principle, already illustrated as to inland exchange in the case of New York, is best seen internationally in connection with London, which is the settling-place of the world's commerce. When the Romans dredged the Thames and made "the pool" just below London Bridge, they took the first steps towards making that town a commercial centre; since a market for products is products in market, the busy exchange of commodities there has quickened in every age the accumulation of capital and the increase of population; previous to the Dock Laborers' Strike in 1889, about 100 vessels entered the port of London every day, which received about one-half of the total customs revenue of the United Kingdom, and sent out about one-fourth of its exports; the business of out-of-the-way and semi-civilized countries has somehow (and it would not be hard to tell why) centered in London, as well as the business of originally British Colonies everywhere and of all other commercial countries; accordingly, debtors and creditors abound there, bills of exchange concentre there, and debts due from everywhere are payable _there_; and therefore, because bills on London are good all over the world, the Demand for them counterworks the natural cheapness of the bills drawn on exports _thither_ as compared with the natural dearness of the bills drawn there on exports _thence_.