The
radical principle of all commercial intercourse between independent
nations is the mutual interest of both parties. It is the vital spirit
of trade itself; nor can it be reconciled to the nature of man or to the
primary laws of human society that any traffic should long be willingly
pursued of which all the advantages are on one side and all the burdens
on the other. Treaties of commerce have been found by experience to be
among the most effective instruments for promoting peace and harmony
between nations whose interests, exclusively considered on either side,
are brought into frequent collisions by competition. In framing such
treaties it is the duty of each party not simply to urge with unyielding
pertinacity that which suits its own interest, but to concede liberally
to that which is adapted to the interest of the other. To accomplish
this, little more is generally required than a simple observance of the
rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the statesmen of one
nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or
ignorance of another an overreaching treaty, such a compact would prove
an incentive to war rather than a bond of peace.
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