Page:The New Protectionism.djvu/16

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PREFACE

enemies are represented as preparing for "a contest on the economic plane." Their preparations " have the obvious object of establishing the domination of the latter (i.e., the enemy) over the production and markets of the whole world, and of imposing on other countries an intolerable yoke. In face of so grave a peril, the representatives of the Allied Governments consider that it has become their duty — on grounds of necessary and legitimate defence — to adopt and realize from now onward all the measures requisite, on the one hand, to secure for themselves and for the whole of the markets of neutral countries full economic independence and respect for sound commercial practice; and, on the other hand, to facilitate the organization on a permanent basis of their economic alliance."

Now, in this book I examine the curious assumptions of this passage — the notion of trade as a "contest" in which one of the trading parties secures "domination" over the other, the notion that protective tariffs

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