V. S. Naipaul Quotes
Nothing was made in Trinidad.
Naipaul, V. S. The Middle Passage. Andre Deutsch, 1962, p. 29.
1st Baron Verulam. This quotation appeared on the door of the transportation building of the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago, 1893
This is one of the earliest examples of the establishment of a type of Commerce Department – a government institution to look after the commercial affairs of the state.
This same argument was used before and since to justify protecting domestic manufacturing from foreign competition until it can mature sufficiently to compete in a global economy. One difficulty occurs if protective tariffs are imposed for this reason. The manufacturers protected never seem to reach the point where they can compete without the subsidy.
The smaller German towns had not been targets for allied bombing and German censorship kept most Germans from realizing that the factories in the larger cities were being attacked. But the “rules of war” which the Germans had abandoned early in the war by bombing civilian targets in England and other European cities, required that only military targets be attacked. If a nation placed its factories or military bases in the midst of civilian populations, then the rules of war no longer protected the civilians. So the allies were within their rights by bombing the smaller towns where they targeted factories. However, this quotation is used by some critics to show that FDR’s motive was not the destruction of factories per se, but the breaking of German civilian morale. They argue that the allies were following the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
This was one of the early suggestions for providing jobs for the unemployed to work at developing the national infrastructure. In this case if highways and the river could be improved, transportation would allow goods to be reach more of the country cheaper. The CCC and the Job Corps of America would use a similar reasoning for public employment.
This quotation is interesting as it shows that and the end of the 19th century, although the United States was over 100 years old, we were first beginning to be major world traders. Not that our merchant marine was not yet world class. Another interesting facet of the quote is that the President was claiming that foreign trade was good for the domestic economy. Much of America in its first 100 years supported protectionism for American manufacturers.
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul TC, commonly known as V. S. Naipaul, and familiarly, Vidia Naipaul, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He wrote in prose that was widely admired, but his views sometimes aroused controversy. He published more than thirty books over fifty years.
