As regards the intrinsic value which is popularly attached to the imponderable national possessions, in the way of honor and prestige, there is little to be said, beyond the stale reflection that there is no disputing about tastes. It all is at least a profitable illusion, for the use of those who are in a position to profit by it. Such as the crown and the officeholders. But the people of the civilised nations believe themselves to have also a material interest of some sort in enlarging the national dominions and in extending the foreign trade of their business men and safe-guarding the foreign claims of their vested interests. And the Americans, like many others, harbor the singular delusion that they can derive a collective benefit from obstructing the country's trade at the national frontiers by means of a tariff barrier, and so defeating their own industry by that much. It is a survival out of the barbarian past, out of the time when the dynastic politicians were occupied with isolating the nation and making it self-sufficient, as an engine of warlike enterprise for the pursuit of dynastic ambitions and the greater discomfort of their neighbors. In an increasing degree as the new order of industry has come into bearing, any such policy of industrial isolation and self-sufficiency has become more difficult and more injurious; for a free range and unhindered specialisation is of the essence of the new industrial order.
The experience of the war has shown conclusively that no one country can hereafter supply its own needs either in raw materials or in finished goods. Both the winning and the losing side have shown that. The new industrial order necessarily overlaps the national frontiers, even in the case of a nation possessed of so extensive and varied natural resources as America. So that in spite of all the singularly ingenious obstruction of the American tariff the Americans still continue to draw on foreign sources for most or all of their tea, coffee, sugar, tropical and semi-tropical fruits, vegetable oils, vegetable gums and pigments, cordage fibers, silks, rubber, and a bewildering multitude of minor articles of daily use. Even so peculiarly American an industry as chewing-gum is wholly dependent on foreign raw material, and quite unavoidably so. The most that can be accomplished by any tariff under these circumstances is more or less obstruction. Isolation and self-sufficiency are already far out of the question.
But there are certain vested interests which find their profit in maintaining a tariff barrier as a means of keeping the price up and keeping the supply down; and the common man still faithfully believes that the profits which these vested interests derive in this way from increasing the cost of his livelihood and decreasing the net productivity of his industry will benefit him in some mysterious way. He is persuaded that high prices and a scant supply of goods at a high labor cost is a desirable state of things. This is incredible, but there is no denying the fact.
He knows, of course, that the profits of business go to the business men, the vested interests, and to no one else; but he is still beset with the picturesque hallucination that any unearned income which goes to those vested interests whose central office is in New Jersey is paid to himself in some underhand way, while the gains of those vested interests that are domiciled in Canada are obviously a grievous net loss to him. The tariff moves in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform.
To all adult persons of sound mind, and not unduly clouded with the superstitions of the price system, it is an obvious matter of fact that any protective tariff is an obstruction to industry and a means of impoverishment, just so far as it is effective. The arguments to the contrary invariably turn out to be pettifogger's special pleading for some vested interest or for a warlike national policy, and these arguments convince only those persons who are able to believe that a part is greater than the whole. It also lies in the nature of protective tariffs that they always cost the nation disproportionately much more than they are worth to those vested interests which profit by them. In this respect they are like any other method of businesslike sabotage. Their aim, and presumably their effect, is to keep the price up by keeping the supply down, to hinder competitors and retard production. As in other instances of businesslike sabotage, therefore, the net margin of advantage to those who profit by it is greatly less than what it costs the community.
