THE BOYCOTT AS A TRADE FACTOR.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12546, 24 May 1909, Page 4

THE BOYCOTT AS A TRADE FACTOR.

The trade boycott is rapidly b'eebniing a political weapon of the very first order. The most recent instance is, of course, the boycott practised in Turkey on goods of Austrian manufacture, and it affords excellent proof of the efficacy and far reaching elfeets of this new expedient. Had it been of an official character it would have defeated its aims, because in many ways pressure could have been brought to bear upon the new Ottoman Government. But a movement of this sort, if genuine and spontaneous, comes from the volition of the people themselves, and cannot be changed by a Government. After all no Government has the right to command or the power to force a population to purchase articles from one certain quarter, and this fact is so obvious and incontrovertible that, unless it can be proved that the Government itself fostered the agitation, the sufferer under the boycott can do little to remedy matters other than removing the original cause or devising some method of assuaging the feeling of national irritation that has resulted. '"...' The heavy losses suffered by Austrian houses through the recent bdycott must have startled the authorities,and it must b© borne in mind that some of these are likely to be permanent. Every business man knows that it takes a gopd deal to divert trade from an accustomed channel into a fresh ode, but once this has happened it requires an occurrence of almost equal weight to drive it back into the original'channel.^ — Emil Dayies, in the 'Magazine of Commerce."