178 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL 



bring our manufactures up to the highest standard, so 

 that they may compete with the best productions of other 

 nations, without any fear that when they have achieved 

 an honourable success they may be deprived of their 

 reward by an additional weight of protective duties against 

 them. 



It is urged against the advocates of reciprocity that they 

 are vague in their suggested remedies, and, when asked to 

 specify their proposals, " escape in a cloud of generalities." 

 No one can make this charge against my proposal. It is 

 sufficiently clear and sufficiently definite. Neither are 

 Professor Fawcett's objections that " a policy of reci- 

 procity is impracticable," and that, once embarked on it, 

 trade after trade would claim protection at all more to 

 the point. Every trade and industry would be treated 

 alike. All would have a free field and no favour. And 

 as regards foreign countries we should strictly do as we 

 are done by and as we would be done by, and no more. 

 We should make no attempt to injure them or retaliate 

 on them, but should simply and exactly neutralise their in- 

 terference with free trade as between ourselves and them. 



As I am here discussing an important question of 

 principle, to which, if it can be clearly established, our 

 practice should conform, I am spared the necessity of 

 adducing that array of statistics which is generally made 

 use of in arguments on this subject. It is well, however, 

 to give one or two illustrative cases. Professor Fawcett 

 has clearly proved, that the effect of the French sugar 

 bounties is, that sugar is sold in England under its cost 

 price in France, and that the only people who benefit by 

 it are the proprietors on whose land beet-root is grown, 

 and the people of this country who get sugar somewhat 

 cheaper. He admits, however, that "considerable injury 

 is, no doubt, inflicted on English sugar-refiners by the 

 French being bribed by their Government to sell sugar in 

 the English market at a price which, without a State 

 subvention, would not prove remunerative ; " but, he adds, 

 " if we embark on the policy of protecting a special trade 

 against the harm done to it by the unwise fiscal policy of 

 other countries, we shall become involved in a labyrinth of 



