Fair trade

“ That's why our motto is: free and fair trade with free and fair traders. Now, we've seen that governments sometimes don't play by the rules. They keep exports out of subsidy-or subsidize, I should say, industries, giving them an unfair advantage. ”

“ As to the disputed matter of Protection, I am for Free Trade so far only as regards the matter of provisions; but I desire Fair Trade on the reciprocity system where manufactured articles and their raw material are concerned. We absolutely require free food,—but are being ruined by the bad bargain of one-sided Free Trade otherwise. ”

“ Free and fair trade creates jobs, raises living standards, and lowers prices for families throughout America. It also strengthens our relationships with other countries, helping us to forge new partnerships based on a commitment to generate new prosperity and a better way of life for people in America and throughout the world. ”

“ Trade implies at least two parties. To be free, it should be fair, equal, and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to the admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, what ports of any other foreign nation shall we find open to the free admission of our surplus produce? We may break down all barriers to free trade on our part, but the work will not be complete, until foreign powers shall have removed theirs. ”

“ We believe that the advantages of freer raw material should be accorded to our manufacturers, and we contemplate a fair and careful distribution of necessary tariff burdens, rather than the precipitation of free trade. ”

“ That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience. ”

“ I buy, dispense, and disperse human labor. I create wants, and I satisfy them. I will establish honest laws of trade. What I do shall be rated as commercial law. What I say shall be quoted as a way of equity and probity. That man is a King of Trade. His throne is set upon hills and seas. His subjects are all men with needs, and all men with products of the land, the coasts, the sea, or brain, or skill. This is the lawful King of Trade. He represents God's mart of exchange. Primarily, goods are not bought and sold in the market. They are first transferred in that man's brain. ”

“ The first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.
The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us, and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. ”

“ Free Traders deny these propositions, and, on the contrary, affirm that Free Trade has been, and is, a source of vast prosperity, and an unmitigated blessing to the country, and that Protection has been, and is, a source of loss to those countries which have established it. ”

“ Free trade would enable us to increase our commerce and shipping on the ocean; to arrest the stream of coin that is flowing from us to Europe; to sell where we could obtain the best prices, and buy where we could make the best bargains. ”

“ Produce something that somebody else wants, whether it be a shoe string or a savings bank, and the purchaser or patron will not trouble himself to ask who the seller is. This same great economic law runs through every line of industry, whether it be farming, manufacturing, mercantile or professional pursuits. Recognize this fundamental law of trade; add to it tact, good manners, a resolute will, a tireless capacity for hard work, and you will succeed in business. ”

“ The aim of free trade or unrestricted commerce was equality of trade opportunities; but such conditions of unrestricted competition tended to concentrate trade in the hands of the strongest interests and to prevent equality of opportunity. ”

“ Q. Why is not Free Trade also a felicitous term?
A. Things that are in themselves good, and that are made free and abundant, are, we must admit, generally to be approved. Abundant health or abundant friendship or abundant money we have not yet thought it wise to consider objectionable. But there are exceptions to all rules. Abundant trade—or Free Trade—which is trade done voluntarily by shrewd and sane men in order to procure abundant money, is different. ”

“ The merchants at large all over the kingdom, the shippers at the out-ports, and the manufacturers in the interior, all urged on by what is termed the public voice, crying out A Free Trade and No Monopoly. ”

“ Low prices come from competition—a fruitful source of wealth, and a daughter of Liberty. Therefore, a government wishing to establish on a firm basis the prosperity of trade must give commerce full liberty ”

“ 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. ”

“ Free trade, in its true signification, or in the only signification which is not a fallacy, can only mean a commerce that is totally unfettered by duties, restrictions, prohibitions, and charges of all sorts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Growth of the sphere of commerce and resulting specialization of production.—The world has gone far toward realizing the ideal of the early free trader, that wherever a man318 might be, he should share in the productive advantages of all other men, wherever they might be. Customs tariffs have been able to check the movement of commerce; they have been powerless to stop it. The sphere of ordinary trade, which was once the manor, a mere hamlet or village ”

“ Well, gentlemen, I trust that by this time you have been able to form a pretty accurate notion of our condition as a nation of manufacturers, trades, and carriers, and that you can come to no other conclusion than that our position is an excellent one, and one which is principally due to Free Trade as its great efficient cause. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Have these ideas been realized? or do they not lose some of their capital in every adventure, and continue the unprofitable trade from year to year, subsisting under the hopes of happier times under an efficient general government? The ungainful trade carried on by our merchants has a baneful influence on the interests of the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the farmer; and these, I believe, are the chief interests of the people of the United States. ”

“ Let us now see what we, as a nation, have done under our one-sided Free Trade.
First, let us try and understand the meaning of the complaint that every nation has a free sale for its products in our home markets. From the terms used, it must be evident that every nation which produces anything, and wishes to sell it to us, has to compete with every other nation wishing to do the same thing. It is therefore impossible for us to get the commodities we want cheaper than we do through this universal competition. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must not however be forgotten, that even in the countries of most active competition, custom also has a considerable share in determining the profits of trade. There is sometimes an idea afloat as to what the profit of an employment should be, which though not adhered to by all the dealers, nor perhaps rigidly by any, still exercises a certain influence over their operations. ”

“ In few states of the Continent was a man free to seek his profit where he would; he was entangled in a network of government regulations that fixed the rules of his trade, the prices of his wares, even the articles which he might or might not consume. ”

“ Our one-sided Free Trade has done all this for us, at all events. And no Protectionist nation can divest us of what we have thus got. And of the advantages we enjoy we cannot be deprived except in one way—by other nations becoming also Free Traders. ”

“ In this country, our Parliamentary proceedings, our public documents, and the works of several able and popular writers, have combined to propagate the impression, that we are indebted for much of our riches to what is called the balance of trade." "Our true policy would surely be to profess, as the object and guide of our commercial system, that which every man who has studied the subject must know to be the true principle of commerce, the interchange of reciprocal and equivalent benefit. ”

“ Free trade was attractive as an ideal, because it appeared to offer the greatest production of goods to the world as a whole, and the largest share of material goods to each consumer; it is cosmopolitan, and it treats consumption, and the interest of the consumer, as such, as the end to be considered. ”

“ The Economic Function.—The nation has an economic function. It is its business to encourage trade by means that seem most likely to help, whether by subsidies, tariffs, or expert advice; to protect all producers, distributers, and consumers by just laws and tribunals, so that unfair privileges shall not be enjoyed by the few at the expense of the many, and to provide in every legitimate way for the spread of information and for experimentation that agriculture, mining, and manufacturing may be improved. ”

“ We are told that we produce more than this country can consume, and must have foreign markets in which to sell our surplus products. Well, must we own the countries with which we wish to trade? Is not this a notion ludicrously barbarous? ”

“ We send school-books and machinery to China; she sends us tea, matting, and bamboo. The whole right theory of trade is a give-and-take between men and nations, based on a just price, and with a deep law of Value, not yet wholly formulated, underlying each transaction. ”

“ The short inference from these premises is this: as by trade the whole kingdom is thus advanced in wealth, and the value of lands, and of the produce of lands, and of labour, is so remarkably increased, why should we not go on with vigour and spirit in trade, and by all proper and possible methods and endeavours, increase and cultivate our commerce; that we may still increase and improve in wealth, in value of lands, in stock, and in all the arts of trade, such as manufactures, navigation, fishery, husbandry, and, in short, study an improvement of trade in all its branches. ”

“ I am, I believe, as strongly attached as any member of this House to the principle of free trade, rightly understood. Trade, considered merely as trade, considered merely with reference to the pecuniary interest of the contracting parties, can hardly be too free. But there is a great deal of trade which cannot be considered merely as trade, and which affects higher than pecuniary interests. ”

“ Cobdenites ascribe every known or imagined improvement in commerce, and the condition of the masses, to Free Trade. Things are better than they were fifty years ago: Free Trade was adopted fifty years ago. ”

“ Nay, more, this subdivision of functions shows itself not only among the different parts of the same nation, but among different nations. That exchange of commodities which free-trade promises so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect of specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of each people. ”

“ When the opposite view was all but universal, he held and taught that free trade would be not only a general benefit to the people of this country, but would inflict permanent injury on no one class or portion of them ”

“ The immediate effects in increasing the public revenue—even the customs revenue, which seemed endangered by the abolition of so many duties—in reviving British trade and manufactures, and imparting new life to agriculture itself, were so great that the free trade policy was speedily carried up to its highest points of triumph. ”

“ But it is plain that reckoning all the agreeable, and all the disagreeable circumstances as profit or loss in every trade, there is an exact equality of profit in all the branches of free trade in any country. Any particular branch may obtain a temporary ascendency, but it is soon reduced by the influx of rivals in the trade, who naturally flock to the most gainful business. ”

“ 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. ”