Economic interdependence

“ Our exports will increase. Our balance of payments position will improve. And we will have forged across the Atlantic a trading partnership with vast resources for freedom.
If, on the other hand, we hang back in deference to local economic pressures, we will find ourselves cut off from our major allies. Industries--and I believe this is most vital--industries will move their plants and jobs and capital inside the walls of the Common Market, and jobs, therefore, will be lost here in the United States if they cannot otherwise compete for its consumers. ”

“ Dismantling protectionist barriers and providing correct incentives and support shall make our industry more efficient and world competitive — and our exports, the spearhead for economic revival and growth. ”

“ From a point of view taken also by conservative writers I demanded as a characteristic of world power, in addition to the size of territories and the number of population, above all, the economic independence that makes it possible for a State, in a case of need, to produce, without export or import, all foodstuffs, necessities, raw materials, and all the finished or half-finished products it needs for its consumers in normal times, as well as to insure the sale of its surplus. ”

“ We need a new law--a wholly new approach--a bold new instrument of American trade policy. Our decision could well affect the unity of the West, the course of the Cold War, and the economic growth of our Nation for a generation to come.
If we move decisively, our factories and farms can increase their sales to their richest, fastest-growing market. ”

“ Despite political obstacles, economic integration has proceeded with giant strides, especially during the past hundred years. Under a well developed world political federation the world economy could be integrated and used to provide the necessaries, conveniences and minimal comforts for the entire human family. ”

“ It has created industries whose raw materials come from abroad and whose products require, for an outlet, the universal or world market. It has thus developed the reciprocal interdependence of nations, no one of which to-day can live without the aid of the others. ”

“ To many there seems a much more important reason for restrictions, in order to establish every needed form of production for the sake of national independence. That nation which contains within its own borders the means of supplying all the wants of its people is supposed to be more capable of independent growth, and to be freed from hampering competitions of trade, that may lead to wars and, perhaps, to extreme suffering in case of foreign war. ”

“ Barriers still impede trade and the flow of capital needed to develop each nation's human and material resources. Wise reduction of these barriers is a long-term objective of our foreign economic policy--a policy of an evolutionary and selective nature, assuring broad benefits to our own and other peoples. ”

“ The development of this world-embracing economy has taken place in great measure in consequence of the investment of capital by rich countries in less developed lands. Through this there have arisen close relations and a great increase of wealth, not only for the lending and the borrowing countries, but for all nations. The Conference is of the opinion that researches should be made into the extent of the interdependence of the nations in the matter of capital. ”

“ This quest requires as well a constructive attitude among all the nations of the free world toward expansion of trade and investment, that can give all of us opportunity to work out economic betterment. ”

“ The wall that we have erected around us will indeed serve for a while to support a high level of prices and wages in this country, but in the long run it can not do so; for as our business will constantly be diminishing while population will be increasing the internal competition will eventually afford the correctives. There can be no real and enduring prosperity for us until and unless the normal international trade relations, which express the great international division of labor, be reestablished. ”

“ That, while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence. ”

“ An alliance of two peoples for commercial purposes is the best guaranty of mutual support of national institutions.
In proof of all these statements, the experience of the world in widely varying regions is appealed to. The natural breaking down of prohibitory tariffs has given opportunity for observation. Especially has the commerce between states of the Union, where it is absolutely free, shown the general advantage of such freedom in rapid development of wealth and welfare. ”

“ Now lies before us the opportunity—with their stable governments and protection for enterprise and property, and our increased capital—now lies before us the opportunity to be allied to them also by the bonds of personal intercourse and profitable trade. ”

“ I saw a business system which had grown up under free competition and equality of opportunity passing into trusts and other combines derived from the acquisition of lands containing the best supplies of coal, iron, oil, and other important raw materials, supported by railroad and banking connections and by tariffs directed against outside competition. ”

“ That freedom from restraint is calculated to give the utmost extension to foreign trade, and the best direction to the capital and industry of the country.
That the maxim of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, which regulates every merchant in his individual dealings, is strictly applicable as the best rule for the trade of the whole nation. [Pg 699]
That a policy founded on these principles would render the commerce of the world an interchange of mutual advantages, and diffuse an increase of wealth and enjoyments among the inhabitants of each State. ”

“ By protective duties and bounties on exportation, by subsidies of all sorts to manufactures and national navigation, by the acquiring of transmarine colonies, by the creation of privileged commercial companies, by the inspection of manufacturing processes, by the perfecting of means of transportation and the suppression of interior custom-houses, every state strives to increase its means of production, to close its market to its competitors, and to make the balance of trade incline in its favor. ”

“ They have shown under widely different conditions the power of nationalizing their economic organization; and in spite of the commission of many errors, particularly in this country, a system of national economy appears to make for a higher level of economic vitality than a system of international economy. ”

“ And neither we nor the members of the European Common Market are so affluent that we can long afford to shelter high cost farms or factories from the winds of foreign competition, or to restrict the channels of trade with other nations of the free world. ”

“ And they have brought to light the fact that this inevitable internationalizing of economic production must be accompanied by a co-operative internationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous chaotic conflict is to be avoided. ”

“ The same set of social principles which decreed local rewards and local punishments for initiative and enterprise, or for the lack of them, was built upon the theory that "competition is the life of trade." Thus, while the present economic system, in its earlier stages tended to stimulate initiative, its form made co-operation difficult or impossible.
The ideal economic unit would be one capable of generating its own driving power, and given a legitimate exchange of commodities and services with other units, one that could maintain its own energy and efficiency. ”

“ When the harmonious adjustment of international trade shall ultimately be established by "the Parliament of man" in "the Federation of the world," the power of production and the power of consumption will properly balance each other; but in traversing the long road and enduring the painful process by which that end shall be reached, the protectionist claims that his theory of revenue preserves the newer nations from being devoured by the older, and offers to human labor a shield against the exactions of capital. ”

“ If we encourage the labor of our own people in the development of the great resources of the country, we shall not only preserve our own commercial independence, but we shall soon be, as we ought to be in view of such advantages, the creditor nation of the world, and compel other countries to resort to us for the raw materials for their own manufacturing districts. ”

“ He shows, in the first place, how solidarity among the civilized States of the world has lately increased in a marvellous degree, for not long ago the foreign trade of a civilized nation and the capital invested in other States was of very small importance. Each country produced nearly all the requisites for its own consumption, and employed its capital in its own undertakings. ”

“ The realistic Whigs wanted to fit the country and its economy into actual world conditions, to subordinate it wholly and openly to the great manufacturing nations and accept with gratitude foreign capital and foreign protection. The immediate result would be more prosperity for the propertied classes; they contended this would mean a gradual raising of the standard of living since employers could hire more hands, and indenture, faced by competition with wages, would dwindle away. ”

“ They prevent a saving of labour and capital, which, if permitted to be made, would be divided in some proportion or other between the importing country and the countries which buy what that country does or might export. ”

“ I believe that policy is essential to the prosperity and possibly to the perpetuity of our Government. [Cheers.] The two propositions that now stare our working people—and our whole country—in the face are these: competition with foreign countries, without adequate discriminating and favoring duties, means lower wages to our working people; a revenue-only tariff, or progressive free trade, means larger importations of foreign goods, and that means less work in America. ”

“ For, it is only with the produce of its labor and capital that one country can demand, or can obtain, in exchange, the produce of the labor and capital of another. The idea that the lowering of wages can increase, or the increase of wages can diminish, the trade of a country, is as baseless as the idea that the prosperity of a country can be increased by taxes on imports, or diminished by the removal of restrictions on trade. ”

“ The largest diversity of industry is most productive of general prosperity, and of the comfort and independence of the people.
We therefore demand that the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made, "not for revenue only," but that in raising the requisite revenues for the government such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its just reward, and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity. ”

“ The same rule which regulates the relative value of commodities in one country, does not regulate the relative value of the commodities exchanged between two or more countries.
Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. ”

“ I wish to impress you, gentlemen, with the importance of this subject, as it affects the vital interests of our country; particularly at a time when our foreign markets are almost destroyed, and we must learn to establish our prosperity on the interchange of commodities within our own limits. This will produce a solid independence, teach us the value of our connexions with one another, and bind us in bonds of mutual interest. ”

“ We renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection as the bulwark of American industrial independence and the foundation of American development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry; it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer; it upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, and makes the American farmer less dependent on foreign demand and price ”

“ But nations do not, at least in modern times, emigrate en masse; and, while the labor and capital of a country remain in the country, they are most beneficially employed in producing, for foreign markets as well as for its own, the things in which it lies under the least disadvantage, if there be none in which it possesses an advantage.
The fundamental ground on which all trade, or all exchange of commodities, rests, is division of labor, or separation of employments. ”

“ As nations under the present system are driven to compete with one another for the markets of the world, and as firms or the captains of industry have to scramble for their share of the profits of the markets, so also have the workers to compete with each other—for livelihood; and it is this constant competition or war amongst them which enables the profit-grinders to make their profits, and by means of the wealth so acquired to take all the executive power of the country into their hands. ”

“ We may, moreover, reasonably expect, that these sources of mutual benefit and intercourse will increase, and that new products of agriculture and manufactures will arise under some propitious accident or kindness of nature, will extend the mutual dependence of the states, and proportionally multiply the bonds of union. Each state will be important to the rest for its useful products, and they in turn will be valuable to it, both for affording a market, and for the products they give in exchange. ”