Should I try to report all the fruits seeded by free-trade, my letter would be unseemly long.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 3, pages 492 to 496 (in French)
January 15th, 1849

In this letter to George Wilson, Frédéric Bastiat apologises for refusing the invitation by the League to the celebrations due on February the 1st in Manchester.

He takes this opportunity to thank the president of the League for all the efforts made in England that have allowed to enlighten the world towards numerous truths concerning the benefits of free-trade. After noting the dignity with which the League fought, he notes some of the progresses made, viz. consolidating property rights, highlighting “the legitimate attributions of government”, destroying the aphorism “the good of one is the damage of the other” as well as the coming reforms to abolish colonialism and reduce the weight of the armed forces, thus favouring peace in the world (these took longer than hoped though, WWI and WWII occuring beforehand).

This is where today’s quote inserts itself in order to stop listing all the benefits of free trade but we can clearly sense that the latter is not only an objective in and of itself but also a mean to improve the world and the relationships between individuals.