IF TRADE IS GOOD, WHY OBSTRUCT IT

By opening avenues of trade, negotiating trade treaties and otherwise, nations recognize the economy and beneficence of international exchange. There is mutual profit in a fair trade, or, as the catch phrase has it, “Fair exchange is no robbery.” Strange, then, that tariffs and other devices are so ingeniously invented to obstruct a commerce which instinct, reason and experience commend as beneficial. Of course, the incongruity arises from a conception that it is more blessed to sell than to buy. It is true that, in commerce the onus of effecting the exchange is usually upon the seller. Nevertheless, in the main, both sides of the transaction are advantageous. Inasmuch as imports (or purchases) have to be paid for with exports (sales), therefore, to obstruct imports is to curtail exports. If a nation sets itself to the production of something it has hitherto imported, it is simply diverting its energies from a more profitable extension of some other line of production. The few exceptions to this rule do not vitiate it as a general principle. For a new a comparatively undeveloped country such as Canada was thirty years ago, with but limited range of occupation and situated alongside of a great nation with large cities and established industries, whose scale of operations enabled them not only to specialize highly, but to organize strong sales departments, thus frequently disposing of their output against equivalent or greater value offered by weaker houses - for such a country there are certain logical arguments in favor of a moderate protective tariff, but even under those circumstances it possesses certain divided disadvantages, and readily becomes a level of greed and extortion. High tariff, under any circumstances, is to be avoided, and as our country develops, we shall do well, irrespective of the policies adopted by other nations, to gradually whittle our import duties down to a fine point. If we see fit to encourage utilization of natural products in our country, it may best be accomplished by export duties on raw materials.