Import

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Not upon goods or merchandise imported, but upon imports, upon any and every thing imported or brought into the country. And the words include men, as well as merchandise. That the meaning of the word imports includes men as well as things cannot, it seems to me, be denied. In common parlance, we say, when a new manufacture is established, in which we have had no experience, we must import our workmen from Europe, where they have experience in these matters. ”

“ The manufacturer or the merchant must take the pains to accommodate a direct import trade to the exigencies of the local market. As an example, smaller bales and shorter lengths are requisite in the piece goods. The establishment of sample warehouses at the treaty ports, and in the more important trade-centres of the interior, where bales of shirting, cotton and woollen goods, cases of farming implements, &c., could be opened and sold for cash, would appeal to the natives. ”

“ The first branch of foreign trade, which is the export and import of goods, depends on the money. if one half of the people are imployed, and the whole product and manufacture consumed; more money, by imploying more people, will make an overplus to export: if then the goods [Pg 24] imported ballance the goods exported, a greater addition to the money will imploy yet more people, or the same people before employed to more advantage; which by making a greater, or more valuable export, will make a ballance due. ”

“ The motive which determines us to import a commodity, is the discovery of its relative218 cheapness abroad: it is the comparison of its natural price abroad, with its natural price at home. If a country exports hats, and imports cloth, it does so because it can obtain more cloth by making hats, and exchanging them for cloth, than if it made the cloth itself. ”

“ Thus trade becomes both import and export. The first step is for the tradesman or his representative to travel about peddling goods, or for an owner of wares or money to offer capital to an itinerant merchant with the object that the latter may divide the profits with him later on. ”

“ Import and export duties are levied, the former in many cases for the protection of national industries. The imports largely consist of railway material, industrial machinery, cotton, woollen and linen textiles and yarns for national factories, hardware, furniture, building material, mining supplies, drugs and chemicals, wines and spirits, wheat, Indian corn, paper and military supplies and equipment. ”

“ In looking over the specific articles of our export and import, I have often been astonished to see for how small a part of the supply of our consumption, either luxurious or convenient, we are indebted to nations properly foreign to us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many nations again have imposed duties on imports with the view of protecting and encouraging home industries, and most of the import duties levied in England before the great reforms of Peel were of this nature. ”

“ Goods from French colonies pay no import duty. About 53% of the imports, comprising nearly all manufactured goods of European origin, come from France. China, Japan and Singapore are the other chief sources of imports. ”

“ The merchants who have the responsibility of the import trade at the different marts also must satisfy themselves that they get good things, and all the traders must obey the State merchant in these particulars. ”

“ Classes of wares imported; manufactures.—The table shows, on its face, only one thing with clearness, that the people used already a considerable part of their surplus to478 purchase articles of food, of the nature rather of luxuries than of necessaries, which could not be produced to advantage at home. This feature has ever since characterized the import trade of the country. In the recent commerce of the United States we find, beside the class of colonial products, two other classes comprising the bulk of the remaining imports, manufactures and material for manufacturing. ”

“ He adds, "So long as we import so much more foreign goods than are necessary, and keep so many merchants and traders employed to procure and deal them out to us: a great part of which we might as well make among ourselves ”

“ 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. ”

“ The import trade shows the largest totals in foodstuffs, wines and liquors, textiles and raw materials for their manufacture, wood and its manufactures, iron and its manufactures, paper and cardboard, glass and ceramic wares. ”

“ If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many enjoyments they procure which deceive the burden of life, how many materials which invigorate the springs of national industry and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. ”

“ Import data for each of the five most recent full years that form the basis of the claim that the good concerned is being imported in increased quantities, either in absolute terms or relative to domestic production ”

“ And along with this vast aggrandizement of manufacturing industry and commerce, there has been a steady increase of both imports and exports, as well as of revenue from customs. The increase in imports has consisted of articles of luxury and raw materials for manufacture. And, as if to leave nothing wanting in the demonstration, the increase of exports has constantly included more and more of the products of agriculture. ”

“ The other modes of payment for the excess of imports are, of course, well known to you all. In the first place, the difference is much greater in appearance than in reality, because of the difference in values, the imports being charged at their value on arrival here, while the exports represent their value in this country, not the price at which the goods are eventually sold—the stated values are nett—and the profits of our merchants should be deducted from the value of the imports, and added to that of our exports respectively. ”

“ I hope I have further shown that imports, far from taking away employment, are the means of providing employment for large numbers, and that the fewer the restrictions, the larger our general commerce, and the greater our prosperity must be. ”

“ Nations exchange commodities, as individuals do, for mutual accommodation; each imparting of its superfluity to obtain that in which it is deficient.
The imparting is therefore only a means of obtaining. Exportation is the means of obtaining importation,--the end for which the traffic is instituted.
The importation of money into a country where money is deficient is desirable on the same principle which renders desirable the supply of any deficient commodity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It can not escape notice that a duty upon the importation of an article can not otherwise aid the domestic production of it than by giving the latter greater advantages in the home market. It can have no influence upon the advantageous sale of the article produced in foreign markets—no tendency, therefore, to promote its exportation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this is a direct evidence that we are not at all, or very little, diminished in the numbers of our people; and it is a mark that, though we may have been interrupted in our importations, yet that we export rather more than in former times. ”

“ In the fifth place, if the general state of our exports, and of the importation of the raw material, from which they are prepared, is considered, it will not appear surprising that the principal marts of manufacturing industry should be in so deplorable a situation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other hand, there are imports so entirely of foreign origin, and so free from considerations of competition with domestic industry, that a large revenue may be raised upon them in the custom-house, without disturbing the freedom or equity of international trade. ”

“ Nothing is so complex as the interests of trade. The importation of a commodity may first advance the interest of those at home, who furnish the commodities exported, of which the importation is the return. The importation may be useful for the advancement of manufactures, providing it consist in matter fit for them; yet if the whole manufacture 506produced from it be for home-consumption, the national interest will, on the whole, be hurt by the importation. ”

“ 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? ”

“ That the average exports of each year always exceeded the imports. [6] And
That the value of the home manufactures of wool and cotton alone, (without including those of leather, hats, saddlery, earthenware, &c. &c., the consumption of which was very great,) nearly equalled the value of all the imports from any other part of the world. ”

“ Unfortunately, when we are dealing with the total trade of a country, a comparison of values is the only comparison possible, for there is no other common denominator by means of which varied articles—say, steam ploughs, cotton piece-goods, and patent medicines—can be brought into our table.
OUR IMPORTS OF GOLD AND SILVER.
To return to our diagram—it may be asked, “How does it happen that there is such a large and growing excess of imports over exports? Surely that is a bad sign.” ”

“ 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) . ”

“ It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture, in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commodities. I do not observe, at least in our Statute Book, any encouragement given to the importation of the instruments of trade. When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness, the fabrication of the instruments of trade becomes itself the object of a great number of very important manufactures. ”

“ 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. ”