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powers raised protective tariffs, smashing the free trade system led 

 by Britain. 



Like America after Sputnik, Edwardian Britain echoed with cries 

 to get the country moving again: for science and engineering in the 

 schools instead of the classics; emphasis on foreign languages; 

 merger of British firms to compete with foreign trusts; more ag- 

 gressive exporting; funding of R&D; and protective tariffs. 



But whatever hopes Britain had of rebounding were crushed by 

 World War I, and the years around 1900 proved to have been her 

 climacteric. Is the United States today facing its moment of de- 

 cline? I suspect that this question, perhaps subconsciously, is in our 

 minds as we discuss science policy. 



But the causes of Britain's decline— hence, the lessons to be 

 learned — are not clear. Britain, for instance, did not lack for R&D. 

 It led the world in research until the 1930's and was still a healthy 

 third into the 1960's. 



Nor was British science inferior. The trouble was that many Brit- 

 ish inventions were exploited abroad and not by British business. 

 Indeed, Britain helped to create her own competition by exporting 

 capital and technology to industrializing countries like Germany 

 and the United States. 



But she cannot be blamed for that. Britain needed the foreign 

 markets and was contributing to world economic growth. In the 

 same fashion, the United States helped to create its competition 

 through the Marshall plan. 



In short, counting dollars spent on R&D or patents and Nobel 

 Prizes won, in a kind of intellectual Olympic Games, are not useful 

 measures of where one stands. Nor is protectionism a solution to 

 foreign competition. For such a reversal of policy by the leading 

 free trade and financial power would not only betray our principles 

 but reduce the volume of trade for all countries and erode the 

 unity of the West far more than any failure to cooperate in science. 

 This is the lesson of the 1930's. 



A crackdown on technology transfer through secrecy and refusal 

 to cooperate might also be counterproductive. As angry as we are 

 when we read of high-technology leaks, sales, and espionage, I 

 don't believe the American people would want a commercial police 

 capable of shutting off nonstrategic leaks. 



What is more, secrets are hard to keep even with restrictions. 

 We all remember the rapid Soviet development of the A-bomb. And 

 the value of a given secret is always debatable. 



Rather than be moved to imitate Soviet secrecy or Gaullist neo- 

 mercantilism, the United States should accept its relative decline 

 as inevitable and even a measure of the success of our postwar poli- 

 cies toward Europe and East Asia, and take steps instead to ensure 

 that we remain leaders in those fields of science and technology 

 that we deem critical. And even in those fields, the best way to 

 stay ahead in the race, perhaps, is not to hurl obstacles at our 

 rivals but simply to run faster. After all, we all play our best 

 tennis against a tough opponent. 



Having said that, however, we need not approach scientific coop- 

 eration with gratuitous generosity. This may or may not apply to 

 the Third World. Perhaps we can discuss that later. Rather, we 

 should approach big ticket cooperation with the knowledge that 



