Commercial Exchange Quotes
Usury in orthodox Muslim terms means the charging of interest. Modern Islamic societies have developed a variety of methodologies for dealing with the usury prohibition yet functioning in a modern capitalist system. Orthodox Jews also have a Biblical prohibition against loans with interest. Fundamentalist Protestants of some sects also believe that loaning or borrowing money and charging interest is a sin prohibited by God.
Harris opened up trade with Japan for the United States. The problem at the time had nothing to do with the potential economic effects of trade on domestic industry or balance of payments, but for the Japanese was strictly a cultural problem. They were in great fear of what today some call “cultural imperialism”--the adoption of a foreign culture. The Japanese had been so fearful of cultural influence of foreigners that when some Japanese fishermen’s boat had been sunk and they had been rescued by foreign seamen and returned to Japan, they were executed as they had been “contaminated” and could “contaminate” the rest of the population.
This is an incredibly prescient quotation. Dewey saw globalization starting before most realized the change. He wrote this in 1916. Almost a century later, we live with the results of the process that he described.
This quotation is interesting as it shows that and the end of the 19th century, although the United States was over 100 years old, we were first beginning to be major world traders. Not that our merchant marine was not yet world class. Another interesting facet of the quote is that the President was claiming that foreign trade was good for the domestic economy. Much of America in its first 100 years supported protectionism for American manufacturers.
This was typical of a free trade agreement of the time. It also provided that Englishmen residing for trade in the Ottoman Empire be free of Ottoman poll and head taxes. The Ottomans had such arrangements with France and Venice—then an independent city. In addition to the trade advantages, the Ottomans were militarily concerned with Spain and the English-Spanish hostility was supported and welcomed by the Ottomans. See Murad’s 1590 letter to Queen Elizabeth.
Shaw carefully reported on the customs, laws, and traditions of foreign trade with China. He counted 43 European ships that landed in Canton in 1887 full of goods to trade and left full as well.
