Joseph Hume Quotes

… the time is come when a removal of the restrictions upon the importation of food cannot be successfully resisted. Should this be Sir Robert's own opinion, the Queen very much hopes that none of his colleagues will prevent him from doing what it is right to do.

People are quick to say with their mouth full, 'Well, the American farmer is on the dole.' But a loaf of bread is two bucks when it could be 10 bucks. I know what it is with the government in my business. We would be all for not having government in our business, but we need a fair system.

There is no such thing as a free market.

I believe that the harm which Mill has done to the world by the passage in his book on Political Economy in which he favours the principle of Protection in young communities, has outweighed all the good which may have been caused by his other writings.

Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.

Yes, agriculture subsidies are far too generous. They need to be reined in because they cater to special interests while distorting free market competition. Yes, the farm laws are an anachronistic mess.

We will seek to eliminate scandalous agricultural subsidies which developed nations have that harms our own agriculture.

… half of the potatoes were ruined by the rot, and that no one could guarantee the remainder. Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark, in which states the potato disease had likewise deprived the poorer class of its usual food, have immediately taken energetic means, and have opened the harbours, bought corn, and provided[for the case of a rise of prices. Sir Robert proposed the same thing for England, and, by opening the ports, a preparation for the abolition of the Corn Laws. His colleagues refused …. The whole country cries out: the Corn Laws are doomed.

Sugar protectionism is government planning, It is industrial policy—government picking winners and losers—applied to agriculture.

Socialism is that policy or theory which aims at securing by the action of the central democratic authority a better distribution, and in due subordination thereunto a better production, of wealth than now prevails.

Though the two issues may seem utterly unrelated, they do have this in common - both health care and higher education are realms of American life in which government has undermined the operation of market forces and caused artificially high prices. These are two arenas in which the Democrats now propose to do exactly the wrong thing. Their reform reinforces old errors and will infinitely compound the problem of rising prices.

Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation.

The balance of trade is an article of faith.

Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been. And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold.

Since 1933, New Deal farm policy has continued and expanded, pursuing its grisly logic at the expense of the nation's consumers, year in and year out, in Democrat or Republican regimes, in good times and in bad.

This, by the way, is the welfare state in action: Its a whole bunch of special interest groups screwing consumers and taxpayers, and making them think they're really benefiting.

We shouldn't be putting tariffs on anything. That hurts working men and women in US. What we should be doing is making our manufacturing more competitive.

[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics

The only thing socialists produce is debt and self-esteem

After political crusades for 'affordable housing' ended up ruining the housing market and much of the economy with it, many of the same politicians are now carrying on a crusade for 'affordable health care.' But what you can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. Refusing to pay those costs means that you are just not going to continue getting the same quantity and quality - regardless of what any politician says or how well he says it.

NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.

A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market.

When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised.

I worry that we're seeing a situation- Obama's administration not only committing us the huge deficits for the future, but is also redefining the relationship between government, on the one hand, and the private sector on the other.

The science of political economy is essentially practical, and applicable to the common business of human life. There are few branches of human knowledge where false views may do more harm, or just views more good.