Trade good

“ 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. ”

“ It is incredible what a trade this made all over the whole kingdom, to make good the want and to supply that loss; so that, in short, all the manufacturing hands in the nation were set on work, and were little enough for several years to supply the market and answer the demands. ”

“ If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; ”

“ 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. ”

“ Good jobs depend on expanded trade. Selling into new markets creates new jobs, so I ask Congress to finally approve trade promotion authority. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So that we are not singly to value ourselves upon the material, but also upon the manufacture, which we should make as easy as we can, by not laying over-heavy burdens upon the manufacturer. And our woollen goods being two-thirds of our foreign exports, it ought to be the chief object of the public care, if we expect to be gainers in the balance of trade, which is what we hunt after in these inquiries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A matter of prime importance is that the entire nation and people become convinced of the value, the necessity even, of our maintaining a large export and import trade, for we cannot have one without the other. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A danger to foreign trade is that our exports might conceivably be limited to certain quarters, and might thus rest upon a frail and shifting foundation. Fortunately, however, this is not so, for our commerce is being built upon the prosperity of the whole world. ”

“ As to mere wealth, that is to say money, it is clear that one nation, or one individual, can not increase its store but by making another poorer; but trade procures what is more valuable, the reciprocation of the peculiar advantages of different countries. ”

“ The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The well-being of trade depends on a proper regulation of it; on the success of trade depends wealth; on wealth, the value of lands; the strength, the welfare, and happiness of a country, upon the numbers, the ease, and independence of its yeomanry. ”

“ World trade, whether conducted in person, on paper, or on line, remains a cornerstone of American economic growth. But even more important, trade plays a vital role in improving opportunity and prosperity around the globe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To me it seems, that neither the Obtaining or Retaining of any trade, how valuable soever, is an Object for which men may justly spill each other's Blood; that the true and sure Means of extending and securing Commerce is the goodness and Cheapness of Commodities; and that the profit of no trade can ever be equal to the Expence of compelling it, and of holding it, by Fleets and Armies. ”

“ The knottiest problems in trade are:
1—The problem of location. 2—The problem of getting the crowds. 3—The problem of keeping the crowds. 4—The problem of minimizing fixed expenses. 5—The problem of creating a valuable good will. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I do not doubt that a very largely increased foreign trade is accessible to us without bartering for it either our home market for such products of the farm and shop as our own people can supply or the wages of our working people. ”

“ But let us not miss his example in this: that the right to criticise the habits of trade and the ability to criticise them healthily are alone won by a just appreciation of trade's world-wide glory and serviceableness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If this is thought by men of great knowledge to be the most valuable of all trades, because it makes the speediest and surest returns, and because it increases at the same time two capitals in the same country, there is no nation on the globe whose wealth, population, strength, and happiness would be promoted by such a trade in a greater degree than ours. ”

“ Seeing trade then is the fund of wealth and power, we cannot wonder that we see the wisest Princes and States anxious and concerned for the increase of the commerce and trade of their subjects, and of the growth of the country; anxious to propagate the sale of such goods as are the manufacture of their own subjects, and that employs their own people ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us see in a few words what nature and providence has done for us; nay, what they have done for us exclusive of the rest of the world. The bounty of Heaven has stored us with the principles of commerce, fruitful of a vast variety of things essential to trade, and which call upon us as it were [Pg 15] in the voice of nature, bidding us work, and with annexed encouragement to do so from the visible apparent success of industry. ”

“ If, therefore, it be asked what country draws to itself the greatest share of the advantage of any trade it carries on, the answer is, the country for whose productions there is in other countries the greatest demand, and a demand the most susceptible of increase from additional cheapness. In so far as the productions of any country possess this property, the country obtains all foreign commodities at less cost. ”

“ All things look, not only to the integration of trade, but to its exaltation.
Trade has ceased to be a thing of individual energy, talent, and commercial alertness. It has risen to great proportions. The large trader is in control of national conduit, as well as of national expense. There is a great deal more in business than the art of making money. Business is, at the roots, a way of making nations; of developing the resources of a country, of handling its industries, of protecting its commerce, of enlarging its institutions, of uplifting its training, aspirations, and ideals. ”

“ A new Tract upon Trade, being a Demonstration that to be always putting the People upon customary Mourning, and wearing Black upon every State Occasion, is an excellent Encouragement to Trade, and a means to employ the Poor. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is quite clear to my mind that the effect of our large foreign trade has been distinctly in the direction of lowering the value of money in our market, and consequently an undoubted aid to our industries. ”

“ Many customs do enter into Trade, even as habits enter into the life of individuals—some beneficial and some vicious, some in harmony with natural law and some defiant or evasive of it. But essentially Trade is a natural expression of Economic relationships. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lists of imports and exports and of the places from which they flowed to and from the centres of trade, as they swelled in bulk from time to time, show how busily and steadily the threads of commerce had been weaving together the labour and interests of mankind, and extending a security and bounty of existence unknown in former ages. ”

“ It is, therefore, necessary that it should be universally known among us, what changes of property are advantageous, or when the balance of trade is on our side; what are the products or manufactures of other countries; and how far one nation may in any species of traffick obtain or preserve superiority over another. The theory of trade is yet but little understood, and, therefore, the practice is often without real advantage to the publick; but it might be carried on with more general success, if its principles were better considered; and to excite that attention is our chief design. ”