90 SELL DEAR; BUY CHEAP. 



exercise of additional functions. The revenue system and the 

 currency system that may be adopted by Government must be 

 judged, therefore, by their effects upon the mass of individuals 

 upon the general welfare upon the body politic. Our objection to 

 the Free Trade policy is, that, wherever it has been even partially 

 practiced, it has operated as a retrogressive force, as is exemplified 

 in the cases of Turkey, Portugal, and Ireland, and is beginning to 

 be manifested in the case of England herself. Our correspondent 

 says further : 



The farmer, having raised his produce, should first sell it for all he can get in 

 cash, and then spend his surplus profits hiring or purchasing for cash where he 

 can do so the cheapest. 



Here we have a repetition of one of the stereotyped errors of the 

 Manchester school of political economists. To buy in the cheapest 

 market, and to sell in the dearest, is a maxim of the first rank in 

 the Free Trade philosophy. This maxim, however high-sounding 

 and seductive it is in theory, violates in practice its own princi 

 ples and precepts. Those who buy cheap must necessarily purchase 

 of those who sell cheap, and who, therefore, do not sell in the 

 dearest market, according to the specific injunction laid upon 

 them as part of their duty to themselves. On the other hand, 

 those who sell dear must find purchasers who do not buy cheap, 

 and who consequently set at naught the exhortation to buy in the 

 cheapest market. By the terms of the maxim, all buyers are to 

 buy cheap, and all sellers are to sell dear. How all members of a 

 community are to buy in the cheapest market while all are selling 

 in the dearest, or how all are to sell in the dearest market while all 

 are buying in the cheapest, is one of those puzzles which it would 

 require a miracle to solve. Yet this impracticability is exactly 

 what Free Trade philosophy demands shall be done every day, and 

 what it extols as the very quintessence of commercial wisdom. 



When we attempt to apply the maxim to different countries or 

 communities, the same inconsistencies appear. If England should 

 buy cheap of the United States, and sell dear to the United States ; 

 or should buy of us dear and sell to us cheap ; or should buy of us 

 dear and sell to us dear ; or should buy of us cheap and sell to us 

 cheap, either England or the United States would, in each case, 

 violate the teachings of the Free-Trade maxim. If England should 



