Page:The New Protectionism.djvu/21

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PREFACE
xvii

"war after the war" would have been taken, not by the Central Powers, but by the Allies, and the false charge made by German publicists, that the main actuating motive of Great Britain in entering the war was jealousy of the growth of German trade and a desire to crush a trade rival, would receive a most specious corroboration. For though the Paris Report opens by the statement that "the Empires of Central Europe are to-day preparing, in concert with their allies, for a contest on the economic plane," there is no evidence that any single step has actually been taken towards this preparation. On the contrary, even the informal proposals that Austro-Hungary shall enter into some economic alliance with the German Empire, propounded many months ago, have met with such strenuous opposition both in Vienna and in Buda-Pesth that they appear to have been abandoned. The first effect of the Paris Conference, should it take shape in any practical measures of co-operation for an after-war trade policy, will be to give

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