Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 10 of the “The Purpose of International Trade,” which is Chapter II of the 1932 report of a commission in the U.K., chaired by Sir William Beveridge; the title of the collection is Tariffs: The Case Examined:

It is true that almost any kind of manufacturing can, at a price, be done almost anywhere. It is not true that every or any kind of manufacturing can be done as efficiently in one place as in another, i.e. that location is irrelevant to it. Nor is the economic advantage of particular locations for particular industries destroyed by the existence of international boundaries. Within any national area, prudent business men take pains to erect their factories at the point of greatest convenience, having regard to differences in sources of raw materials, location of markets, supply of labor power, and so forth. Such differences do not disappear because the possible sites between which the choice has to be made have a political frontier between them. The development of international trade under conditions of freedom is in itself the proof of gain by national specialisation; if there were no gain, there would be no trade.