American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
as much interested and profited as the mere merchant, in this buying and
selling of the higher grades in the greater varieties and quantities.
The law of price is the skill; and the amount of skill expended in the
work is as much for the market as are the goods. A man comes to market
and says: "I have a pair of hands," and he obtains the lowest wages.
Another man comes and says: "I have something more than a pair of hands;
I have truth and fidelity." He gets a higher price. Another man comes
and says: "I have something more; I have hands, and strength, and
fidelity, and skill." He gets more than either of the others.
The next man comes and says: "I have got hands, and strength, and skill,
and fidelity; but my hands work more than that. They know how to create
things for the fancy, for the affections, for the moral sentiments"; and
he gets more than either of the others. The last man comes and says: "I
have all these qualities, and have them so highly that it is a peculiar
genius"; and genius carries the whole market and gets the highest price.
[Loud applause.] So that both the workman and the merchant are profited
by having purchasers that demand quality, variety, and quantity. Now,
if this be so in the town or the city, it can only be so because it is a
law. This is the specific development of a general or universal law, and
therefore we should expect to find it as true of a nation as of a city
like Liverpool. I know that it is so, and you know that it is true of
all the world; and it is just as important to have customers educated,
Intelligent, moral, and rich out of Liverpool as it is in Liverpool.
[Applause.] They are able to buy; they want variety, they want the very
best; and those are the customers you want. That nation is the best
customer that is freest, because freedom works prosperity, industry,
and wealth. Great Britain, then, aside from moral considerations, has a
direct commercial and pecuniary interest in the liberty, civilization,
and wealth of every nation on the globe. [Loud applause.] You also have
an interest in this, because you are a moral and religious people. ["Oh,
oh!" laughter and applause.] You desire it from the highest motives; and
godliness is profitable in all things, having the promise of the life
that now is, as well as of that which is to come; but if there were no
hereafter, and if man had no progress in this life, and if there were no
question of civilization at all, it would be worth your while to
protect civilization and liberty, merely as a commercial speculation. To
evangelize has more than a moral and religious import--it comes back to
temporal relations. Wherever a nation that is crushed, cramped, degraded
under despotism is struggling to be free, you, Leeds, Sheffield,
Manchester, Paisley, all have an interest that that nation should be
free. When depressed and backward people demand that they may have a
chance to rise--Hungary, Italy, Poland--it is a duty for humanity's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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