Free Trade

Jane Haldimand Marcet, in a popular tale written for ordinary readers, shows the benefits to workers of foreign trade, especially at Christmas time (1833)

Jane Haldimand Marcet

Found in: John Hopkins’s Notions on Political Economy

"So you see, my friends," continued the landlord, "foreign trade has two advantages; for it not only procures things better and cheaper, but things which our climate renders it impossible for us to produce at home; such as wine, sugar, tobacco, plums, currants, rice, spices, cotton, silks, and other things without number." "Oh, then," cried the good woman, "I could not even treat my children with a plum pudding at Christmas without foreign trade; for there's no making it without plums and spices."