184 Transaction*. — Miscellaneous. 



duties levied on exports, either by the exporting nation or that 

 receiving the goods, must in the end restrict the imports as much 

 as the exports. In either case the injury done to the total trade 

 is double of that done to either part of it. If, then, a nation, 

 through discontent at restrictions inflicted by foreigners on her 

 t r;t«le, herself decide to tax her imports, she merely duplicates 

 the injury. Foreigners having reduced the volume of her trade 

 by the levying of duties, she practically decides to reduce it 

 still further. The foreigners have reduced their own trade by 

 their duties, but are unconscious as a people, no doubt, of their 

 self-inflicted injury. They may be very sensitive to the injury 

 done to their exports by the duties of others — this injury is direct 

 and patent, and their attention is riveted on their exports ; but 

 the injury done to their exports by their own duties on their 

 imports is indirect and therefore unknown to the great mass of 

 the people and, unfortunately, of statesmen. Yet the injury 

 which is self-inflicted is greater than the other, for if a nation 

 restricts her trade by import duties she experiences the full 

 effect on her exports, but each of her rivals only bears a share 

 on theirs. 



It is worthy of notice that in the case of England any damage 

 to the import trade brought about by the levying of duties would 

 produce a much greater proportionate effect on the export trade. 

 Of late years the import trade has been almost exactly half as 

 much again as the export trade. Consequently, e.g., the reduction 

 of the import trade by one-third would involve the reduction of 

 the export trade by one-half, and the reduction of the import 

 trade by two-thirds would practically obliterate the export trade 

 altogether. In addition to the direct loss involved in the di- 

 minution of export trade, we have further to consider that, Eng- 

 land being the great carrier of the world, and carrying much the 

 greater portion of her own trade, the loss to shipping has to be 

 added to that of exports, a feature that is of smaller importance 

 and generally insignificant in the case of other nations. 



Such are the plain direct effects of import duties on foreign 

 trade. They do not affect greatly or permanently the balance 

 of trade, and they do not therefore increase employment, hut they 

 diminish foreign trade and the advantages that accrue from it. 

 and in the case of England they would diminish the amount of 

 employment for her shipping. There are many refinements and 

 secondary effects that one might discuss and ought to discuss 

 in any attempt at completely describing the effed of import 

 duties, but the only object here is to explain briefly and to em- 

 phasize these simple considerations, which are fundamental, but 

 which are commonly misunderstood, and even when understood 

 are too frequently lost sight of. Without frequent references 



