The State in Its Relation to Trade

ourish, and could scarcely exist. Such are the following:? Protection to Life and Property.?By means of the police, of the criminal law, and of civil remedies for violence and injury, the state affords that security against robbery and wrong without which free buying and selling would come to an end. No goods could be safely carried or kept for sale without it. The cattle markets of the Scotch border would have been impracticable in the old days of cattle lifting ; and a few days of such riots as Lord George Gordon's, would stop the business of London. The robber barons of the Rhine were put down in the interests of the trading towns of Germany; and the growth of maritime commerce has led the nations to treat pirates as the one class of criminals whom no flag protects from condign punishment. But it is needless to illustrate this point. The first and most essential relation of the state to trade is to afford security for life and property. Settlement of Disputes.?In establishing courts of law with the requisite powers, the state provides the means of settling the questions concerning property which arise between its subjects, and which, in a trading country like ours, are especially numerous and important. It is in the process of determining such disputes that a body of law is formed; by adopting the customs of traders as their guide, and reducing those customs to logical consistency, a succession of able judges have produced our excellent system of merca...