释义 |
free trade, free-trade 1. An open and unrestricted trade.
1606Chapman M. D'Olive 1, Wit's become a free trade for all sorts to live by. 1622Malynes Maint. Free Trade 105 A Remedie, whereby the Kingdome shall enjoy all the three essential parts of Traffique vnder good and Politike Gouernment, which will bee Free Trade effectually or in deed. 1642–3Earl of Newcastle Declar. in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1721) V. 137 As if they desired not only the free Trade, but even the Monopoly of plundering to themselves. 1670R. Coke Disc. Trade 33 Our Plantations..would have been much increased and inriched by a Free Trade, more than by this restraint. 1804Edin. Rev. IV. 308 The wisdom of allowing a free trade has been pretty generally allowed in speculation by all statesmen. 1846McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) II. 527 The circumstance of our carrying on a great free trade with it. 2. Trade or commerce left to follow its natural course, i.e. without the interference of customs duties designed to restrict imports or of bounties intended to foster home production. Also, the legislative establishment or maintenance of this state of things, and the principles of those who advocate it; opposed to protection. Adam Smith W.N. 1776 uses freedom of trade in this sense. He has also frequently a free trade, in sense 1.
1823in Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) I. 400 One newspaper says..he will endeavour to ‘inculcate in the mind of the Bourbons wise principles of free trade!’ 1825McCulloch Pol. Econ. ii. ii. 134 Suppose that, under a system of free trade, we imported a considerable proportion of silks and linens now wholly manufactured at home. 1861Cobden in Times 18 July, The principles of Free Trade. b. In various occasional applications (see quots.).
1858Simmonds Dict. Trade, Free-trade..unrestricted action in banking operations. 1868Rogers Pol. Econ. xvii. (1876) 231 Correctly stated, free trade in land consists rather in the removal of the hindrances which the law puts on the conveyance of land. 3. Trade free from the lawful customs duties; smuggling.
1824Scott Redgauntlet ch. xiii, ‘If you will do nothing for the free trade, I must patronise it myself.’ So saying he took a large glass of brandy. 1834H. Miller Scenes & Leg. xiv. (1889) 211 [He] was engaged..in the free trade, and had set the officers of the revenue at defiance. 4. attrib.
1829H. Hawthorn Visit Babylon 45 In all this, do you..discover anything like your free-trade plan? 1877Daily News 5 Oct. 4/4 The free-trade party. So free-ˈtrading a., favouring free-trade; free-ˈtradist, an advocate of free-trade.
1832Galt in Fraser's Mag. VI. 593 To the theory of the free-tradist objections cannot well be made. 1851Lytton Lett. John Bull 93 To sum up the authorities from Free-trading political economists. |