First Book: The History, Chapter I, The Italians, p 5 “We thus see Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries possessing all the elements of national economical prosperity, and in respect to both commerce and industry far in advance of all other nations. Her agriculture and her manufactures served as patterns and as motives for emulation to other countries. Her roads and canals were the best in Europe. The civilised world is indebted to [Italy] for banking institutions, the mariner’s compass, improved naval architecture, the system of exchanges, and a host of the most useful commercial customs and commercial laws, as well as for a great part of its municipal and governmental institutions. Her commercial, marine, and naval power were by far the most important in the southern seas. She was in possession of the trade of the world; for, with the exception of the unimportant portion of it carried on over the northern seas, that trade was confined to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. She supplied all nations with manufactures, with articles of luxury, and with tropical products, and was supplied by them with raw materials. One thing alone was wanting to Italy to enable her to become what England has become in our days, and because that one thing was wanting to her, every other element of prosperity passed away from her; she lacked national union and the power which springs from it.”
First Book: The History, Chapter II, The Hansards, p 13 – 14 “Navigation laws, like other measures for protecting native industry, are so rooted in the very nature of those nations who feel themselves fitted for future industrial and commercial greatness, that the United States of North America before they had fully won their independence had already at the instance of James Madison introduced restrictions on foreign shipping”
First Book: The History, Chapter II, The Hansards, p 23 – 24 “The Hanseatic cities did not base their commerce on the production and consumption, the agriculture or the manufactures, of the land to which their merchants belonged. They had neglected to favour in any way the agricultural industry of their own fatherland, while that of foreign lands was greatly stimulated by their commerce. They found it more convenient to purchase manufactured goods in Belgium, than to establish manufactories in their own country. They encouraged and promoted the agriculture of Poland, the sheep-farming of England, the iron industry of Sweden, and the manufactures of Belgium. They acted for centuries on the maxim which the theoretical economists of our day commend to all nations for adoption—they ‘bought only in the cheapest market.’ But when the nations from whom they bought, and those to whom they sold, excluded them from their markets, neither their own native agriculture nor their own manufacturing industry was sufficiently developed to furnish employment for their surplus commercial capital. It consequently flowed over into Holland and England, and thus went to increase the industry, the wealth, and the power of their enemies; a striking proof that mere private industry when left to follow its own course does not always promote the prosperity and the power of nations. In their exclusive efforts to gain material wealth, these cities had utterly neglected the promotion of their political interests. During the period of their power, they appeared no longer to belong at all to the German Empire. It flattered these selfish, proud citizens, within their circumscribed territories, to find themselves courted by emperors, kings, and princes, and to act the part of sovereigns of the seas. How easy would it have been for them during the period of their maritime supremacy, in combination with the cities of North Germany, to have founded a powerful Lower House as a counterpoise to the aristocracy of the empire, and by means of the imperial power to have thus brought about national unity—to have united under one nationality the whole sea-coast from Dunkirk to Riga—and by these means to have won and maintained for the German nation supremacy in manufactures, commerce, and maritime power. But in fact, when the sceptre of the seas fell from their grasp, they had not the sufficient influence left to induce the German Reichstag to regard their commerce as a matter of national concern. On the contrary, the German aristocracy did all in their power thoroughly to oppress these humbled citizens. Their inland cities fell gradually under the absolute dominion of the various princes, and hence their maritime ones were deprived of their inland connections.”
First Book: The History, Chapter III, The Netherlanders, p 32 “Up to the first half of the seventeenth century the Dutch surpassed the English in respect of manufactures and of colonial possessions, of commerce and of navigation, as greatly as in our times the English have surpassed the French in these respects. But with the English Revolution a mighty change developed itself. The spirit of freedom had become only a citizen spirit in Holland. As in all mere mercantile aristocracies, all went on well for a time; so long as the preservation of life and limbs and of property, and mere material advantages, were the objects clearly in view, they showed themselves capable of great deeds. But statesmanship of a more profound character was beyond their ken.”
First Book: The History, Chapter III, The Netherlanders, p 34 “The example of Holland, like that of Belgium, of the Hanseatic cities, and of the Italian republics, teaches us that mere private industry does not suffice to maintain the commerce, industry, and wealth of entire states and nations, if the public circumstances under which it is carried on are unfavourable to it; and further, that the greater part of the productive powers of individuals are derived from the political constitution of the government and from the power of the nation.”
First Book: The History, Chapter IV, The English, p 46 “Adam Smith, when he maintains that the Navigation Laws have not been beneficial to England in commercial respects, admits that, in any case, these laws have increased her power. And power is more important than wealth. That is indeed the fact. Power is more important than wealth. And why? Simply because national power is a dynamic force by which new productive resources are opened out, and because the forces of production are the tree on which wealth grows, and because the tree which bears the fruit is of greater value than the fruit itself. Power is of more importance than wealth because a nation, by means of power, is enabled not only to open up new productive sources, but to maintain itself in possession of former and of recently acquired wealth, and because the reverse of power—namely, feebleness—leads to the relinquishment of all that we possess, not of acquired wealth alone, but of our powers of production, of our civilisation, of our freedom, nay, even of our national independence, into the hands of those who surpass us in might”
First Book: The History, Chapter IV, The English, p 54 “The equipment of armies, wars, and the debts contracted for these purposes, may, as the example of England teaches, under certain circumstances, very greatly conduce to the increase of the productive powers of a nation. Strictly speaking, material wealth may have been consumed unproductively, but this consumption may, nevertheless, stimulate manufacturers to extraordinary exertions, and lead to new discoveries and improvements, especially to an increase of productive powers. This productive power then becomes a permanent acquisition; it will increase more and more, while the expense of the war is incurred only once for all.”
First Book: The History, Chapter V, The Spaniards and Portuguese, p 63 “By profession [the English] were always cosmopolites and philanthropists, while in their aims and endeavours they were always monopolists.”
First Book: The History, Chapter V, The Spaniards and Portuguese, p 64 “Portugal received gold and silver from South America in exchange for manufactured goods which she then exported to those regions; but too indolent or too shiftless to manufacture these goods herself, she bought them of the English in exchange for the precious metals. The latter employed the precious metals, in so far as they did not require them for the circulation at home, in exportation to India or China, and bought goods there which they sold again on the European continent, whence they brought home agricultural produce, raw material, or precious metals once again.”
First Book: The History, Chapter VII, The Germans, p 78-79 “Two only of these confederations, Switzerland and the Seven United Provinces, actually carried out this incorporation, and that not as the result of reflection, but because they were compelled to it, and favoured by circumstances, and for that reason those confederations still exist. The Swiss Confederation is nothing but a conglomerate of German imperial cities, established and cemented together by the free populations occupying the intervening tracts of country. The remaining leagues of German cities were ruined owing to their contempt for the rural population, and from their absurd burgher arrogance, which delighted in keeping that population in subjection, rather than in raising them to their own level.” {{{{{{{{{{Optical Translation, p 113 “Two of those” […] elevating them”}}}}}}}}}}
First Book: The History, Chapter VII, The Germans, p 79 “The sense of the impossibility of consolidating the heart of the nation impelled the House of Hapsburg, originally so weak and poor, to utilise the nation’s vigour in founding a consolidated hereditary monarchy on the south-eastern frontier of the German Empire, by subjecting alien races, a policy which in the north-east was imitated by the Margraves of Brandenburg.. This is in the south-east and north-east there arose hereditary sovereignties founded upon the dominion over alien races, while in the two western corners of the land two repblics grew into existence which continually separated themselves more and more from the parent nation; and within, in the nation’s heart, disintegration, impotence, and dissolution continually progressed. The misfourtunes of the German nation were completed by the inventions of gunpowder and the art of printing, the revival of the Roman law, the Reformation, and lastly the discovery of America and of the new route to India. {{{{{{{{{{Optical Translation, p 114 !! FIND IT !! }}}}}}}}}
First Book: The History, Chapter VII, The Germans, p 80 “By the side of considerations such as these, how pitiable and unpractical seems that theory of political economy which would have us refer the material welfare of nations solely to the production of individuals, wholly losing sight of the fact that the producing power of all individuals is to a great extent determined by the social and political circumstances of the nation.”
First Book: The History, Chapter X, The Teachings of History, p 107 “Everywhere and at all times has the well-being of the nation been in equal proportion to the intelligence, morality, and industry of its citizens; according to these, wealth has accrued or been diminished; but industry and thrift, invention and enterprise, on the part of individuals, have never as yet accomplished aught of importance where they were not sustained by municipal liberty, by suitable public institutions and laws, by the State administration and foreign policy, but above all by the unity and power, of the nation.”
First Book: The History, Chapter X, The Teachings of History, p 110 “Single free cities, or small republics and confederations of such cities and states, limited in territorial possessions, of small population and insignificant military power, but fortified by the energy of youthful freedom and favoured by geographical position as well as by fortunate circumstances and opportunities, flourished by means of manufactures and commerce long before the great monarchies; and by free commercial intercourse with the latter, by which they exported to them manufactured goods and imported raw produce in exchange, raised themselves to a high degree of wealth and power.” First Book: The History, Chapter X, The Teachings of History, p 111 “But having attained to a certain grade of development by means of free trade, the great monarchies perceived that the highest degree of civilisation, power, and wealth can only be attained by a combination of manufactures and commerce with agriculture. They perceived that their newly established native manufactures could never hope to succeed in free competition with the old and long-established manufactures of foreigners; that their native fisheries and native mercantile marine, the foundations of their naval power, could never make successful progress without special privileges and that the spirit of enterprise of their native merchants would always be kept down by the overwhelming reserves of capital, the greater experience and sagacity of the foreigners. Hence they sought, by a system of restrictions, privileges, and encouragements, to transplant on to their native soil the wealth, the talents, and the spirit of enterprise of the foreigners, This policy was pursued with greater or lesser, with speedier or more tardy success, just in proportion as the measures adopted were more or less judiciously adapted to the object in view, and applied and pursued with more or less energy and perseverance.”
First Book: The History, Chapter X, The Teachings of History, p 113 “The North American free states, who, more than any other nation before them, are in a position to benefit by freedom of trade, and influenced even from the very cradle of their independence by the doctrines of the cosmopolitan school, are striving more than any other nation to act on that principle. But owing to wars with Great Britain, we find this nation twice compelled to manufacture at home the goods which it previously purchased under free trade from other countries, and twice, after the conclusion of peace, brought to the brink of ruin by free competition with foreigners, and thereby admonished of the fact that under present conditions of the world every great nation must seek the guarantees of its continued prosperity and independence, before all other things, in the independent and uniform development of its own powers and resources.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XII, The Theory of the Powers of Production and the Theory of Values, p 137 “Adam Smith has on the whole recognised the nature of these powers so little, that he does not even assign a productive character to the mental labours of those who maintain laws and order, and cultivate and promote instruction, religion, science, and art. His investigations are limited to that human activity which creates material values. With regard to this, he certainly recognises that its productiveness depends on the ‘skill and judgment’ with which it is exercised; but in his investigations as to the causes of this skill and judgment, he does not go farther than the division of labour, and that he illustrates sole by exchange, augmentation of material capital, and extension of markets. His doctrine at once sinks deeper and deeper into materialism, particularism, and individualism.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XII, The Theory of the Powers of Production and the Theory of Values, p 140 “The present state of the nations is the result of the accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections, and exertions of all generations which have lived before us; they form the mental capital of the present human race, and every separate nation is productive only in the proportion in which it has known how to appropriate these attainments of former generations and to increase them by its own acquirements, in which the natural capabilities of its territory, its extent and geographical position, its population and political power, have been able to develop as completely and symmetrically as possible all sources of wealth within its boundaries, and to extend its moral, intellectual, commercial, and political influence over less advanced nations and especially over the affairs of the world.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XIII, The The National Division of Commercial Operations and the Confederation of the National Productive Forces, p 156 “a nation which has already made considerable advances in civilisation, in possession of capital, and in population, will find the development of a manufacturing power of its own infinitely more beneficial to its agriculture than the most flourishing foreign trade can be without such manufactures, because it thereby secures itself against all fluctuations to which it may be exposed by war, by foreign restrictions on trade, and by commercial crises, because it thereby saves the greatest part of the costs of transport and commercial charges incurred in exporting its own products and in importing manufactured articles, because it derives the greatest advantages from the improvements in transport which are called into existence by its own manufacturing industry, while from the same cause a mass of personal and natural powers hitherto unemployed will be developed, and especially because the reciprocal exchange between manufacturing power and agricultural power is so much greater, the closer the agriculturist and manufacturer are placed to one another, and the less they are liable to be interrupted in the exchange of their various products by accidents of all kinds.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XIV, Private Economy and National Economy, p 167 – 168 “By prohibitions and protective duties it does not give directions to individuals how to employ their productive powers and capital (as the popular school sophistically alleges); it does not tell the one, ‘You must invest your money in the building of a ship, or in the erection of a manufactory;’ or the other, ‘You must be a naval captain or a civil engineer;’ it leaves it to the judgment of every individual how and where to invest his capital, or to what vocation he will devote himself. It merely says, ‘It is to the advantage of our nation that we manufacture these or the other goods ourselves; but as by free competition with foreign countries we can never obtain possession o this advantage, we have imposed restrictions on that competition, so far as in our opinion is necessary, to give those among us who invest their capital in these new branches of industry, and those who devote their bodily and mental powers to them, the requisite guarantees that they shall not lose their capital and shall not miss their vocation in life; and further to stimulate foreigners to come over to our side with their productive powers. In this manner, it does not in the least degree restrain private industry; on the contrary, it secures to the personal, natural, and moneyed powers of the nation a greater and wider field of activity. It does not thereby do something which its individual citizens could understand better and do better than it; on the contrary, it does something which the individuals, even if they understood it, would not be able to do for themselves.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XV, Nationality and the Economy of the Nation, p 175 “It is the task of national economy to accomplish the economical development of the nation, and to prepare it for admission into the universal society of the future.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XV, Nationality and the Economy of the Nation, p 191 “every nation which gains entire possession of its own home market for manufactures, gains in the course of time, by its home production and consumption of manufactured goods, infinitely more than the nation which has hitherto provided the former with manufactured goods loses by being excluded; because a nation which manufactures for itself, and which is perfectly developed in its economical conditions, becomes more than proportionately richer and more populous, consequently is enabled to consume infinitely more fabrics, than it could import while depending on a foreign manufacturing nation for its supply.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XVIII, The Manufacturing Power and the Natural Productive Powers of the Nation, p 218 “entire nations have been ruined merely because they have exported only means of subsistence and raw materials, and have imported only manufactured goods.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XX, The Manufacturing Power and the Agricultural Interest, p 242 “it frequently happens that the annual production of the agriculturist exceeds his consumption, and nevertheless he finds himself ruined. This occurs if while his landed property is encumbered with money debts, the general credit becomes fluctuating; if on one side the demand for money capital exceeds the supply of it, and on the other hand the supply of land exceeds the demand. In such cases a general withdrawal of money loans and a general offer of land for sale arises, and consequently land becomes almost valueless, and a large number of the most enterprising, active, and economical land cultivators are ruined, not because their consumption has exceeded their production, but because the instrument of their production, their landed property, has lost in their hands a considerable portion of its value, in consequence of causes over which they had no control; further, because their credit has thereby become destroyed; and finally, because the amount of the money debts with which their landed property is encumbered is no longer in proportion to the money value of their possessions, which has become depressed by the general worthlessness of landed property.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XX, The Manufacturing Power and the Agricultural Interest, p 243 “there is no surer test of national prosperity than the rising and falling of the value of the land, and that fluctuations and crises in that are to be classed among the most ruinous of all plagues that can befall a country.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XX, The Manufacturing Power and the Agricultural Interest, p 245 “A period of temporary and passing prosperity in agriculture is a far greater misfortune than uniform and lasting poverty. If prosperity is to bring real benefit to individuals and nations, it must be continuous.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XX, The Manufacturing Power and the Agricultural Interest, p 257 “Rent is the interest of a capital which is fixed to a natural fund, or which is a capitalised natural fund.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXI, The Manufacturing Power and Commerce, p 263 – 264 “Before the discovery of the route round the Cape, the East still far surpassed Europe in manufactures. Besides the precious metals and small quantities of cloth, linen, arms, iron goods, and some fabrics of luxury, European articles were but little used there. The transport by land rendered both inward and outward conveyance expensive. The export of ordinary agricultural products and common manufactured goods, even if they had been produced in excess, in exchange for the silks and cotton stuffs, sugar, and spices, of the East, could not be hoped for. Whatever we may, therefore, read of the importance of Oriental commerce in those times, must always be understood relatively; it was important only for that time, but unimportant compared with what it is now. The trade in the products of the torrid zone became more important to Europe through the acquisition of larger quantities of the precious metals in the interior and from America, and through the direct intercourse with the Easy by the route round the Cape. It could not, however, attain to universal importance as long as the East produced more manufactured goods than she required. This commerce attained its present importance through the colonisation of Europeans in the East and West Indies, and in North and South America through the transplantation of sugar cane, of the coffee tree, of cotton, rice, indigo, &c., through the transportation of negroes as slaves to America and the West Indies, then through the successful competition of the European with the East Indian manufactures, and especially through the extension of the Dutch and English sovereignty in foreign parts of the world, while these nations, in contrast to the Spaniards and Portuguese, sought and found their advantage more in the exchange of manufactured goods for colonial goods, than in extortion.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXII, The Manufacturing Power and Navigation, Naval Power, and Colonisation, p 270 “should [European nations] be hindered in these endeavors by England’s manufacturing, commercial, and naval supremacy, in the union of their powers lies the only means of reducing such unreasonable pretensions to reasonable ones.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIII, The Manufacturing Power and the Instruments of Circulation, p 272 “The imports and exports of independent nations are regulated and controlled at present not by what the popular theory calls the natural course of things, but mostly by the commercial policy and the power of the nation, by the influence of these on the conditions of the world and on foreign countries and peoples, by colonial possessions and internal credit establishments, or by war and peace. Here, accordingly, all conditions shape themselves in an entirely different manner than between societies which are united by political, legal, and administrative bonds in a state of unbroken peace and of perfect unity of interests.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIII, The Manufacturing Power and the Instruments of Circulation, p 276 “The cause of the latest as well as of former American commercial crises, has been alleged to exist in the American banking and paper system. The truth is that the banks have helped to bring about these crises in the manner above named, but the main cause of their occurrence is that since the introduction of the ‘compromise’ bill the value of the English manufactured goods has far surpassed the value of the exported American products, and that thereby the United States have become indebted to the English to the amount of several hundreds of millions for which they could not pay in products. The proof that these crises are occasioned by disproportionate importation is, that they have always taken place whenever (in consequence of peace having set in or of a reduction being made in the American customs duties) importation of manufactured goods into the United States has been unusually large, and that they have never occurred as long as the imports of goods have been prevented by customs duties on imports from exceeding the value of the exports of produce.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIV, The Manufacturing Power and the Principle of Stability and Continuity of Work, p 295 “as in all human institutions so also in industry, a law of nature lies at the root of important achievements which has much in common with the natural law of the division of labour and of the confederation of the productive forces, whose principle, namely, consists in the circumstance that several generations following one another have equally united their forces towards the attainment of one and the same object, and have participated in like manner in the exertions needed to attain it.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIV, The Manufacturing Power and the Principle of Stability and Continuity of Work, p 296 “The system of State credit is one of the finest creations of a more recent statesmanship, and a blessing for nations, inasmuch as it serves as the means of dividing among several generations the costs of those achievements and exertions of the present generation which are calculated to benefit the nationality for all future times, and which guarantee to it continued existence, growth, greatness, power, and increase of the powers of production; it becomes a curse only if it serves for useless national expenditure, and thus not merely does not further the progress of future generations, but deprives them beforehand of the means of undertaking great national works, or also if the burden of the payment of interest of the national debt is thrown on the consumptions of the working classes instead of on capital.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIV, The Manufacturing Power and the Principle of Stability and Continuity of Work, p 300 “The manufactories which constitute the commercial and industrial supremacy (of England) have a thousand advantages over the newly born or half-grown manufactories of other nations. The former, for instance, can obtain skilled and experienced workmen in the greatest number and at the cheapest wages, the best technical men and foremen, the most perfect and the cheapest machinery, the greatest benefit in buying and selling advantageously; further, the cheapest means of transport, as respects raw materials and also in respect of transporting goods when sold, more extended credit for the manufacturers with banks and money institutions at the lowest rates of interest, greater commercial experience, better tools, buildings, arrangements, connections, such as can only be acquired and established in the course of generations; an enormous home market, and, what is equally good, a colonial market equally enormous. Hence under all circumstances the English manufacturers can feel certainty as to the sale of large quantities of manufactured products by vigorous efforts, and consequently posses a guarantee for the continuance of their business and abundant means to sell on credit for years to come in the future, if is required to acquire the control of a foreign market.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXIV, The Manufacturing Power and the Principle of Stability and Continuity of Work, p 302 “it is an eternal alternation of erecting and destroying, of prosperity and calamity, which those nations have to undergo who do not strive to insure, through realisation of their national division of labour and through the confederation of their own powers of production, the benefits of the continuation of their own industries from generation to generation.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXVI, Customs Duties as a Chief Means of Establishing and Protecting the Internal Manufacturing Power, p 309 “If in 1815 France had allowed English competition, as Germany, Russia, and North America did, she would have experienced the same fate; the greatest part of her manufactures which has sprung up during the war would have come to grief;”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXVI, Customs Duties as a Chief Means of Establishing and Protecting the Internal Manufacturing Power, p 311 “A nation which has been formerly insufficiently protected by customs duties, but which feels itself called upon to make greater progress in manufactures, must first of all endeavor to develop those manufactures which produce articles of general consumption. In the first place the total value of such industrial products is incomparably greater than the total value of the much more expensive fabrics of luxury. The former class of manufactures, therefore, brings into motion large masses of natural, mental, and personal productive powers, and gives—by the fact that it requires large capital—inducements for considerable saving of capital, and for bringing over to its aid foreign capital and powers of all kinds.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXVI, Customs Duties as a Chief Means of Establishing and Protecting the Internal Manufacturing Power, p 312 “Manufactures and manufactories are always plants of slow growth, and every protective duty which suddenly breaks off formerly existing commercial connections must be detrimental to the nation for whose benefit it is professedly introduced. Such duties ought only to be increased in the ratio in which capital, technical abilities, and the spirit of enterprise are increasing in the nation or are being attracted to it from abroad, in the ratio in which the nation is in a condition to utilise for itself its surplus of raw materials and natural products which it had previously exported. It is, however, of special importance that the scale by which the import duties are increased should be determined beforehand, so that an assured remuneration can be offered to the capitalists, artificers, and workmen, who are found in the nation or who can be attracted to it from abroad. It is indispensable to maintain these scales of duty inviolably, and not diminish them before the appointed time, because the very fear of any such breach of promise would already destroy for the most part the effect of that assurance of remuneration.”
Second Book: The Theory, Chapter XXVII, The Customs System and the Popular School, p 320 – 321 “Switzerland laid the foundation of her present very moderate degree of prosperity at the time when she still belonged to the German Empire. Since that time, she has been almost entirely free from internal wars, her capital has been permitted to increase from generation to generation, as scarcely any of it was required by her municipal governments for discharging their expenses. Amid the devastations occasioned by the despotism, fanaticism, wars, and revolutions, with which Europe was perturbed during the last centuries, Switzerland offered an asylum to all who desired to transfer their capital and talents to another country than their own, and thus acquired considerable wealth from abroad. Germany has never adopted strong commercial restrictions against Switzerland, and a large part of the manufactured products of the latter has obtained a market in Germany. Moreover, the industry of Switzerland was never a national one, one comprising the production of articles of common use, but chiefly an industry in articles of luxury, the products of which could be easily smuggled into the neighboring countries or transported to distant parts of the world. Furthermore, her territory is most favourably situated for intermediate trade, and in this respect is in some measure privileged. Again, their excellent opportunity of becoming acquainted with the languages, laws, institutions, and circumstances of the three nations which adjoin her must have given the Swiss important advantages in intermediate commerce and in every other respect. Civil and religious liberty and universal education have evoked in the Swiss, activity and a spirit of enterprise which, in view of the narrow limits of their country’s internal agriculture, and of her internal resources for supporting her population, drove the Swiss to foreign countries, where they amassed wealth, by means of military service, by commerce, by industries of every kind, in order to bring it home to their Fatherland. If under such special circumstances they managed to acquire mental and material resources, in order to develop a few branches of industry for producing articles of luxury, if these industries could maintain themselves without protective duties by sales to foreign countries, it cannot thence be concluded that great nations could follow a similar policy under wholly different circumstances. In her small national expenditure Switzerland possesses an advantage which great nations could only attain if they, like Switzerland, resolved themselves into mere municipalities and thus exposed their nationality to foreign attacks.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIII, The Insular Supremacy and the Continental Powers—North America and France, p 374, quoting Villele in reply to Canning, “If England in the far advanced position of her industry permits greater foreign competition than formerly, that policy corresponds to England’s own well-understood interests. But at this time it is to the well-understood interests of France that she should secure to her manufactories which have not as yet attained perfect development, that protection which is at present indispensable to them for that object. But whenever the moment shall have arrived when French manufacturing industry can be better promoted by permitting foreign competition than by restricting it, then he (M. Villele) would not delay to derive advantage from following the example of Mr. Canning.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIII, The Insular Supremacy and the Continental Powers—North America and France, p 374 “Mr. Canning was every inch an Englishman, and he only permitted himself to entertain philanthropical or cosmopolitical sentiments, when they could prove serviceable to him in strengthening and still further extending the industry and commercial supremacy of England, or in throwing dust into the eyes of England’s rivals in industry and commerce.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIII, The Insular Supremacy and the Continental Powers—North America and France, p 375 – 376 “The American tariff for the year 1828 was a natural and necessary result of the English commercial system, which shut out from the English frontiers the North American timber, grain, meal, and other agricultural products, and only permitted raw cotton to be received by England in exchange for her manufactured goods. On this system the trade with England only tended to promote the agricultural labour of the American slaves, while on the other hand, the freest, most enlightened, and most powerful States of the Union found themselves entirely arrested in their economical progress, and thus reduced to dispose of their annual surplus of population and capital by emigration to the waste lands of the West.” Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIII, The Insular Supremacy and the Continental Powers—North America and France, p 379 – 380 “the prosperity of the American manufacturers which resulted from the tariff of 1828 excited so greatly the jealousy of the cotton planters, that the Southern States threatened to bring about a dissolution of the Union in case the tariff of 1828 was not modified. The Federal Government, which was dominated by the Democratic party, had sided with the Southern planters from purely party and electioneering motives, and also managed to get the agriculturists of the Middle and Western States, who belonged to that party, to adopt the same views. These last had lost their former sympathy with the manufacturing interest in consequence of the high prices of produce which had prevailed, which, however, were the result for the most part of the prosperity of the home manufactories and of the numerous canals and railways which were undertaken. They may also have actually feared that the Southern States would press their opposition so far as to bring about a real dissolution of the Union and even civil war. Hence it became the party interests of the Democrats of the Central and Eastern States not to alienate the sympathies of the Democrats of the Southern States. In consequence of these political circumstances, public opinion veered round so much in favour of free trade with England, that there was reason to fear that all the manufacturing interests of the country might be entirely sacrificed in favour of English free competition. Under such circumstances the Compromise Bill of Henry Clay appeared to be the only means of at least partially preserving the protective system. By this Bill part of the American manufactures, viz. Those of finer and more expensive articles, was sacrificed to foreign competition, in order to preserve another class of them, viz. the manufacture of articles of a coarser and a less expensive character.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIV, The Insular Supremacy and the German Commercial Union, p 388 “Nations, like individuals, if they at first only permit themselves to be ill-treated by one, soon become scorned by all, and finally become the object of derision to the very children.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIV, The Insular Supremacy and the German Commercial Union, p 396 “the prosperity of agriculture depends on its being in equal proportion with the manufacturing interest, but not on its own preponderance over it.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIV, The Insular Supremacy and the German Commercial Union, p 404 “the governments and peoples of Germany should be more convinced that national unity is the rock on which the edifice of their welfare, their honour, their power, their present security and existence, and their future greatness, must be founded.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXIV, The Insular Supremacy and the German Commercial Union, p 406 “It lies in the very nature of every power to seek to divide in order to rule.”
Fourth Book: The Politics, Chapter XXXV, Continental Politics, p 423 “For the same causes which have raised Great Britain to her present exalted position, will (probably in the course of the next century) raise the United States of America to a degree of industry, wealth, and power, which will surpass the position in which England stands, as far as at present England excels little Holland.”