William Pitt the Younger Quotes
When trade is at stake it is your last retrenchment; you must defend it, or perish.
William Pitt, 1708-1778, 1st Earl of Chatham, British Prime Minister, Secretary of State, Lord Privy Seal & leader of the House of Commons, Denouncing the Convention of Prado, 1739
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was one of the first proposals for a type of world government. Ironically, Angell, and English politician, was suggesting that the United States take the lead in his ‘new world order” and be the principle controlling factor. This was before the League of Nations and the United Nations.
It is interesting that the first national women’s political party was a strong advocate of protectionism and saw free trade as an unfair hurdle for mostly male workers. At the time, the Republicans were staunch protectionists, and the Democrats, the free traders thus illustrating that the major parties continuously flip-flop on major issues.
The issue of free trade has been controversial during the entire history of our Republic. At the time it was the Republicans who were the protectionists and the Democrats, the free traders.
The nation, under the pressure of a depression, had adopted a free trade philosophy. We would go back to protectionism in the 1930s and back to free trade in the 1960s. Ironically, it was generally the Republican party that has driven these shifts. There has always been a free trade wing of the party and an isolationist wing.
The same problem has always existed with full scale trade wars always a possibility.
We are so used to hearing the freedom seeking reasons for the American Revolution that we overlook the more selfish and venal motives. This quotation shows that the large merchants of the colonies had banded together in an illegal conspiracy trust and monopoly and managed to keep many British competitive products out of the colonies. The British, for equally venal reasons, began to enforce the laws in favor of free trade. Many large American merchants were getting huge profits (and American consumers paying more) from their protectionist illegal monopoly. A Revolution would de facto assure that monopoly for many years to come, so they became supporters—patriots—of the American Revolution. As the Revolution drew closer, the Americans made efforts to protect the protectionism and monopoly of some of the richest Americans. See {636861}.
In England at the time, the liberals were for free trade and the conservatives against. In both England and America both liberals and conservatives have flip flopped their roles in foreign trade several times. Free trade is a two edged sword; it aids domestic growth, employment and prosperity in some cases and hurts them on others. And there are always winners and losers for each example of free trade within any country. The result is no long term commitment and much flip flopping.
At the time, Republicans were the protectionists and Democrats were free traders—the reverse of the party roles at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
At that period of American History, the Republicans supported high tariffs and protectionism for American companies and it was the Democrats who were the advocates of free trade. Later each of the parties would flip flop their positions and then say that they were advocating their traditional principles.
A self-contained market would be one in which a country only makes products that it sells within its borders, and only sells products that in makes in the country. Very primitive cultures were self-contained markets, but trading generally takes place whenever two cultures interact unless politicians artificially prevent it.
Surprising to us today is the reality that before this law, it was perfectly legal for American Citizens to sell transport all kinds of goods and materials to enemies of the country—even in the midst of a war. At the beginning of the War of 1812, New England merchants were selling, shipping, and delivering meat and other critical provisions to the English Armies in Canada. There is an unfortunate long history of this. IBM sold punch card equipment and technology to the Nazis through European subsidiaries prior to and during WWII. American oil companies were helping the Arab countries enforce their embargo against is in the 1970s. American firms shipped weapons technology to Iraq when they threatened to create weapons of mass destruction. It has often been difficult to get American companies to pass up profits for patriotic reasons unless there were strong laws and enforcement.
Turgot was one of the most advanced economic thinkers in Europe and realized, even before most of the Americans, that by freeing itself England, that the Americans would be forced to become free traders and that in turn would make America a major Economic power despite the fact that American economic policy over the years vacillated between protectionism and free trade.
William Pitt the Younger was a prominent British Tory statesman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest prime minister of Great Britain in 1783 at the age of 24 and the first prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as of January 1801. He left office in March 1801, but served as prime minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806. He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer for all of his time as prime minister. He is known as "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who is customarily referred to as "William Pitt the Elder" (or less commonly, simply "Chatham") and had previously served as prime minister.
