Export duty

“ Now, while an import into one port almost necessarily involves a prior export from another, still, in determining the character of the tax imposed, it is important to consider whether the duty be laid for the purpose of adding to the revenues of the country from which the export takes place, or for the benefit of the territory into which they are imported. ”

“ Producers for export are obligated both to produce the items called for by the export plan in accordance with specifications and to meet contractual delivery dates; with few exceptions, they have no direct contact with foreign buyers. It is the responsibility of the foreign trade organizations to seek out the most profitable markets and to handle all physical and financial details of the trade transactions. It is also their duty to keep producers currently informed about changing conditions in world markets and to make them aware of needed adjustments in production. ”

“ For it is to be observed that it is under legislative protection—bounties, bonuses, drawbacks, export and especially import duties—that almost every colonial industry has grown up, as the industries of the mother country grew up. Sometimes the profit in a particular undertaking is exactly equal to the amount of the import duty, and it is seldom greater. ”

“ We have inland navigation. Our last exports did not exceed £1,000,000. Our export trade is entirely in the hands of foreigners. We have no manufactures—depend for supplies on other nations—and so far are we from having any carrying trade, that, as I have already said, our exports are in the hands of foreigners. Besides the profit that might be made by our natural materials, much greater gains would accrue from their being first wrought before they were exported. ”

“ But do we, civilized beings, indulge in the absurd and barbarous notion that we must own the countries with which we wish to trade? Here are our official reports before us, telling us that of late years our export trade has grown enormously, not only of farm products, but of the products of our manufacturing industries ”

“ This circumstance [Pg 221] is counted upon by the leadership to motivate trusts toward attaining optimum efficiency in export production and toward adjusting output to foreign market requirements. Financial incentives to surpass official foreign trade targets are provided by allocating the producers and foreign trade organizations a portion of the receipts from excess exports and a portion of savings made on imports through import substitution. ”

“ The loss of the exports, and with it the imports also, must in truth be the end of the system. If we export, we must import, and the most simple and efficient system to secure the home market, would in fact be to prohibit exports; and as the constitution only prohibits duties on exports, and as duties are not prohibition, we may yet witness this modification of the American system. ”

“ The work will afford a comprehensive picture of American productiveness, like similar works issued in Germany, Austria, and Italy, to the acknowledged benefit of the export trade of those countries; and our own export trade, which is capable of much greater development, cannot fail to be greatly benefited by the successful execution of the scheme. ”

“ If the fact be, that by allowing to foreigners a participation in our machinery, we enable them to produce any of our leading articles of export, at a lower money price than we can sell those articles, it is certain that unless we possess as great an advantage in the production of the machinery itself as we have in the production of other articles by means of machinery, the permitting of its exportation would alter to our disadvantage the division of the benefit of trade. Our exports being diminished, we should have to pay a balance in money. ”

“ The present imports of the United States, adding to the first cost, &c, onehalf the freight as the reasonable share of foreign nations, may be stated at twenty-five millions of dollars. Deducting five millions on account of East India articles, there remain in favour of Europe twenty millions of dollars. The foreign labour incorporated with such part of our exports as are subjects or ingredients for manufactures, together with half the export freight, is probably not of less value than fifteen millions of dollars. ”

“ The main features of the trade-control systems of most free-world countries were originally established to deal with such problems as foreign-exchange control, conservation of goods in short supply, and directing foreign trade to particular currency areas. For most countries security trade controls have been inlaid in these general economic controls and are exercised through them, using the same basic techniques of export licensing and customs inspection as in export control for other purposes. ”

“ England might possibly import more goods from, than she would export to, France, but she would in consequence export more to some other country, and France would import more from that country; so that the exports and imports of all countries would balance each other ”

“ Full decontrol may obviously be accompanied by an increase in price of imports, but it will create conditions favorable for the establishment of new industries to increase production for export and employment and, in the long run, stabilize prices. With the savings of foreign exchange resulting from the reduction of imports of consumer goods, we shall have more resources available for the importation of machineries and equipment to expand industrial production. ”

“ The idea or self-interest that has force to discourage the imports of foreign commodities by protective duties passes naturally onward to bounties on the export of some favoured articles of domestic produce, under which the same practical result is conversely produced, and one part of the nation has to pay in taxes to the state some proportion of the price necessary to effect a sale abroad of the produce of another part of the nation. ”

“ It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth of the nation.
The extent of the prosperous commerce of the nation must be regulated by the amount of its exports, and an important addition to the value of these will draw after it a corresponding increase of importations. It has happened in the vicissitudes of the seasons that the harvests of all Europe have in the late summer and autumn fallen short of their usual average. ”

“ If, as no doubt, you will in future confine your imports to the amount of your exports of native products, and all your revenue is to be, as it is now, raised by taxes or duties on your imports, I ask you who pays the expense, and who, in fact, enables you to go on with your Government at all, and prevents its wheels from stopping? ”

“ We are satisfied that the existing laws relating to exportations, with the benefit of drawback, do not apply to relieve the person who has incurred, by an undervaluation of his import, this additional duty from the payment of any portion of it. ”

“ The exports must very nearly amount to the value of foreign imports, which consist principally of sugar, wine, brandy, salt, wearing apparel, and household furniture. The import duty on European and North American produce is twenty-seven per cent. ”

“ If the importing Party adopts the agreed-upon measures, the exporting Party shall refrain from applying, or immediately cease to apply, any export subsidy to exports of such good into the territory of the importing Party. ”

“ Where the export of a product from other countries or regions to the market of a third country causes or threatens to cause material injury to the established domestic industries, or materially retards the establishment of domestic industries, the authority responsible for foreign trade under the State Council may, on the request of the domestic industries, carry out consultations with the government of that third country and require it to take appropriate measures. ”

“ Countries which export food, have the former advantage, but not the latter. But our own colonies, and the countries which supply us with the materials of our manufactures, maintain a hard struggle with us for an equal share of the advantages of their trade; for their exports are also of a kind for which there exists a most extensive demand here, and a demand capable of almost indefinite extension by a fall of price. ”

“ But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to-day have substantial free trade in foreign raw materials which they make into the finished product in the United States, provided they export it. ”

“ To allow the merchant to draw back upon exportation, either the whole, or a part of whatever excise or inland duty is imposed upon domestic industry, can never occasion the exportation of a greater quantity of goods than what would have been exported had no duty been imposed. Such encouragements do not tend to turn towards any particular employment a greater share of the capital of the country, than what would go to that employment of its own accord, but only to hinder the duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments. ”

“ That once in every year, any British subject, if qualified as before, who may have personally accompanied both his exports and imports, as defined in the preceding resolution, may exempt from duty, as before, imports of the local value of fifty pounds, on declaring truly that they are either to be consumed by himself, or to be sold by himself to actual consumers within the aforesaid settlement, and have been purchased with certain specified productions or manufactures of the settlement, carried away by himself in the same season, or by the latest vessel, at his own risk. ”

“ The other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to him, is that it is of vital importance to us to look after our external markets, to make sure that we shall always have customers, and good customers, to buy our goods, and so to enable us to pay for our indispensable imports. The Free Trader does not share this solicitude. He has got a comfortable theory that if you only look after your imports your exports will look after themselves. ”

“ But the great national policy of putting a duty upon imports is, that it either keeps the foreign trade in our own hands, or draws something for the defence of the country from every foreigner who participates in it with us. ”

“ Instead of confining importations to home-bottoms, or those of the producing nation, I think we should confine exportations to home-bottoms, or to those of nations having treaties with us. Our exportations are heavy, and would nourish a great force of our own, or be a tempting price to the nation to whom we should offer a participation of it, in exchange for free access to all their possessions. This is an object to which our government alone is adequate, in the gross; but I have ventured to pursue it here, so far as the consumption of our productions by this country extends. ”

“ That it is good for a country to have its exports exceed its imports is a notion that has been widely accepted among us. We have usually been in that position, and the fact has been accepted as proof that we were doing well under a policy of protection. England, on the other hand, has had an excess of imports over exports, and England is free trade; the English excess of imports has been accepted as proof of the mistaken nature of a free-trade policy. ”

“ According to the doctrine now stated, the only direct advantage of foreign commerce consists in the imports. A country obtains things which it either could not have produced at all, or which it must have produced at a greater expense of capital and labour than the cost of the things which it exports to pay for them. It thus obtains a more ample supply of the commodities it wants, for the same labour and capital; or the same supply, for less labour and capital, leaving the surplus disposable to produce other things. ”

“ High duties on imports were resorted to, at first perhaps mainly for revenue, but afterwards in the interest of national production. Commercial treaties were a principal object of diplomacy, the end in view being to exclude the competition of other nations in foreign markets, whilst in the home market as little room as possible was given for the introduction of anything but raw materials from abroad. The colonies were prohibited from trading with other European nations than the parent country, to which they supplied either the precious metals or raw produce purchased with home manufactures. ”

“ THOUGH the encouragement of exportation, and the discouragement of importation, are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet, with regard to some particular commodities, it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation and to encourage importation. ”

“ If the natural advantages upon such articles are less considerable, no duty can be imposed. Exportation may then be encouraged by granting still greater privileges to strangers or others, who may promote the exportation at little cost to the state. ”

“ Imports no doubt are paid for by exports, but it does not in the least follow that by increasing your dependence on others you will necessarily increase their dependence on you. It would be much truer to say: "Look after the exports and the imports will look after themselves." The more you sell the more you will be able to buy, but it does not in the least follow that the more you buy the more you will be able to sell. What business man would go on the principle of buying as much as possible and say: "Oh, that is all right. ”