Trade

“ But in a restricted sense, we think of trade as the exchange of produce which is material and mobile,—which may be touched, handled, weighed, transported, bought, and sold. The substance of the earth is constantly taking new shape before our eyes, being rearranged in kaleidoscopic combinations, and transported from port to port, from town to town, from sea to sea. ”

“ Trade is an operation, by which the wealth, or work, either of individuals, or of societies, may be exchanged, by a set of men called merchants, for an equivalent, proper for supplying every want, without any interruption to industry, or any check upon consumption. ”

“ This inland trade is in itself at this time the wonder of all the world of trade, nor is there any thing like it now in the world, much less that exceeds it, or perhaps ever will be, except only what itself may grow up to in the ages to come ”

“ All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale, maybe reduced to three different sorts: the home trade, the foreign trade of consumption, and the carrying trade. The home trade is employed in purchasing in one part of the same country, and selling in another, the produce of the industry of that country. It comprehends both the inland and the coasting trade. ”

“ Commerce is a term of the largest import. It comprehends intercourse for the purposes of trade in any and all its forms, including the transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities between the citizens of our country and the citizens or subjects of other countries, and between the citizens of different States. ”

“ Trade and commerce are an abbreviation of this long process; a scheme invented and set on foot by merchants, from a principle of gain, supported and extended among men, from a principle of general utility to every individual, rich or poor, to every society, great or small. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And, first, I premise that labour is, as I have already intimated, a commodity, and, as such, an article of trade. If I am right in this notion, then labour must be subject to all the laws and principles of trade, and not to regulation foreign to them, and that may be totally inconsistent with those principles and those laws. When any commodity is carried to market, it is not the necessity of the vender, but the necessity of the purchaser, that raises the price. The extreme want of the seller has rather (by the nature of things with which we shall in vain contend) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ III. For the importing and bringing in from abroad all kinds of foreign growth and manufactures which we want.
IV. For the carrying about and dispersing, as well our own growth and manufactures as the foreign imported growth and manufactures of other nations, to the retailer, and by them to the last consumer, which is the utmost end of all trade ”

“ I make no doubt but there is as much trade now, and as much gotten by trading, as there ever was in this nation, at least in our memory; and if we will allow other people to judge, they will tell us there is much more trade, and trade is much more gainful ”

“ In the first place, the word 'trade' is often, and indeed generally, used in a broader sense, as equivalent to occupation, employment, or business, whether manual or mercantile. Wherever any occupation, employment, or business is carried on for the purpose of profit, or gain or a livelihood, not in the liberal arts or in the learned professions, it is constantly called a trade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 principles of industry have been so interwoven with those of trade, through all the chapters of this second book, that it is now proper, before we dismiss the subject, to examine a little into the 454nature of the first, considered more abstractedly, and more detached from its relation to the equivalent given for it, which is the proper characteristic of trade, and from which proceeds the intimate connection between them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not content with exporting the various productions of their own country, they carry on the trade of various parts of the globe, which, but for their instrumentality, could not have obtained, or ever have become acquainted with each other's produce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when two countries exchange with each other the commodities which each has some comparative facility for producing, each country is permanently benefited, and therefore such a trade will be lasting and stable in its character. ”

“ The merchant, in order to save a second loading and unloading, endeavours always to sell in the home market, as much of the goods of all those different countries as he can; and thus, so far as he can, to convert his carrying trade into a foreign trade of consumption. ”

“ Business and trade have always been central to the American experience. In the period since the Industrial Revolution, the extraordinary growth of our economy has created a marketplace that is the foundation of global commerce. ”

“ Whether trade be the cause of industry, or industry the cause of trade, is a question of little importance, but the principle upon which both depend is a taste for superfluity in those who have an equivalent to give ”

“ Does it never strike these individuals to put a value on the home trade as compared with the foreign? The following table I beg to subjoin from Mr. M'Queen's Statistics of the British Empire, from which it will be observed, that the foreign trade only forms some eighth part of the general amount. ”

“ The shop instruction for particular trades, and for each trade represented, the drawing, mathematics, mechanics, physical and biological science applicable to the trade, the history of that trade, and a sound system of economics, including and emphasizing the philosophy of collective bargaining. ”

“ Trade.9. Those who predominate in Shipping, and Fishing, have more occasions than others to frequent all parts of the World, and to observe what is wanting or redundant every where, and what each People can do, and what they desire, and consequently to be the Factors, and Carriers for the whole World of Trade. Upon which ground they bring all Native Commodities to be Manufactured at home, and carry the same back, even to that Country in | [16] | which they grew, all which we see. ”

“ Another indication of the growing extension of the commerce of the kingdom is furnished by the instances now beginning to be of frequent occurrence of individuals rising to great wealth, and sometimes to rank and power, through the successful pursuit of trade. ”

“ The merchant may thereby be enabled better to understand many commodities in trade; the handicraftsman to improve his business by new instruments, mixtures and materials; and frequently hints are given for new manufactures, or new methods of improving land, that may be set on foot greatly to the advantage of a country. ”

“ If from investigation it appears that there is a market for one’s goods in any section or universally, that quality and prices can be such as to make competition favorable, that the market can be enlarged, or should there be none that one can be created, and a determination is therefore formed to enter export trade, the next question is how the goods shall be sold. ”

“ The triumphs of commerce and its auxiliaries have been exhibited in the present article. Easy transport of goods by land and sea, prompt intelligence from every point of the compass, general prevalence of mercantile law and safety, have all been accomplished; and the world is opened to trade. ”

“ That trade—external and internal—is brisker, that the people are more prosperous, that money circulates more freely and more abundantly, that roads and other means of communication have been greatly improved—all these things are fully realised. ”

“ If merchants calculate amiss on this proportion, and import too much, they will of course find the sale dull for the overplus, and some of them will say that trade languishes. They should, and doubtless will, grow wiser by experience, and import less. ”

“ To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade) , nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion) , could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. ”

“ There are certain Merchants which deal onely upon all advantages in th' Exchange, and neither export nor import wares into the Kingdom, which hath caused some men to affirm, that the money which such mere Exchangers bring in or carry out of the Realm is not comprehended in the ballance of our forraign trade ”

“ The trade thus carefully ordered and regulated, assumes, in the course of time, all the dimensions of a vast and increasing commerce. Abundant capital is invested in it, talent and ingenuity are exerted to make its resorts attractive and luxurious, and an insatiable demand arises for fresh young articles of commerce. ”

“ It is in the fetching and carrying manufactures, accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly employed. In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. ”

“ 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; ”

“ 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. ”