Marx's interest in the question of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall has sometimes been discussed by Marxists in connection with Marx's writings on colonialism and, in particular, with the possibility of establishing a Marxist theory of imperialism. For this reason, it seems appropriate here to look at what Marx has to say on this subject in that part of Capital, Vol. III which we have yet to look at in any detail at all: the approximately 250 pages which make up the first three parts of Vol. III (Ch. 1–15; 1977, 25–266 [1981, 117– 375]), and especially Chapters 14–15. The reason that this otherwise rather uninteresting discussion is sometimes thought to provide the basis for a Marxist theory of imperialism is because of Marx's observation that there is generally a higher rate of profit to be found in colonial rather than non-colonial trade (Ch. 14, section 5, ‘Foreign Trade'; 1977, 237–9 [1981, 344–6]). Once again, however, this is something of a misrepresentation of Marx's actual view of this matter.