Domestic product

“ Our manufactures find a generous encouragement by the policy which patronizes domestic industry, and the surplus of our produce a steady and profitable market by local wants in less-favored parts at home. ”

“ Possessing, as we do, all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend, in the degree we have done, on supplies from other countries. It is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufactures should be domestic, as its influences in that case, instead of exhausting, as it may do in foreign hands, would be felt advantageously for agriculture and every other branch or industry. ”

“ Imported manufactured goods may be divided into two distinct classes, the first including articles of domestic use or consumption, and the second those which tend to extend the various industries of the country, and which in a sense constitute a certain proportion of capital. ”

“ One where the material is itself an object of general or extensive consumption, and a fit and productive source of revenue. Another where a manufacture of a simpler kind, the competition of which with a like domestic article is desired to be restrained, partakes of the nature of a raw material from being capable by a further process to be converted into a manufacture of a different kind, the introduction or growth of which is desired to be encouraged. ”

“ These proceed from the consequences of that spirit of industry which is diffused over the whole people; in consequence of which, their lands are improved, the produce of them is readily disposed of, and what proves superfluous for domestic consumption meets with a ready market abroad, and thereby supports the value of all productions within the country. ”

“ These revenue duties, including freights and charges, which the importer must pay before he can come in competition with the home manufacturer in our markets, amount on nearly all our leading branches of manufacture to more than one-third of the value of the imported article, and in some cases to almost one-half its value. With such advantages it is not doubted that our domestic manufacturers will continue to prosper, realizing in well-conducted establishments even greater profits than can be derived from any other regular business. ”

“ And along with this vast aggrandizement of manufacturing industry and commerce, there has been a steady increase of both imports and exports, as well as of revenue from customs. The increase in imports has consisted of articles of luxury and raw materials for manufacture. And, as if to leave nothing wanting in the demonstration, the increase of exports has constantly included more and more of the products of agriculture. ”

“ We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor.
“Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established. 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 everywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. ”

“ It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dispose of a product almost the very moment it is completed, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. ”

“ Our stock of materials is, in many instances, equal to the greatest demand, and our artisans sufficient to work them up, even for exportation. In those cases, I take it to be the policy of every enlightened nation to give their manufacturers that degree of encouragement necessary to perfect them, without oppressing the other parts of the community; and, under this encouragement, the industry of the manufacturer will be employed to add to the wealth of the nation."—Idem, p. ”

“ Manufactures are, upon equal or nearly equal profits, naturally preferred to foreign commerce, for the same reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures. As the capital of the landlord or farmer is more secure than that of the manufacturer, so the capital of the manufacturer, being at all times more within his view and command, is more secure than that of the foreign merchant. ”

“ In industry, we must support our objective of higher industrial growth with investments in relatively labor-intensive finished consumer goods industries, the second stage of import substitution for selected intermediate and capital goods industries, and the generation of exports. ”

“ Surely the superior capital, ingenuity, application, and integrity, of the British manufacturer would command new markets for the produce of his industry, to an equal amount, when this should be no more. ”

“ It is a reflection which may with propriety be indulged here that this eventual diminution of the prices of manufactured articles, which is the result of internal manufacturing establishments, has a direct and very important tendency to benefit agriculture. It enables the farmer to procure, with a smaller quantity of his labor, the manufactured produce of which he stands in need, and consequently increases the value of his income and property. ”

“ The increase in the production of manufactures in the United States, far in excess of home requirements, has forced our manufacturers to seek markets in other parts of the world for their surplus product. ”

“ Another circumstance which gives a superiority of commercial advantages to States that manufacture as well as cultivate consists in the more numerous attractions which a more diversified market offers to foreign customers and in the greater scope which it affords to mercantile enterprise. It is a position of indisputable truth in commerce depending, too, on very obvious reasons, that the greatest resort will ever be to those marts where commodities, while equally abundant, are most various. ”

“ By means of the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can purchase both the foreign goods and the manufactured produce of their own country which they have occasion for with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labour than what they would be obliged to employ if they were to attempt, in an awkward and unskilful manner, either to import the one or to make the other for their own use. ”

“ It is a principal mean by which the establishment of manufactures contributes to an augmentation of the produce or revenue of a country, and has an immediate and direct relation to the prosperity of agriculture.
It is evident that the exertions of the husbandman will be steady or fluctuating, vigorous or feeble, in proportion to the steadiness or fluctuation, adequateness or inadequateness of the markets on which he must depend, for the vent of the surplus which may be produced by his labor ”

“ To place on imported articles which compete with articles that can be manufactured or produced in the United States, such a rate of duty as will secure to our farmers and laborers fair prices, fair wages, and will induce our people to engage in such manufacture and production. ”

“ More products sold domestically should be produced on the same production lines, meet the same standards, and be of the same quality as products for export in order to better satisfy the needs of upgrading consumption. ”

“ The imported commodity is always paid for, directly or indirectly, with the produce of our own industry: that industry being, at the same time rendered more productive, since, with the same labour and outlay, we are enabled to possess ourselves of a greater quantity of the article. ”

“ And we have been able to apply the same simple principle to many manufactured products—surpluses of which must be sold in the world export markets if we intend to continue a high level of production and employment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If one nation were in a condition to supply manufactured articles, on better terms than another, that other might find an abundant indemnification in a superior capacity to furnish the produce of the soil. And a free exchange, mutually beneficial, of the commodities which each was able to supply, on the best terms, might be carried on between them, supporting, in full vigor, the industry of each. ”

“ But for this the branches of our manufactures composed of raw materials, the production of our own country—such as cotton, iron, and woolen fabrics—would not only have acquired almost exclusive possession of the home market, but would have created for themselves a foreign market throughout the world. ”

“ It is also significant that manufactured and partly manufactured articles continue to be the chief commodities forming the volume of our augmented exports, the demands of our own people for consumption requiring that an increasing proportion of our abundant agricultural products be kept at home. ”

“ It is thus that agriculture and manufactures are essentially allied in their interests; that unrestrained commerce is equally essential to the real and permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures; that capital and labour are equally united in their interests, whether applied to agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; that the producer and the consumer are equally united in their most essential interest, which is, that there should be cheap production. ”

“ The dealer in raw materials knew that the user must come to him; the great factories were contented with the phenomenal demand for their output, not alone at home, but also abroad, where merit had already won a profitable trade. ”

“ In every country there must come a time, the utility of commodities being taken into account, when a unit of labour and capital provides less utility when applied to the creation of cotton goods, say, than when applied to producing something else for home consumption or for export in exchange for commodities wanted at home. ”

“ Or in agriculture, to the contract method, whereby specified products such as sugar beets, sweet-corn, peas, beans, tomatoes, fruits, and other products for manufacture, canning, preserving, or pickling in a factory, are raised by the farmer and sold to the manufacturer at a previously agreed-upon contract price. Under the guild plan the manufacturer or importer sold usually to the ultimate consumer. So the economic system was gradually growing more complex, and the interdependence of man upon man more pronounced. ”

“ All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale, may be reduced to three different sorts: the home trade, the foreign trade of consumption, and the carrying trade. The home trade is employed in purchasing in one part of the same country, and selling in another, the produce of the industry of that country. It comprehends both the inland and the coasting trade. ”

“ Thus the English manufacturer is bettered, for he has a new market for his manufactures, which he exchanges for cheap provisions; and the dealer in eggs and poultry has a new impulse to this branch of industry, because it enables him to give clothes to his wife and children. This exchange of benefits—this advancement in the condition of both parties—this creation of produce and of profitable labour—this increase of the number of labourers—could not have taken place without machinery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the productions of different States. When the staple of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. ”

“ The plain instruction, of these genuine facts, to our planters and farmers, is, to encourage household manufactures, and all other manufactures on the estates, at the doors, in the townships, villages, and counties in which they live, consuming raw materials, building materials, food for man and beast, fuel, drinks, and other productions of the earth. This system of adjacent manufactures saves all the cost of transportation of our productions to the sea-ports, and the expense of carrying foreign goods from the sea-ports to the interior, more profitable than canals and turnpike roads. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That such is the case is the natural consequence of our submission, even in part, to the system that looks to compelling the export of raw products, the exhaustion of the land, the cheapening of labour, and the export of the labourer. ”