Free trade

“ The call for free trade is as unavailing, as the cry of a spoiled child in its nurse’s arms, for the moon, or the stars that glitter in the firmament of heaven. It never has existed, it never will exist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence either prosperity in a free-trade country, or distress in a protectionist country, is fatal to protectionism, while distress in a free-trade country, or prosperity in a protectionist country proves nothing against free trade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dare you, my Friend, after examination of the statistics given in the foregoing chapter, say, that the general increase of wealth is due to Free Trade; when protectionist nations have shared it in common with us? ”

“ As you are all aware, Great Britain stands alone among the nations as a free-trading country. It is natural to inquire how this is the case, how it is that people, acute, thoughtful, and intelligent, as, for instance, the French, the Germans, and the Americans, cling to the doctrines of Protection, while we alone adhere to those of Free Trade? ”

“ I hold it to be scientifically provable, mathematically demonstrable, that as a nation, that is, that taking the nation as a whole, we are in an excellent commercial position, and that the great efficient cause thereof is Free Trade—that One-sided Free Trade which our Fair Trading friends exclaim against. Under our system of free imports we get here everything that the globe produces on the cheapest possible terms. This advantage no Protectionist nation enjoys. The poor among us are thus enabled to fight the battle of life on the most favourable terms possible. ”

“ Above all, let us look to the tariff, and, dismissing from our minds the delusions of free trade and the dreams of future reciprocity, let us stand forth manfully in defence of the rights of labour, and of that native industry which is the true source of our country's greatness and renown. It will not do for the rich to go flaunting in foreign manufacture and apparel, while the operative is starving at home with the doors of the factories closed. ”

“ 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 ”

“ We here refer to the liberty of commercial transactions, to the establishment of absolute free trade between the citizens of all the States of our political Union. An immense step was here taken in the progress of liberty. All the liberties—liberty of conscience, liberty of thought and speech, and liberty of exchange—have been slow growths; but no one has grown so slowly or against such resistance, or is still so immature, as that full liberty of action that is involved in the free exchange of property. ”

“ It is, not worth while to stand upon nice definitions as to free trade. Some think it enough to say that they are not free-traders because they are not in favor of abolishing all customs duties. Let me remind such that the free-trade countries of Europe, recognized to be such, have not abolished all customs duties. A better distinction is this: The free-trader believes in levying customs duties without any regard to the effect of those duties upon the wages of our working people, or upon the production of our own shops. This, then, is the issue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is to the free consent and participation of its constituent peoples that we must look for its continuance.
A large and influential body of politicians considers that in preferential trading between the parts of the Empire, and in the erection of a tariff wall against exterior peoples, lies the secret of that deepened emotional understanding we all desire. I have never belonged to that school. I am no impassioned Free Trader—the sacred principle of Free Trade has always impressed me as a piece of party claptrap ”

“ But, before we proceed further, let us define what we mean by the term Free Trade as just used. In the abstract, Free Trade may be defined as that state of affairs in which the nations exchange with each other their various products untrammelled by hostile and prohibitory tariffs. ”

“ Who wants free trade? Only those who want us for their customers, who would like to sell us everything that we use—England, Germany, all those countries. And why? Because one American will buy more than one thousand, yes, five thousand Asiatics. ”

“ Though the theory of free trade satisfies my reason it is not supported by my experience. This is an imperfect world and free trade, like the single-tax, with which it is involved, is too perfect for our present state of development. ”

“ THE THEORY. Free trade, as a theory, unembarrassed by contact with practical affairs, and divorced from any idea of supplying other equal and legitimate sources of revenue for the support of governments, appears wonderfully simple and seductive. Tearing down custom-houses, as a knock-down argument, is held to be scientific, but it is not conclusive. ”

“ It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called 'free trade.' Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by 'free trade' was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufactures, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations. ”

“ That the system of free trade—that is, the universal preference of foreigners, for the sake of the smallest reduction of price, to your own subjects—must, if persisted in, lead to the dismemberment and overthrow of the British empire, cannot admit of a moment's doubt, and will be amply proved to every unbiassed reader in the sequel of this paper. ”

“ It is getting to be understood that Free Trade is made for man, not man for Free Trade, and any changes that may be proposed will have a better chance of being discussed upon their own merits rather than in the light of high-and-dry theory backed by outcries of the thin edge of the wedge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So far as I can make out, no one whose opinion is of any scientific value denies that if Free Trade were universal, it would be of infinite advantage to the human race. There are some among us, however, who maintain that partial Free Trade—such as that under which we now live—is prejudicial to the country which opens its ports to foreign productions, and beneficial to the country which, on the other hand, shuts out, as far as it can, by prohibitory duties, the commodities of other nations. ”

“ Free commercial intercourse between nations would engender mutual knowledge, and knit the severed peoples by countless ties of business interests. Free Trade meant peace, and once taught by the example of Great Britain’s prosperity, other nations would follow suit, and Free Trade would be universal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have seen what harm private trade causes within the country: the harm done by this kind of trade between different countries is not less. In other words, abolishing Free Trade within the country whilst establishing it abroad is sheer nonsense. ”

“ But in the policy of our Liberal friends free-trade means more than this, and is specially valued as a stimulant to the production of wealth, as they call it, and to the increase of the trade, business, and pepulation of the country. We have already seen how these things,—trade, business, and population,—are mechanically pursued by us as ends precious in themselves, and are worshipped as what we call fetishes ”

“ He welcomes Free Trade as one triumph of Utilitarian doctrines, yet he sadly observes that the English public are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of political economy since the nation was converted to Free Trade as before. ”

“ Free trade, on the contrary, is favourable to the interests of all classes; it excites the imagination and rouses the activity of a people; it is identical with equality, and naturally leads to independence. In this respect, it is most in unison with our 81modern system. After the treaty of Amiens, by which France regained her Indian possessions, I had this grand question thoroughly discussed before me, and at great length; I heard both statesmen and commercial men; and my final opinion was in favour of free trade, and against companies. ”

“ It was once hoped that free-trade would help on the good work by knitting nation to nation so firmly that they would realize the identity of their interests. In this people have been disappointed. Free-trade has united, perhaps, a few great merchants and manufacturers, and led to cosmopolitan feelings among the wealthier classes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The system to which the world is indebted for these results is called "free-trade;" but there can be no freedom of trade where there is no freedom of man, for the first of all commodities to be exchanged is labour, and the freedom of man consists only in the exercise of the right to determine for himself in what manner his labour shall be employed, and how he will dispose of its products. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has left us with our hands tied, our future compromised.' A preference in the English market was out of the question. Unrestricted free trade with the United States would bring prosperity, give men, money, and {124} markets. ”

“ It amounts to a pure and unqualified admission of the real truth, that Free Trade was intended to operate, and must operate, solely for the benefit of the exporting houses, to the ruin of all other interests in the country ”

“ Thus the passage from a home to an export trade becomes a question of life and death for the industries concerned; but they are met by the established rights, the vested interests of others who as yet find protection either safer or more profitable than free trade. ”

“ For this purpose the working classes were stirred up to class antagonism, and the Free-Traders have kept up the delusion by dishonestly claiming as the work of free trade every advantage which protectionist countries have shared in common with us. ”

“ But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade. ”

“ Searles, whenever America can command, as Great Britain does to-day, cheap capital, cheap labor, and cheap raw materials, she too may vociferously advocate free trade, and that other nations shall open wide their markets for the sale of American products. ”

“ The claims of Free Trade and the cheap-food cry are disregarded and treated with contempt. "Free Traders talk about the folly of Protection. But Free Trade itself is a form of Protection. It protects the strong and the cunning against the weaker and the more honest. ”