What Is Free Trade?

man and for society-

ever been pretended, is it possible to ma

ny of the newspapers (now happily diminishing in number) say so; a large portion of th

ctures and cotton fabrics, by restraining any one from bringing them to market, but the manufacturers in New England and Pennsylvania? Do we not hear it complained every day: Our importations are too large; We a

goods offered for sale. Therefore, statesmen, editors, and the

be so blind as to maintain tha

k at price, but

et us

plain, then, that, so far as regards him at least, scarcity enriches him. Applying, in turn, this manner of reasoning to each class of laborers individually, the scarcity theory is deduced from it. To put this the

course, less. If this is the case with all produce, all producers are then poor. Abundance, then, ruins society; and as any s

us that it must be wrong; but where is it wrong? Is it fal

ent given above, considers him only under the first point of view. Let us look a

in proportion to the abundance of the articles in demand; abundance, then, enriches

heory i

restrictions we were compelled not only to make our own iron, but to grow our own coffee; in short, to obtain eve

thing else, so that we shall obtain everything with as little difficulty and outlay of labor as possible. If we then tak

en much and little, between Protection and Free Trade. You now know w

eign goods and produce, our specie, our precious produ

hat does it matter, then, whether there be more or less specie in the country, provided there be more br

selves to depend upon England for iron, what s

True; neither will there be any time when war shall occur that the country will not be already filled with all the iron we shall want until we can make it here. Did the

sum

exists between the

d to be scarce, and the supply to be

and the supply to be large,

consumer; for high against low prices; for scarcity against abundance; for protection against free trade. They act, if no