Exports

“ Surely it is a commonplace of Political Economy, that the effect of an unfavourable exchange, i.e. of an excess of imports over exports, is to stimulate production and export, and bring about a more favourable course of exchange. ”

“ One country exports those commodities which it can produce the cheapest, in exchange for those of other countries that are either not produced at all in the first country, or can be produced only at a greater cost than by import. The immediate force impelling to the export and import of commodities is, in all cases, a difference in their values in the two countries. ”

“ Political economists, seeing the folly of these views, and clearly perceiving that the advantage of commerce consists and must consist solely of the imports, have occasionally suffered themselves to employ language evincing inattention to the fact, that exports, though unimportant in themselves, are important by their influence on imports. So real and extensive is this influence, that every new market which is opened for any of our goods, and every increase in the demand for our commodities in foreign countries, enables us to supply ourselves with foreign commodities at a smaller cost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The case which we have just examined, is an example in how remarkable a manner every cause which materially influences exports, operates upon the prices of imports. According to the ancient theory of the balance of trade, and to the associations of the generality of what are termed practical men to this day, the sole benefit derived from commerce consists in the exports, and imports are rather an evil than otherwise. ”

“ Our exports are bulky, and therefore must employ much shipping, which might be nearly all our own: our exports are chiefly necessaries of life, or raw materials, the food for the manufacturers of other nations. On the contrary, the chief of what we receive from other countries, we can either do without, or produce substitutes. ”

“ And on Thursday, we learned that the American economy set a new record for exports in a single month. Millions of American jobs depend on exports. More exports support better and higher-paying jobs -- and to keep our economy expanding, we need to keep expanding trade. ”

“ If they mean that our exports during the last half year have increased, we can understand them, and very glad indeed we are to learn that such is the case. For although we have seen of late some elaborate arguments, tending, if they have any meaning at all, to show that our imports and not our exports should be taken as the true measure of the national prosperity, we have that faith in the simple rules of arithmetic which forbids us from adopting such reasoning. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The exports amount to about one-nineteenth part of the whole; and, perhaps, as they are manufactured goods, to about one-tenth part of the whole manufactures of the country exported: but the manufactures exported are not equal to one-third part of those consumed at home, so that not above one-thirtieth part of our manufacturers are maintained by the trade to India. ”

“ We must know (1) the character of English exports. The exports of a country show in what lines it is strong enough to compete with foreign producers, and are the means by which it buys commodities produced abroad. We shall then consider (2) the advantages which enabled England to produce these wares so efficiently that other countries were glad to buy of her, and (3) the countries in which these wares found a market. On the other side we want to know (4) the imports, the wares which England wanted but could not herself produce to advantage, and (5) the countries from which the imports came. ”

“ 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 here let me add, that at the treasury they have taken the imports as the basis; and I am gratified to be able to state, that, I understand, on comparing the results arrived at, although the calculations were made without concert, those of the secretary turn out to be very nearly, if not exactly, the same with those to which I have been conducted. I will here state why it is I have taken the exports as the ground of my calculations, adding thereto fifteen per centum for profits. The exports are one means of making foreign purchases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A NATIVE INDUSTRY OF THE COAST REGION.
Commerce has felt the stimulus of progressive government, and commercial enterprise has flourished notably within the past five years. In 1902 the imports amounted in value to three and a half million pounds, the exports to three and three-quarter millions; in 1906, the value of the national imports reached five million pounds sterling and the exports amounted to six million pounds sterling in value. ”

“ Exports and imports were no longer a tiny margin in an economy just above the subsistence level. Exports were primarily raw wool and cloth, but also grain, butter, eggs, herring, hides, leather goods such as bottles and boots, embroideries, metalware, horseshoes, daggers, tin, coal, and lead. Imported were wine, silk, timber, furs, rubies, emeralds, fruits, raisins, currents, pepper, ginger, cloves, rice, cordovan leather, pitch, hemp, spars, fine iron, short rods of steel, bow-staves of yew, tar, oil, salt, cotton (for candle-wicks) , and alum (makes dyes hold) . ”

“ Today, with our total trade expanded from P1.8 billion in 1954 to P1.9 billion, we have channelled 42 per cent of it to Europe, Asia, and Central and South Amer­ica. This geographical broadening of our trade is an en­couraging feign of growing stability and lessened dependence on a single country us the source of our imports and the market for our exports. ”

“ Increasingly will America’s exports be a factor in foreign markets, and upon this depends to an ever-growing [Pg 292] extent the welfare of Americans. Time was when the land was the producer only of raw materials. Now it is one of the world’s greatest manufacturing nations, with an infinite number of products that cannot be consumed at home. ”

“ The excess of the value of imports over that of exports, which is regarded by some as an adverse and alarming symptom in British trade, is in large part readily accounted for on the ground of shipping receipts, insurance returns, interest on capital employed in foreign trade, merchants' profits, and the income derived from foreign investments. ”

“ It is a fact to be pondered that we are exchanging the products of unskilled for skilled labor with the nations of Europe. In the course of a year, for example, England exports of raw material and food only about $150,000,000 in value, while her exports of manufactures aggregate about $850,000,000 in value. On the other hand, our exports consist almost entirely of raw material and food, their annual value being about $800,000,000, while of manufactures we export only a beggarly $75,000,000 worth, and our imports of manufactures are of the annual value of about $250,000,000. ”

“ Excess exports may not be made by diverting output scheduled for the domestic market, and savings on imports may not be made at the cost of quantitative or qualitative deterioration of the domestic supply. ”

“ Our exports especially are increasing beyond all anticipation. All we sell and all we buy abroad is paid and settled for on the gold basis. The prices of our principal articles of export, of our agricultural staples, are virtually determined in the foreign market. ”

“ I say, Jack, it seems to me the Exports want a jolly lot more things done for them than the Imports. To-day I’ve got to go to Mudie’s to change a book, then I’ve to get a scarf-pin mended for Crow, and buy a pair of flannel drawers for Wallop, and go and offer two shillings for a five-shilling mariner’s compass at the stores for Doubleday. ”

“ There is no doubt that our prohibiting the importation of a particular article, which, but for the prohibition, would have been imported, enables us to obtain our other imports at smaller cost. The article for which we have the greatest demand, and for which our demand is most increased by cheapness, is that which we should naturally import preferably to any other; now of this article we should import the quantity necessary to pay for our exports, on terms of interchange less advantageous to us than in the case of any other commodity. ”

“ At all events, he admits that France imports more than she exports. But, this is in direct contradiction to his fellow in the Quarterly, who, as we have seen, asserts that France exports more than she imports! ”

“ In the last 12 months, we have started to shift the thrust of the economy from imports to exports. In this effort, we have had initial success—which is reflected in the favorable balance of trade, the unprecedented level of our foreign reserves, and in the influx of foreign investment. Our exports increased by 57%, 27% of which are new products. ”

“ The value of the imports exceeds that of the exports by no less a sum than six and a half millions sterling (Federal Statistics, 1887) , the counterbalance being supplied by the tourists, and by the interest on foreign investments. ”

“ Manufactures have come to figure respectably in our exports. They exceed in that list, by three or four to one, the entire exports of all kinds in 1790; and they equal the average aggregate of the years from 1815 to 1824. But the multiplication of the wants of a people rapidly growing in numbers and refinement will, with the comparatively high price of labor, scarcity of capital and distance of most of our ports from the markets supplied by European manufactures, for a long time to come make the home-supply the chief care of our artisans. ”

“ Exports continue on a certain scale all through the year, but, like imports, are heavier at some times than others. In the Fall, for instance, when the year's crops are being exported, shipments out of the country invariably reach their zenith, the export nadir being approached in midsummer, when the crop has been mostly exported and shipments of manufactured goods are running light. ”

“ It must clearly be assumed as axiomatic that in the absence of loans, tributes, &c., imports can in the long run only be paid for by exports, and also that those articles will be exported which can be produced at the least comparative real cost. ”

“ From this rapid view of the commerce of the European states, it appears that, with the exception of Great Britain, by far the largest portion and greatest value of the exports of each country consist in the produce of the soil, either in its raw and natural state, or after having undergone a change that requires little industry, manual labour, or mechanical agency. ”

“ In addition to the significance of exporting services, export of goods continues to be vitally important to our economic performance. More than 20 percent of our domestic goods are exported, and for durable goods the figure jumps to 36 percent. These exports support millions of high-quality U.S. jobs and play a key role in U.S. economic growth. ”

“ By means of the products thus obtained, the people might then get in exchange all those commodities from foreign countries, the production of which it is, according to the laws of the division of labor, better to leave to foreign countries. [A3-1-4] Since one nation can lastingly pay [Pg 425] another nation only with its own products, any limitation of imports must, under otherwise equal circumstances, be attended by a corresponding limitation of exports. ”