Commerce raider

“ It is thus admitted, that the policy of the Committee is to give a settling blow to foreign commerce, from a hope that an equivalent domestick commerce will grow upon its grave. To effect this, our factories and raisers of materials must live a great way asunder, to give employment to shipping and seamen in plying between them; and this ferry is to raise sailors and keep up a navy, until we can export manufactures. Foreign nations are of course to admit our ships and these manufactures, when we have gotten them to export, because we have expelled theirs. ”

“ This branch of industry, indeed, suffered not merely by the war itself, but by the hordes of privateers, buccaneers, and pirates which, up to the close of the last century, infested the seas whenever war was declared, thus interrupting legitimate commerce, and plundering wherever they had an opportunity, either by land or sea, too often with little regard whether the property they plundered was that of a friend or a foe. ”

“ Duties were levied both on imports and on exports, and included not only rates of 50 to 100 per cent but also many absolute prohibitions. Spanish commerce would have been starved out of existence if the government which set these rules had not, by its inefficiency and corruption, furnished the means of evading them. A veritable army, including, it is said, 300,000 persons, of whom one third were armed, found its chief occupation in smuggling; Spanish manufacturers maintained factories only to mask the sale of contraband goods, and even members of the government engaged in the contraband trade. ”

“ The heavier articles now in demand require more industry with the hands, and a settled life. Trade thus becomes inconsistent with slavery, and hostile to it; and the more so as it becomes more dependent on the collection of oil, ground-nuts, and other products of agriculture. Covering the coast now with trading establishments, excludes the slaver. The efforts of the squadrons were necessary to carry out this proceeding, for commerce needed to be protected against the piracies of the slaver afloat and the ravages of the slaver on shore. ”

“ Even recognised associations of merchants frequently indulged in practices which can only be characterised as piracy. Commerce, in fact, was deeply imbued with the spirit of lawlessness, and in these circumstances it is probable that the depredations of pirates did not excite the same alarm nor discourage trade in the same degree as would be the case in more law-abiding times. ”

“ The carrying trade 7 is the means whereby commerce is conducted, and this carrying trade, an industry once of vastly greater importance to our people than all shipbuilding has been, is now, or ever can be, is a business that Congress by its supine neglect has deliberately thrown into the hands of Europeans, and sacrificed American shipowners at the instigation of American shipbuilders. ”

“ And although it is true that the commerce ought to be free to strangers to bring in and carry out at their pleasure, yet nevertheless in many places the exportation of victuals and munition are either prohibited, or at least limited to be done onely by the people and Shipping of those places where they abound. ”

“ Under the allegations of the complaint, the practice of delivering livestock to the public stock yards in Chicago, and the practice of the Stock Yards Company of exacting a charge from consignees, are long-standing customs. Shippers, railroads, the Stock Yard Company, and the Interstate Commerce Commission alike have left these practices in effect over a long period of years. ”

“ Risk of loss at the hand of public enemies or robbers.—The carrier of merchandise has to face not only physical difficulties, but also dangers from another source. From time to time we read in the modern newspaper of high rates charged for war insurance, when ship or cargo may be captured and confiscated by an enemy on the sea. The merchant must count his insurance charges before he can figure out his profits. This illustration will make clear the character of one of the obstacles to commerce, which we may term military, by some stretching of the current meaning of the word. ”

“ The great numbers of lumpers, watermen, lightermen, coopers, and labourers employed upon the wharves, as well as the seamen and petty officers of too many vessels, in league with the lower classes of revenue officers, now formed a large and dangerous band of conspirators against the property of the merchants and the revenues of the Crown. ”

“ The damage sustained by the merchants of course consisted in the monopoly freights they were obliged to pay for the carriage of their goods, the effect of which was to diminish trade by diminishing consumption, and a share in the pressure of which was borne by every consumer in the kingdom. The law was now so far relaxed that merchandise was allowed to be exported and imported in foreign bottoms upon the payment of aliens' customs ”

“ Meanwhile the Merchant Adventurers, as they grew in wealth and power, became less disposed than ever to tolerate with patience either the irregular encroachments of the foreign company, or even the existence of its invidious privileges within their legal limits. The first movement for the suppression of the Steelyard Company appears to have been made by an application of the Merchant Adventurers to the government about the close of the year 1551. ”

“ Thus, whenever a war with a maritime power supervened, the navigation laws were relaxed in favour of some paramount interests, such as, in the present case, that of the cotton-spinners, whose [Pg 334] demands for raw cotton required to be supplied. Even in a state of war every nation must of necessity provide as far as possible for the supply and sale of those raw materials of produce, the manipulation of which tends in a great degree to employ the industry and promote the general prosperity of large classes of the community. ”

“ It is in this sense that Franklin says, "war is robbery, commerce is generally cheating." [21] If the transformation of merchants' money into capital is to be explained otherwise than by the producers being simply cheated, a long series of intermediate steps would be necessary, which, at present, when the simple circulation of commodities forms our only assumption, are entirely wanting. ”

“ All trade in articles or manufactures of such countries was declared unlawful; and “every vessel trading from or to the said countries or colonies, together with all goods and manufactures and merchandise on board, shall be captured and condemned as prize to the captors. ”

“ Prevalence of smuggling.—A partial relief from the burden of the customs was obtained by smuggling. Tariffs could hinder but could not absolutely stop the natural movement of commodities. Smuggling was a regular profession, with a tariff modeled on the regular tariff, but enough lower to invite business; the smuggler’s charge varied ordinarily from 15 to 40 per cent ad valorem. Large numbers of the common people were leagued with the smugglers to defy the law, and the upper classes, even the legislators themselves, accepted smuggling as a matter of course. ”

“ In this manner one gang of plunderers was compelled to purchase the connivance of another, to the ruinous loss of the merchant.
Long-shore men.
The total number of the mates and crews of vessels, revenue officers, lumpers, coal-heavers, coopers, watermen, lightermen, night-watchmen, scuffle-hunters, [Pg 420] and labourers employed in warehouses was then computed at thirty-six thousand three hundred and forty-four, of whom no fewer than nine thousand six hundred were pronounced by Mr. Colquhoun as delinquents and participators in the rascality then prevailing. ”

“ A collection of early gild rules shows that the members were subject to regulations like the following: Every one was obliged to carry armor, a bow and twelve arrows on penalty of a fine; they must stand by and help each other when they set out for a journey; in case one member had not sold his wares the others must wait one day for him; if one was imprisoned or lost his wares on the road the others must ransom him. The organization was probably temporary at first, and the company of merchants dissolved at the end of the trip ”

“ A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be fallen into than that the trades of agriculture and grazing can be conducted upon any other than the common principles of commerce: namely, that the producer should be permitted, and even expected, to look to all possible profit which without fraud or violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to the best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring forward his commodities at his pleasure; to account to no one for his stock or for his gain. On any other terms he is the slave of the consumer: ”

“ Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed by, the violence of national animosity: And the traders of both countries have announced, with all the passionate confidence of interested falsehood, the certain ruin of each, in consequence of that unfavorable balance of trade, which, they pretend, would be the infallible effect of an unrestrained commerce with the other. ”

“ The eastern States are markets for the live stock of the western. It has been more beneficial to them to raise cotton, tobacco, and bread stuff, than live stock; but as these occupations are rendered less profitable by commercial restrictions and factory monopolies, the loss will re-act upon the western States, by diminishing the capital applicable to this species of internal commerce, and compelling the eastern to raise articles, which they would otherwise buy. The division of labour, if left free, invigorates industry, increases skill, and diffuses general benefits. ”

“ We should have a good navy, and our sea-coast defences should be put in the finest possible condition. Neither of these cost much when it is considered where the money goes, and what we get in return. Money expended in a fine navy, not only adds to our security and tends to prevent war in the future, but is very material aid to our commerce with foreign nations in the meantime. ”

“ But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. ”

“ What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce, when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? ”

“ The commerce of India does not grow, nor does that of Portugal, or of Turkey; but that of the protected, countries does increase, as has been shown in the case of Spain, and can now be shown in that of Germany. ”

“ This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. For as, taking the body natural for symbol of the body politic, the governing and forming powers may be likened to the brain, and the labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over circulation and communication of things in changed utilities, is symbolized by the heart; and, if that hardens, all is lost. And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us, ”

“ Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper, as we were formerly by the old Continental paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burthen all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs. ”

“ The German economic system as it existed before the war depended on three main factors: I. Overseas commerce as represented by her mercantile marine, her colonies, her foreign investments, her exports, and the overseas connections of her merchants; II. The exploitation of her coal and iron and the industries built upon them; III. Her transport and tariff system. Of these the first, while not the least important, was certainly the most vulnerable. The Treaty aims at the systematic destruction of all three, but principally of the first two. I (1) ”

“ For trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to anything else. Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence. ”

“ Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; ”

“ In future, while I hold my present office, the subject of acquisition of territory must have the support of the people before I will recommend any proposition looking to such acquisition. I say here, however, that I do not share in the apprehension held by many as to the danger of governments becoming weakened and destroyed by reason of their extension of territory. Commerce, education, and rapid transit of thought and matter by telegraph and steam have changed all this. ”

“ The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embarrassment of commerce. ”

“ Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed. ”