"It will scarcely be necessary to demonstrate the beneficial tendency of free trade in general, or to prove that it is for the interest of a nation to purchase its commodities where they are cheap, and not where they are dear. Self-evident as this proposition may appear, it has had to make its way against all the resistance which strong interests and still stronger prejudices could oppose to it." #QotD

"It will scarcely, we imagine, be any longer deemed necessary to demonstrate the beneficial tendency of free trade in general, or to prove that it is for the interest of a nation to purchase its commodities where they are cheap, and not where they are dear. Self-evident as this proposition may appear, it is one of the most modern of all modern discoveries, and has had to make its way against all the resistance which strong interests and still stronger prejudices could oppose to it."

~ John Stuart Mill, from his 1825 essay “The Corn Laws" (reprinted in Essays on Economics and Society Part I)

[Hat tip Cafe Hayek]
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