Domestic commerce

“ And while all domestic intercourse was thus restrained, lest any scope should remain for industry, almost every species of foreign commerce was confined to exclusive companies, who bought and sold at any price that they themselves thought proper to offer or exact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all commercial communities there is a commercial mart, or a capital, where exchanges are effected, cargoes disposed of in gross, and where all the great interests of trade concentrate, as the blood flows to and from the heart. In identified governments, like that of England, for instance, legislation may respect this natural tendency to concentration in commerce, and enact laws for its especial benefit and protection. ”

“ The inland or home trade, the most important of all, the trade in which an equal capital affords the greatest revenue, and creates the greatest employment to the people of the country, was considered as subsidiary only to foreign trade. ”

“ The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry, replaces also, by every such operation, two distinct capitals, but one of them only is employed in supporting domestic industry. ”

“ We think nowadays that the resources of a state depend upon the prosperity of the people, no matter whether this prosperity comes from agriculture or from manufactures, 167from internal trade or from foreign trade. Statesmen, however, of the period under discussion, set a peculiarly high value on foreign commerce, and regarded it as a more important branch of industry than any other. ”

“ BY RESTRAINING, either by high duties, or by absolute prohibitions, the importation of such goods from foreign countries as can be produced at home, the monopoly of the home market is more or less secured to the domestic industry employed in producing them. ”

“ If they were entirely separate, without political or commercial connection, it is manifest, that the consumption of the manufacturing states of foreign articles could not exceed twenty millions, the sum at which the value of their exports, of domestic products, and the profit of their foreign trade is estimated. ”

“ Of course, in all exchange of commodities between two countries, besides that supply of the respective wants of each which constitutes the foundation or sustaining element of the commerce, a certain portion of what the consumer pays must fall to the share of the persons by whose agency the commerce is carried on. It is this that properly forms the profits of the commerce, as distinguished from its mere advantages or conveniences. ”

“ The sum of the doctrine of the writers of the work on the subject of foreign commerce is given in the following words:—"That trade which makes money flow in most plentifully upon us, enables our people to subsist themselves better by their labour, raises the value of our lands, and occasions our rent to be better paid, must always be reckoned the best trade; for these are the only rules by which it is possible to state and determine the value of any particular trade, or of the general trade of the whole nation." ”

“ Pursuant to section 203 (a) (1) (A) of the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2253 (a) (1) (A) ) , I have further determined that these actions will facilitate efforts by the domestic industry to make a positive adjustment to import competition and provide greater economic and social benefits than costs. ”

“ The interest of the mercantile class may happen to differ from that of the whole community. For example; it is, generally speaking, the interest of the merchant to import and export every thing; the interest of manufacturers to lessen imports in order to raise the price of domestic fabrics, and to check exports, where they may enhance the price of raw materials. ”

“ With a view to practical legislation, therefore, duties on importation may be divided into two classes: those which have the effect of encouraging some particular branch of domestic industry, and those which have not. ”

“ The vulgar theory disregards this benefit, and deems the advantage of commerce to reside in the exports: as if not what a country obtains, but what it parts with, by its foreign trade, was supposed to constitute the gain to it. An extended market for its produce—an abundant consumption for its goods—a vent for its surplus—are the phrases by which it has been customary to designate the uses and recommendations of commerce with foreign countries. ”

“ But a duty laid upon an article which may be produced here stimulates the skill and industry of our own country to produce the same article, which is brought into the market in competition with the foreign article, and the importer is thus compelled to reduce his price to that at which the domestic article can be sold, thereby throwing a part of the duty upon the producer of the foreign article. ”

“ But, as a matter of fact, the division of what was formerly the home into unproductive and productive departments, into domestic work and work outside the house, has been far less thorough and complete in the retail trade than in other spheres of labour. The factory, which has absorbed industry after industry formerly carried on in the house, is a comparatively modern institution ”

“ If it was so, the importance of our home trade is and always has been so prodigiously superior to that of our foreign trade, that is to say, the demand for our produce and manufactures abroad has at all times been so insignificant in comparison with their consumption among ourselves, that a slight falling off in the quantity of our exports may very possibly have been compensated ten times over to our manufacturers and producers by the readier vent and higher prices they obtained for their goods without crossing the seas. ”

“ But these two influencing circumstances are in reality reducible to one: for the capital which a country has to spare from the production of domestic commodities for its own use, is in proportion to its own demand for foreign commodities: whatever proportion of its collective income it expends in purchases from abroad, that same proportion of its capital is left without a home market for its productions. ”

“ The merchants, therefore, who came from other countries were now reduced to the necessity of either directly bartering their commodities for the produce of the kingdom, or, if they sold them for money in the first instance, of investing the proceeds in other goods before they could be permitted to return home. ”

“ The citizens or subjects of each of the High Contracting Parties may trade in any part of the territories of the other by wholesale or retail in all kinds of produce, manufactures, and merchandise of lawful commerce, either in person or by agents, singly or in partnership with foreigners or native citizens or subjects ”

“ This being true, the volume of internal commerce of any country must depend upon the number of its people, the total volume of its production, the sectional diversity of its products, the efficiency and cheapness of its transportation, and the freedom from foreign competition in the sale of native commodities in home markets. In the economic progress of the United States from 1860 to 1900, there was a continuous and rapid development of all the requisite factors for the existence of a large internal trade. ”

“ Its sales of manufactured goods have continued to extend with a facility and promptitude of results which have excited the serious concern of countries that, for generations, had not only controlled their home markets, but had practically monopolized certain lines of trade in other lands. ”

“ Silks stand here for sample of all French commodities of whatever name and cottons for all English goods whatsoever; and England and France stand in the illustration for any and all nationalities. Any nation obtains any share or a greater share in the commerce of the world solely in virtue of a greater relative efficiency in producing something valuable, as compared with some other nation's power in producing something else that is valuable.
4. How does the varying play of International Demand affect the value of articles in foreign trade? ”

“ The Trading Company.—English pioneers in exploration found an instrument for colonization in companies of merchant adventurers, which had long been employed in carrying on commerce with foreign countries. Such a corporation was composed of many persons of different ranks of society—noblemen, merchants, and gentlemen—who banded together for a particular undertaking, each contributing a sum of money and sharing in the profits of the venture. ”

“ What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell everything we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. ”

“ Our commerce is certainly of a character to entitle it to favor in most countries. The commodities we offer are either necessaries of life, or materials for manufacture, or convenient subjects of revenue; and we take in exchange, either manufactures, when they have received the last finish of art and industry, or mere luxuries. ”

“ Commerce is a term of the largest import. It comprehends intercourse for the purposes of trade in any and all its forms, including the transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities between the citizens of our country and the citizens or subjects of other countries, and between the citizens of different States. ”

“ It is in the fetching and carrying manufactures, accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly employed. In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. ”

“ The favorable footing on which American productions will now be received in the ports of this country will, I hope, occasion a more general introduction of them, when brought hither. I equally hope that motives both of interest and gratitude will combine to induce the importers to take in exchange the productions of this country. A commerce carried on by exchange of productions is the most likely to be lasting and to meet mutual encouragement. ”

“ So huge a volume of commerce concerned the welfare not only of the ordinary commercial classes—ship owners, exporters and investors—but the much larger number of producers, manufacturers, miners, meat-packers, and farmers who directly and indirectly supplied the materials for export. ”

“ I do not doubt that a very largely increased foreign trade is accessible to us without bartering for it either our home market for such products of the farm and shop as our own people can supply or the wages of our working people. ”

“ The company were to be enabled to purchase lands, &c., and to exercise all the usual powers of bodies corporate; but were not to trade in the buying or selling of any goods or merchandise, except that they might deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold, or silver, and in selling of any goods or merchandise which should be pledged to them for money lent thereon, and might also sell the produce of their own lands. ”

“ If the manufacturer for the home market will be compelled, as you say he must be, to lower his prices at home, in order to meet the competition of foreign imported manufactured goods, which are still liable in a duty, WHAT BECOMES OF YOUR FOREIGN MARKET AFTER YOU HAVE ANNIHILATED OR EQUALIZED THE HOME ONE? If the foreigner can afford to pay the freight and the duties, and still to undersell you at home, how can you possibly contrive to do the same by him? If his goods are cheaper than yours in this country, when all the costs are included, how can you compete with him in his market? ”

“ You not only buy back again your own product, but you buy the labor of foreign manufacturers, and pay the transportation both ways, all the expenses of the merchants or middlemen who handle the wool, and sell you the clothes, while your own wives and children are idle at home, and your own factories standing still for want of wool. ”

“ In commerce, also, the largest banks, mercantile firms, and factories, grow continually larger by virtue of the less expense attending the management of extensive groups. The costly competition of many small manufactories and merchants is passing away before the more economical methods of a few strong concerns. Coöperation in labor, and in the supply of a community with goods, has succeeded to an encouraging extent in Europe, and in some degree on this continent. ”

“ The great trade is the home trade, and the greater the tendency to the performance of trade at home the more rapid will be the increase of prosperity, and the greater the power to effect exchanges abroad. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that the power of production increases with the power of combined exertion, and all combination is an exchange of labour for labour, the exchange being made at home. ”