42 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



or cotton or pork to be sent abroad is rarely or never the 

 person who buys silk or wine or crockery to be imported. 

 They are not only not the same persons but they have no 

 business relations with each other, and their several acts 

 are not mutually dependent, since neither knows what the 

 other has done, is doing, or is about to do. Each trans- 

 acts his own business. The one sells what he can and 

 receives a foreign credit which he sells to a banker ; the 

 other buys what he thinks he can sell at a profit, and buys 

 a foreign credit with which to pay for his purchases. 

 The aggregate is the foreign trade of the country and is 

 the resultant of a great number and a great variety of 

 individual acts, each dictated by the selfish motive of the 

 person performing it, and in no sense and to no degree 

 by a consideration of the public welfare." 



No exceptions are taken to these statements, but the 

 bearing on the point he is striving to maintain is not very 

 obvious : namely, that excessive taxation of imports has 

 no ''tendency to exclude the farmer and planter from 

 foreign markets." Those who know much about foreign 

 trade are well aware that it is between the individuals of 

 different nations, each moved by the desire of gain and 

 with no regard for the "public welfare." As he says, 

 "hard-headed business considerations regulate the pur- 

 chases of a nation." Now what are these "hard-headed 

 business considerations" which determine the direction 

 that foreign trade will take ? An exporter of our agricul- 

 tural products studies the situation. He ascertains as 

 nearly as possible what price the article he has to offer 

 will bring in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, or 

 at any point to which he has a mind to send. .The various 

 items of cost involved in exporting are computed. In 

 this reckoning the very largest item of cost may be the 



