DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42346#0211
RELATIONS WITH SELLERS
199
tion, namely, that a man’s freedom to buy and sell may be
controlled and restrained in the interest of the community,
that even the entire community may be prevented from
buying what it needs where it can buy the cheapest.
Whether this proposition be sound or unsound need not
be discussed here, suffice it to say it has been at the foun-
dation of the commercial policy of this country since the
adoption of the first protective tariff, and in one form or
another it has influenced the commerce of the world so
long as we have any record of men’s actions.
From time immemorial trade has been restrained and
hampered in many directions, as some restrictions fall into
disrepute and disappear others appear, until there is not
much left of the doctrine that a man should be free to
buy where he can buy the cheapest and sell where he can
sell the dearest.
If this freedom is restrained as between nations and
localities, may it not be possible that it should be controlled
as between man and man ?
Those who say it should not be restrained as between
nation and nation, and locality and locality, will quickly
say it should not be restrained as between man and man,
but the conclusion by no means follows:
It is one argument—and a strong one—that nations
should interfere as little as possible with the flow of trade
from country to country, locality to locality, since such
interference is largely wholesale and undiscriminating, mak-
ing paupers here and millionaires there; but it is quite an-
other thing to say that the people—employers and em-
ployees—whose fortunes and whose bread hang upon the
prosperity of an industry, shall not be permitted to meet
conditions and by united action avoid the disastrous ef-
fects of irrational competition; it is a very different thing to
say they shall not unite and demand, as an economic right,
that those from whom they buy shall sell at fair, uniform
199
tion, namely, that a man’s freedom to buy and sell may be
controlled and restrained in the interest of the community,
that even the entire community may be prevented from
buying what it needs where it can buy the cheapest.
Whether this proposition be sound or unsound need not
be discussed here, suffice it to say it has been at the foun-
dation of the commercial policy of this country since the
adoption of the first protective tariff, and in one form or
another it has influenced the commerce of the world so
long as we have any record of men’s actions.
From time immemorial trade has been restrained and
hampered in many directions, as some restrictions fall into
disrepute and disappear others appear, until there is not
much left of the doctrine that a man should be free to
buy where he can buy the cheapest and sell where he can
sell the dearest.
If this freedom is restrained as between nations and
localities, may it not be possible that it should be controlled
as between man and man ?
Those who say it should not be restrained as between
nation and nation, and locality and locality, will quickly
say it should not be restrained as between man and man,
but the conclusion by no means follows:
It is one argument—and a strong one—that nations
should interfere as little as possible with the flow of trade
from country to country, locality to locality, since such
interference is largely wholesale and undiscriminating, mak-
ing paupers here and millionaires there; but it is quite an-
other thing to say that the people—employers and em-
ployees—whose fortunes and whose bread hang upon the
prosperity of an industry, shall not be permitted to meet
conditions and by united action avoid the disastrous ef-
fects of irrational competition; it is a very different thing to
say they shall not unite and demand, as an economic right,
that those from whom they buy shall sell at fair, uniform