Board of Trade

“ Either the licensing power of the Board of Trade has been used to exclude competitive imports or it has not. If it has been so used, it is obvious that we have no security whatever for the maintenance of the industry in question in a state of efficiency. ”

“ Membership on the Board of Trade is different from a mere chose in action, like a simple claim or debt asserted against another, and only to be enjoyed after its satisfaction enforcement. It is a continuously enjoyed 'incorporeal right.' Hyde v. Woods, supra. The Board of Trade is the member's trustee, while it maintains and holds all its facilities for his use and enjoyment. ”

“ The only ones who make money on the board of trade are the company who rents offices, the cigar man, the lunch man, and the telegraph operators, and the commission men who get one-eighth of a cent a bushel either way the market goes. Some of these commission men get the speculation bug and go broke, and yet there are callow youths and business men and clerks and other outsiders who believe they are smart enough to speculate on the Board of Trade. That belief helps fatten our penitentiaries. ”

“ An endeavour has been made in the United Kingdom to combat legislatively the evils of sweating. The Trade Boards Act 1909 established trade boards for trades to which the act applied. The trades specified were ready-made and wholesale tailoring, the making of paper or chip boxes, machine-lace making and chain-making, but the board of trade was given power to apply the act under a provisional order to any other trade in which exceptionally low wages prevailed. ”

“ And so the Committee thinks that the Board of Trade should be empowered at any time to make an inquiry whether any company is carrying on a "key" industry and, if it finds that it is, then the company shall, at the direction of the Board of Trade, require every registered member to make a declaration such as, under the disclosure procedure already described, he would have had to make if he were at the date of the notice about to receive an allotment or become a transferee. ”

“ It was the prototype of all the other chambers of commerce and boards of trade which have since been established in the United States, and which are said to exceed 1000 in number. American trade organizations are associated in a National Board of Trade, which corresponds to the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom. ”

“ Enough of the Act has been summarized to show that it imposes on contract markets, under the supervision of the Secretary, (1) duties of preventing or controlling certain trading practices and of supervising transactions in futures contracts, and (2) some responsibility for standardizing deliverable warehouse receipts and assuring their integrity. The failure or refusal of a board of trade to comply with the provisions of the Act or any of the rules and regulations of the Secretary is cause for suspension or revocation of the authority of the board to act as a contract market. ”

“ The Board of Trade may appoint such officers as they think necessary for the purpose of investigating any complaints and otherwise securing the proper observance of this Act, and any officers so appointed shall act under the directions of the Board of Trade, or, if the Board of Trade so determine, under the directions of any Trade Board. ”

“ All are in effect independent and co-ordinate governmental departments. The composition and functions of the Board of Trade are regulated by order in council at the opening of each reign, but the character of the other four is determined wholly by statute. At the head of each is a president (save that the chief of the Board of Works is known as First Commissioner) , and the membership embraces the five secretaries of state and a variable number of other important dignitaries. ”

“ That such opinions as those expressed by the gentlemen should be the result to which men are led hy years of laborious service in the working department of the Board of Trade, is, to say the least, a most magnificent presumption of the soundness of free-trade principles. ”

“ The demands of the importing departments for foreign exchange were met by the Treasury, after they had been scrutinised by the Exchange Requirements Committee, a body set up on 29th August 1939 with representatives from all the importing departments, the Treasury, and the Bank of England. The demands of private importers were controlled by the Import Licensing Department of the Board of Trade. ”

“ This body is probably as powerful a working-class organization as exists in the world, composed as it is of the unions of more than fifty different trades, all knit compactly together under an executive known at first as the Operatives' Board of Trade, and now as the Trades' Hall Council, and quartered in a spacious mansion-house erected by the trades themselves on a site presented to them by the Government. ”

“ The Board of Trade are to consider the classification and schedule of charges, to hear any objections made by any parties whom they consider entitled to be heard, and on coming to an agreement with the company as to what the classification and schedule of charges are to be, are to embody them in a Provisional Order, submit them to Parliament, and bring in a Bill for an Act to confirm the order. ”

“ The General Secretary therefore visited the Board of Trade on the same day, and as a result met Sir Albert Stanley, the President, on August 2nd. Communication remained continuous until August 9th, when the sub-committee twice visited the Board of Trade, and told Sir Albert Stanley of the serious danger of any failure to reach agreement. ”

“ A Trade Board may refer to a district trade committee for their report and recommendations any matter which they think it expedient so to refer, and may also, if they think fit, delegate to a district trade committee any of their powers and duties under this Act, other than their power and duty to fix a minimum time-rate or general minimum piece-rate. ”

“ The Department of Commerce, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Bureau of Markets, the Shipping Board, and many other agencies of the Federal Government are engaged in promoting and regulating the commercial business of the country. The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, a branch of the Department of Commerce, collects information about foreign markets for American goods from American consuls, commercial attachés stationed at the principal foreign capitals, and a corps of traveling special agents. ”

“ At any rate, in industries already passing under the control of Associations of Consumers, whether by nationalisation or municipalisation, or by the spread of consumers' co-operation, there will be great scope for District Councils and National Boards, as well as for Advisory and Research Committees representative of different specialities, in which managers and foremen, technicians and operatives, will jointly super- sede the capitalist Board of Directors. But the management of each industry is very far from being the whole of the task. ”

“ No instruction was given in the statute as to the principles on which the Board should determine wages, but the Board has necessarily in mind on the one side the requirements of the worker, and on the other the economic position of the trade. The workers’ representatives naturally emphasise the one aspect and the employers the other, but the appointed members and the Board as a whole must take account of both. They must consider what the trade in general can afford to pay and yet continue to prosper and to give full employment to the workers. ”

“ Where a Trade Board has been established for any branch of work in a trade, any reference in this Act to the trade for which the Board is established shall be construed as a reference to the branch of work in the trade for which the Board has been established. ”

“ This Board afforded resources for enlarging and materially benefiting the trade of the United Kingdom by the publication of its statistical returns, and in numerous other ways, and had the exclusive superintendence of the commerce of the plantations, and indeed of their government until 1786, when a Secretary of State was appointed for the colonies, and a new council for the affairs of trade organised on its present plan. ”

“ A Trade Board consists of an equal number of representatives of employers and of workpeople in the trade, to whom are added a neutral chairman and two or four persons unconnected with the trade, who are known as “appointed members.” ”

“ If their work was worth having, it must be worth paying for. The trades selected for the purpose of the Bill were certain parts of the tailoring trade, the paper box making trade, certain parts of the common lace finishing trade, and certain parts of the chain making trade. These were all trades in which sweating was acknowledged to exist. The Bill could be extended to other trades by a Provisional Order Bill, and in this way the control of Parliament would be maintained. The minimum rate of wages in the specified trades would be regulated by a Central Trade Board assisted by local committees. ”

“ To it the Council instructed traders and others to refer their petitions, and itself referred numbers of similar papers that came into its hands.2 This board took into consideration the various questions touched upon in its instructions, especially those concerning fisheries (Greenland) , manufactures, navigation, commerce, trade (with Guinea, Spain, Canary Islands, etc.) , the poor, the trading companies (especially the East India and Guinea companies) , the merchant companies (chiefly of London) , and freedom of trade. ”

“ She was employed as an instrument of that commerce; for whenever a commodity has begun to move as an article of trade from one State to another, commerce in that commodity between the States has commenced. The fact that several different and independent agencies are employed in transporting the commodity, some acting entirely in one State, and some acting through two or more States, does in no respect affect the character of the transaction. To the extent in which each agency acts in that transportation, it is subject to the regulation of Congress. ”

“ The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an effective plan of distribution among the different factories of orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by trades. ”

“ As time shows the necessity, and the work of the board commends itself, or requires it, changes doubtless will be needed in the law; notably some provision authorizing the tariff board to present the facts directly to the ways and means committee, whenever any tariff legislation is before congress. ”

“ Combinations of capital organized into trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the attention of the Congress.
The Industrial Commission, created by the act of the Congress of June 18, 1898, has been engaged in extended hearings upon the disputed questions involved in the subject of combinations in restraint of trade and competition. ”

“ The committee believes in the formation of organizations for marketing the manufactured products of the country and deems it inexpedient for the Government to enter into any policy aiming at positive control of combinations (trusts) in the United Kingdom. It recommends that combinations be legalized, so as to be enforceable between members. It welcomes the establishment of the British Trade Corporation to co-ordinate and supplement existing financial facilities for trading purposes. ”

“ Article 1 The Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as the FTC) is established by the Executive Yuan to maintain trade order and protect consumers' interests, ensure free and fair competition, and promote economic stability and prosperity. ”

“ The board should also have constantly in mind the safeguarding of the interests of consumers and of labor, and should make recommendations as to the conditions which for these purposes should be attached to any form of Government assistance, whether by means of a tariff or otherwise. ”

“ The Department provides business and government planners with critical data they need for intelligent decision-making, urges inventors and entrepreneurs to bring products to the marketplace, encourages firms to seek legitimate export opportunities, and makes sure that fair trade laws are enforced vigorously. ”

“ It made a number of recommendations regarding "the exportation of several commodities of the breed, growth, and manufacture of the Commonwealth," "the limiting and settling the prices of wines," "vagrants and wandering, idle, dissolute [42] persons," and the "giving license for transporting fish in foreign bottoms." These recommendations were drafted by the Trade Committee, or by one of its subcommittees, and after adoption were reported to the Council of State and by it referred to its own committee appointed to receive reports from the Trade Committee. ”

“ In the great Amalgamated Societies District Committees, composed of representatives of local branches, are formed in the great industrial Centres, and decide on the trade policy to be adopted by their constituent branches. ”

“ But no Trade Department in this country has ever done it. There is always plenty of time for the consideration of new markets, the plotting of new trade routes and the planning of mercantile marine for export; all very well, and if we are to pay our bills by exports, very necessary. But the common consumer has many a time, long before the war and often since, found himself in the jaws of a nutcracker in the shape of some combine or trust or confederacy of middlemen; and if there was any sphere of government to deal with these things it was the great Department of Trade. ”