Price, and not the Balance of Trade, the Controlling Agent.

There is another point to which I must call your attention, an error which most of you Englishmen fall into when discussing this matter with your people, viz., that what you buy from us depends on what we purchase or take of you; in other words, if we do not purchase your manufactured goods you will not buy agricultural products from us. Our friend Thomas Bayley Potter, in his recent visit to this country, fell into this error, and in almost all of his speeches laid great stress upon it. He told our people in substance that this result would follow if we persisted in retaining our tariff. You, like all other sensible people, buy where you can buy cheapest, and sell where you can obtain the best prices for what you sell. If you can buy your grain and breadstuff's in Russia cheaper than you can in America, you buy them there. If, on the other hand, we can sell to you at a cheaper rate than Russia, you buy of us. It is price that regulates and controls, and not the balance of trade between the two countries. Do you suppose that any grain dealer in England ever looks to see whether the balance of trade is for or against his country when he is about to make a purchase? He buys wherever he can obtain the grain for the lowest price. As proof of this, take the trade of your own country with Russia for the last 20 years. There has not been one single year during this period in which you have not purchased off her greatly in excess of (and in most years more than double in value) what she bought of you. Take the year 1878, the last for which you have made up the figures, and they stand as follows:—Your imports from Russia were £17,808,752, and your exports to Russia £9,458,729; and for the year before (1877) your showing is still worse. You imported from her £22,142,422, while you exported or sold page 6 to her only £6,243,973—less than one-third of what you imported. Your trade with Russia for the last 20 years was, in the aggregate, as follows:—Your imports were £369,782.059, and your exports £158,436,122. In other words, you buy of Russia more than double what i she buys of you. And if you will examine the statistics of your trade with other foreign countries you will find the same results. The same inequalities exist as in your trade with Russia, proving what I have said, that what you buy of a nation is not dependent on what she buys of you; that it is price and not the balance of trade that regulates and controls the business you do.