"[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandNovelists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandJews from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (29 April 1879), reported in The Times (30 April 1879), p. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli
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Benjamin Disraeli
1804 – 1881
britischer Politiker
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