The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade MovementThe University Press, 1905 - 212 pages |
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able Adam Smith adopted advantages advocates affairs agricultural American benefit capital carried cheap food classes Cobden colonies commercial commodities competition Corn Laws course demand dependence desire doctrine duties Economic Science economists effect eighteenth century Empire employment England English industry exports favour force foreign countries France free intercourse Free Trade movement Free Trade party Free Trade principles French give Huskisson importation increased influence insular Free Trade interests Ireland labour laissez-faire land legislator maritime markets measure ment Mercantile System monopoly Morley mother country natural Navigation Acts necessary numbers opinion organisation Parliament peace Peel Pitt political population possible practical price of corn production profit progress prosperity protection realised recognised regard regulations rendered repeal restrictions revenue Richard Cobden scheme secure seemed shew Sir Robert Peel success supply tariff treaties Vereins für Socialpolitik W. J. Ashley wages Wealth of Nations Whigs whole Zollverein
Popular passages
Page 195 - ... seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board; he does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
Page 40 - That freedom from restraint is calculated to give the utmost extension to foreign trade, and the best direction to the capital and industry of the country. That the maxim of buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest, which regulates every merchant in his individual dealings, is strictly applicable as the best rule for the trade of the whole nation.
Page 193 - When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what by Cicero is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country, no more 29 than to his parents.
Page 193 - If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political body, however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision for remedying many of the bad effects of the folly and injustice of man...
Page 22 - In such a position of things, the United States cannot exchange with Europe on equal terms ; and the want of reciprocity would render them the victim of a system which should induce them to confine their views to agriculture, and refrain from manufactures. A constant and increasing necessity, on their part, for the commodities of Europe, and only a partial and occasional demand for their own, in return, ; could not but expose them to a state of impoverishment, compared with the opulence to which...
Page 20 - Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds.
Page 192 - Man is generally considered by statesmen and projectors as the materials of a sort of political mechanics. Projectors disturb nature in the course of her operations in human affairs: and it requires no more than to let her alone, and give her fair play in the pursuit of her ends, that she may establish her own designs.
Page 22 - If Europe will not take from us the products of our soil upon terms consistent with our interest, the natural remedy is to contract, as fast as possible, our wants of her.
Page 43 - That, upon the whole, the most liberal would prove to be the most politic course on such occasions. That, independent of the direct benefit to be derived by this country on every occasion of such concession or relaxation, a great incidental object would be gained by the recognition of a sound principle or standard, to which all subsequent, arrangements might be referred...
Page 22 - If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations, the arguments which dissuade a country, in the predicament of the United States, from the zealous pursuit of manufactures, would doubtless have great force. It will not be affirmed that they might not be permitted, with few exceptions, to serve as a rule of national conduct.