92 



SELL DEAR; BUY CHEAP. 



fies such limitations necessary limitations of the operation of his 

 pet maxim? Or, failing in this, will he, or any other Free Trader 

 who supposes he understands the process, be so obliging as to ex- 

 plain how it is practicable for all commercial nations to comply 

 with his maxim of trade ? how all nations are to buy in the cheap- 

 est market while all are selling in the dearest, or how all are to 

 sell in the dearest while all are buying in the cheapest ? 



It thus 'appears that this Free Trade maxim has neither utility 

 nor sense, when universally applied. It is merely a rule of self- 

 ishness and aggrandizement ; for, to buy cheap is to buy at less 

 than the market or real value ; and to sell dear is to sell at more 

 than the thing is worth. One or several countries may thrive by 

 practicing such sharp bargain-making, but it must be by victim- 

 izing other countries, either by buying of them cheap, or by selling 

 to them dear. Both parties to commerce so carried on could not 

 gain. All the advantage would be on one side ; all the depriva- 

 tion on the other. The Spaniards, discovering America, practiced 

 on this maxim in exchanging a few glass beads and some gaudy 

 trinkets for commodities of great commercial value. Really, the 

 precept is the essence of self-seeking, constitutes the very spirit of 

 making haste to be rich, and could not have originated in any 

 feeling of broad philanthropy, or of doing unto others as you 

 would have others do unto you. 



Nor is this all. The maxim contradicts another Free Trade 

 maxim of equal authority, and of equally binding obligation. Those 

 who agree that all persons should buy in the cheapest market and 

 sell in the dearest likewise insist that consumers are more numer- 

 ous than producers, and that the rights and interests of the former 

 are paramount to those of the latter, so that the need of consumers 

 to have cheapness is to be consulted before the need of producers to 

 have dearness. Consequently, whenever a commodity is sold dear, 

 the right and interest of the consumer to get it cheap are invaded, 

 and he has just cause of complaint against the seller. Notwith- 

 standing this, a fundamental maxim of Free Trade lays 'upon the 

 seller an imperative injunction to sell dear, and also upon the pur- 

 chaser, at the same time, to buy cheap. If producer or dealer 

 sells any vendible cheap, he violates a duty he owes to himself; if 

 either sells such vendible dear, he violates a right belonging to 



