Trade Boards in United States

Colonial English Boards of Trade

The Board of Trade was an “advisory body that supervised American colonial affairs. Established in 1696 to replace the Lords of Trade (1675–96), it examined colonial legislation to ensure maximum benefit to British trade policies. The board nominated colonial governors, recommended laws affecting the colonies to Parliament, and heard complaints from the colonies about its administrators. It lacked executive or legislative powers, but it became the primary colonial policy-making body of the British government. It was abolished in 1782.” (1)

For more information about the English Board of Trade established in 1696 to examine and propose colonial legislation, see Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations

As an Organized Market

Board of Trade were also organized market for the exchange of commodity contracts. The first well known (1845) board of trade was the Toronto Board of Trade. “The first grain-futures exchange in the U.S. was organized in Chicago in 1848. The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) began as a voluntary association of prominent Chicago grain merchants and was chartered by the Illinois legislature in 1859. Initially it sold grain by sample; later it introduced a system of inspection and grading to standardize the market and facilitate trading. By 1858 access to the trading floor was limited to members with seats on the exchange. It became the world’s largest commodity exchange in terms of volume and value of business.” (2)

Trade Boards Acts

For information about the United Kingom Trade Boards Act 1918 and the Trade Boards Act 1909, see Trade Boards Acts

In the words of Winston Churchill, “It is a national evil that any class of Her Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions… where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad by the worst; the worker, whose whole livelihood depends upon the industry, is undersold by the worker who only takes up the trade as a second string… where these conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration.”

In Canada

There is a Boards of Trade Act (1985) in Canada, allowing any number of persons, not fewer than thirty, who are merchants, traders, brokers, mechanics, manufacturers, managers of banks or insurance agents, carrying on business in, or resident in, a district that has a population of not less than two thousand five hundred, or in the Province of British Columbia or in Yukon not less than one thousand five hundred, may associate themselves together as a board of trade and appoint a secretary.

Notes

1.Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2.Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

See Also

• Boards
• Boards, Commissions, and Committees