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In the development of political economy, alike as an academic discipline and as an art of government, there has been evinced from time to time a disposition to treat the range of problems concerned with what may be broadly termed raw material supply as distinctive. Indeed, from the middle of the eighteenth up to the middle of the nineteenth century, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that problems of raw material supply were generally regarded by economists as not only peculiar but crucial. Thus, physiocrats accounted raw-materials producing industries the unique source of the social net product. While economist Adam Smith disputed the contention that agriculture and mining were the sole source of the Wealth of Nations, even he was willing to allow that "the labor of is certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers." And he added that "of all ways in which capital can be employed, it is by far the most advantageous to the society." After the middle of the nineteenth century, however, economics no less than economic statesmanship became increasingly concerned with the role of capital in the productive process and with the relations of capital and labor in industrial organization.

The article discusses the reasons for the establishment and the operations of the International Material Conference during the Korean emergency and discusses the appropriateness of economist Adam Smith's dictum, that restrictions on international trade are justified when some particular industry is necessary for the defense of the country, as guide to economic policy. When the Korean emergency began, the domestic economy was approaching full employment. It was likely that additional large demands for raw materials arising primarily from the emergency might have to be met by creating or discovering additional productive units rather than from existing facilities. Temporarily, certain "nonessential" or "less essential" demands might have to be administratively curtailed unless prices were to be allowed to serve as a rationing device. In the 1950s the United States had adopted and was implementing a political policy of collective defense under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program and had adopted and was implementing a long-term policy of freer international trade, which also applied to raw materials.

This article presents information on the commercial legislation of England and its effect on the U.S. It also discusses economist Adam Smith's interpretation of economic activity. One cannot be surprised that the first generation of American historians writing, as they did, before the passions provoked by the great struggle had time to subside. It compelled them to pay more than their "fair value" for the commodities they imported, and to accept less than their "fair value" for the commodities they sold. But a like opinion is not confined to American historians, it has come to be very generally accepted by English writers and upon its side it has the authority of the most painstaking and the most widely read of the historians of the eighteenth century. It is, undoubtedly true that the commercial policy of England had established a real opposition of interest between the mother country and her colonies. The laws of England, affecting the trade and industry of the American colonies, fall, with one notable exception to be dealt with by and by, into three groups and it is essential to bear in mind the differences between them. There were, in the first place, the Navigation Laws proper in the second place, what one may conveniently christen the Enumeration Laws and lastly and of far less significance, the Law concerning Manufacture.