Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 by Various
page 73 of 207 (35%)
page 73 of 207 (35%)
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The pre-war tariffist argued, when he dealt with the problem, that
tariffs would suffice at will to keep out manufactured goods and let in only raw material. To that the answer was simple. An unbroken conversion of the whole yield of exports and freight returns and interest on foreign investments into imported raw material to be wholly converted into new products, mainly for export, was something utterly beyond the possibilities. It would mean a rate of expansion of exports never attained and not only not attainable but not desirable. On such a footing, the producing and exporting country would never concretely taste of its _profit_, which is to be realised, if at all, only in consumption of imported goods and foods. It is no less plainly impossible to discriminate by classes between kinds of manufactured imports on the plea that inequality in the exchanges gives the foreign competitor an advantage in terms of the relatively lower wage-rate paid by him while his currency value is falling. Any such advantage, in the terms of the case, must be held to accrue to all forms of production alike, and cannot possibly be claimed to accrue in the manufacture of one thing as compared with another, as fabric gloves in comparison with gold leaf. In a word, the refusal of protection to gold leaf is an admission that the argument from inequality of currency exchanges counts for nothing in the operation of the Safeguarding of Industries Bill. In the case of any other import, then, the argument falls. MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER But that is not all. The case of Russia alone has brought home to all capable of realising an economic truth the fact that the economic collapse of any large mass of population which had in the past entered into the totality of international trade is a condition of proportional |
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