writings about Free Trade. We go to France and say, "We will let in
your wines at a lower duty provided you do us the favour and give us
the advantage of lowering your duties on English manufactures." I
cannot conceive any way of putting the matter more strongly
calculated to convince the French that we believe we lose by
purchasing their wines and gain by selling them our manufactures.

It appears to me that if we wish to convince Europe and America of
the truth of Free Trade (as understood by our political economists),
our proper course is to adopt Free Trade ourselves FULLY (if the
principle is good for wheat it is good for tea--I shall return to
this), and then to say to foreigners, "See how we prosper under Free
Trade." If the Americans continue to maintain Protectionist duties on
our manufactures, our line of conduct is not to offer to pay them
indirectly to relax those duties, but to say, "You are losing more by
your duties than we are; the proof of the pudding is in the eating."
If I believe, as I do, that the Americans are gaining less wealth
under Protection than they would under Free Trade, I cannot imagine
any plan less likely to convert them to my views than my going to
them and saying, "We will give you L5,000,000 sterling (or some
valued political advantage) if you will alter your mistaken policy."
If this course did not confirm the Americans in the very deepest
suspicions that Protection is really advantageous to them, and that
we in our inmost heart think so too, my ideas of human nature are
altogether at fault. But every foreign debate, whether in France,
Germany, or America, on Free Trade, convinces me that I am not
mistaken in the effect which I attribute to our prayers to every
foreign nation to grant us a Commercial Treaty.