Importation

“ 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. ”

“ With a view to practical legislation, therefore, duties on importation may be divided into two classes: those which have the effect of encouraging some particular branch of domestic industry, and those which have not. ”

“ E converso, if for any reason, such as a removal of duties, capital should be withdrawn from the production of articles consumed at home, and imported commodities should entirely take their place, the very importation of the foreign commodities would imply that an increased corresponding production was going on in this country with which to pay for the imported goods. ”

“ The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods, is when some foreign nation restrains, by high duties or prohibitions, the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. ”

“ For at home by their sole exportation they set what price they please on the husbandry and handiworks of the people, and by the sole importation, what price they please on all foreign commodities the people have need of, both which are ill for the people. ”

“ Of this kind are duties on the importation of any commodity which could not by any possibility be produced at home, and duties not sufficiently high to counterbalance the difference of expense between the production of the article at home and its importation. ”

“ We have frequently lost in this way two-thirds or three-quarters of an importation, to our great annoyance and expense, and it is only by repeated and persevering importations that we have been able to obtain all the desirable varieties. ”

“ HARTLEY. "If we consult the history of the ancient world, Europe, we shall see that they have thought proper, for a long time past, to give great encouragement to establish manufactures, by laying such partial duties on the importation of foreign goods, as to give the home manufactures a considerable advantage in the price when brought to market. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit, which a nation derives from its foreign trade. ”

“ The following are given as prominent articles of import during the year, with their values and the percentage they bear to the total importation:
Of the entire amount of duties collected 70 per cent was collected from the following articles of import:
The fact that our revenues are in excess of the actual needs of an economical administration of the Government justifies a reduction in the amount exacted from the people for its support. ”

“ A reduction of duties which would affect the ability of our manufacturers to compete with foreign makers would cause a large importation of goods, with two objects: first, to find a market, the effect of which would be to keep the mills of England and other countries fully employed ”

“ Ask any of those who assail our protective system whether they do not believe that if their policy is adopted a larger amount of foreign-made goods will come into this country. It is their purpose to increase importation in order to cheapen prices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the interval between the laying of the duty and a proportional increase of price, it may discourage importation by interfering with the profits to be expected from the sale of the article. 4. Bounties are sometimes not only the best, but the only proper expedient for uniting the encouragement of a new object of agriculture with that of a new object of manufacture. It is the interest of the farmer to have the production of the raw material promoted by counteracting the interference of the foreign material of the same kind. ”

“ For although in this manner wee do yearly multiply our importation to the maintenance of more Shipping and Mariners, improvement of His Majesties Customs and other benefits: yet our consumption of those forraign wares is no more than it was before; so that all the said encrease of commodities brought in by the means of our ready mony sent out as is afore written, doth in the end become an exportation unto us of a far greater value than our said moneys were, which is proved by three several examples following. ”

“ Devoid of national power, we could not prohibit the extravagance of our importations, nor could we derive a revenue from their excess. Devoid of national importance, we could not procure for our exports a tolerable sale at foreign markets. ”

“ 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 our country an uniform experience of forty years has shown that whatever the tariff of duties upon articles imported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has always borne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, sometimes being more and sometimes less. ”

“ How our manufacturers and artisans are to go on, any more than our farmers, striving against this prodigious and rapid increase of foreign importations, it is for them to say; but probably experience will, ere long, enlighten their understandings on this subject. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suppose that a country should be opened to our merchants, disposed to buy from us in abundance, but which can sell to us scarcely anything, as every commodity which it affords could be got cheaper by us from some other quarter. Nevertheless, our trade with this country will enable us to obtain from all other countries their commodities at a lower price. At the first opening of this commerce of mere exportation, we must have received in payment a large quantity of money; for which our customer will have been indemnified by other countries, in exchange for her commodities. ”

“ The countries not possessing a native supply, could obtain it only by what was called a favourable balance of trade, that is to say, by exporting to a value exceeding that of their imports, and receiving the difference in money. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to the policy inculcated by the mercantile system, a nation ought to deal as much as possible in exports, and as little as possible in imports, for then the balance would require to he paid in gold and silver; as if exports could be paid for ultimately by anything except imports; and as if the precious metals, and not the good things which these metals purchase, were the sources of the prosperity of a people! ”

“ If they were entirely separate, without political or commercial connection, it is manifest, that the consumption of the manufacturing states of foreign articles could not exceed twenty millions, the sum at which the value of their exports, of domestic products, and the profit of their foreign trade is estimated. ”

“ So it happens that while comparatively a few use the imported articles, millions of our people, who never use and never saw any of the foreign products, purchase and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon into the public treasury, but the majority of our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The things which the more favoured country will import from others, are of course those in which it is least superior; but by importing them it acquires, even in those commodities, the same advantage which it possesses in the articles it gives in exchange for them. Thus the countries which obtain their own productions at least cost, also get their imports at least cost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Money, then, if imported solely as a merchandize, will, like other imported commodities, be of lowest value in the countries for whose exports there is the greatest foreign demand, and which have themselves the least demand for foreign commodities. ”