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has been going on for the last year and a half with great activity.

"I want to point out to you that what I observe is that while A is very anxious to get a favor of B, and B is anxious to get a favor of C, nobody cares two straws about getting the commercial favor of Great Britain.

"What is the reason of that? It is that in this great battle Great Britain has deliberately stripped herself of the armor and the weapons by which the battle has to be fought.

"You cannot do business in this world of evil and suffering on those terms. If you go to market, you must bring money with you. If you fight, you must fight with the weapons with which those you have to contend against are fighting.

"The weapon with which they all fight is admission to their own markets, that is to say, A says to B: 'If you will make your duties such that I can sell in your market I will make my duties such that you can sell in my market.'

"But we begin by saying that we will levy no duties on anybody, and we declare that it would be contrary and disloyal to the glorious and sacred doctrine of free-trade to levy any duty on anybody, for the sake of what we can get by it.

"It may be noble, but it is not business.

"On those terms you will get nothing, and I am sorry to have to tell you that you are practically getting nothing.

"The opinion of this country, as stated by its authorized exponents, has been opposed by what is called a retaliatory policy.

"We, as the government of the country, have laid it down for ourselves as a strict rule from which there is no departure, and we are bound not to alter the traditional

policy of the country unless we are convinced that a large majority of the country is with us, because in these foreign affairs consistency of policy is beyond all things unnecessary.

"But, though that is the case, still if I may aspire to fill the office of a councillor to the public mind, I should ask you to form your own opinions without a reference to traditions or denunciations, not to care two straws whether you are orthodox or not, but to form your opinions according to the dictates of common sense-I would impress upon you that if you intend in this conflict of commercial treaties to hold your own you must be prepared, if need be, to inflict upon the nations which injure, you the penalty which is in your hands, that of refusing them access to your markets.

"The power we have most reason to complain of is the United States, and what we want the United States to furnish us with mostly are articles of food essential to the feed. ing of the people and raw materials necessary to our manufacturers, and we cannot exclude one or the other without serious injury to ourselves.

"Now, I am not in the least prepared, for the sake of wounding other nations, to inflict any dangerous or serious wound upon ourselves.

"We must confine ourselves, at least for the present, to those subjects on which we should not suffer very much, whether the importation continued or diminished.

"But what I complain about of the rabbis of whom I have just spoken is, that they confuse this vital point. They say that everything must be given to the consumer. Well, if the consumer is the man who maintains the industries of the country or is the people at large, I agree with the rabbis.

"You cannot raise the price of food or of raw material, but there is an enormous mass of other articles of importation from other countries besides the United States which are

mere matters of luxurious consumption, and if it is a question of wine or silk or spirits or gloves or lace, I should not in the least shrink from diminishing the consumption and interfering with the comfort of the excellent people who consume these articles of luxury, for the purpose of maintaining our rights in this commercial war, and of insisting on our right of access to the markets of our neighbors.

"This is very heterodox doctrine, I know, and I should be excommunicated for maintaining it.

"But, as one's whole duty is to say what he thinks to the people of this country, I am bound to say that our rabbis have carried the matter too far.

"We must distinguish between consumer and consumer, and while jealously preserving the rights of a consumer who is co-extensive with a whole industry, or with the whole people of the country, we may fairly use our power over an importation which merely ministers to luxury in order to maintain our own in this great commercial battle."

AMERICAN RECIPROCITY-AN HISTORIC

REVIEW.

GENERAL VIEW.

THE idea, or rather the doctrine, of reciprocal trade is by no means new. As a principle it has been long recognized in this country. In England it is what is called "Fair Trade," and is upheld by a school of economists and statesmen who oppose "Free Trade," or seek to escape from the effects of "Free Trade," by a system which shall not be one-sided only.

The doctrine, pure and simple, is this, if a nation does not impose duties on our goods entering its ports, we will not impose duties on its goods entering our ports; and if a nation levies duties on our goods, we will levy duty on its goods.

This, say fair-traders, is but the doctrine of lex talionis, tit-for-tat, as applied to trade. This, say free-traders, is the folly of imposing a double loss on ourselves. Thus, foreigners tax our products when they enter their ports. This imposes a loss on us. Then, in turn, we tax their products when entering our ports. This imposes a second loss on us. They say, that for an injury done us by others, we fine ourselves. When others impoverish 03, we respond by a system of impoverishment.,

Protectionists eschew theories and refinements, and say that each country is a law unto itself respecting trade. All prosperous countries have been built on this principle. All recognize it a one way or another, whatever their outward professions, ar present economic leanings. It is but the

duty of caring for one's self. It is but the right to live, and to enjoy advantages, if such exist.

COMMERCIAL TREATIES.

Reciprocity has for ages been established and determined. between nations by means of commercial treaties. The usual process has been for two nations, about to treat, to consult their respective tariff lists, and to grant reductions of duties on the class of goods which they desire most to receive from each other. Equally, each country seeks to secure the lowest rate of duty on the class of goods whose manufacture constitutes its own industry, and whose sale abroad it wishes to cultivate. Thus, England makes the best bargain she can for the foreign sale of her hardware and cottons, France for her silks and wines, Belgium for her iron products, the United States for her flour and meat. The free-trade countries of the world are the most prolific of reciprocity treaties, yet there never was a reciprocity treaty that did not recognize the doctrine of protection, else it would have been of no use. The essence of all commercial treaties is home-trade advantage, home-industry advantage, home-development advantage, whether directly by encouragement to labor and capital on the spot, or indirectly by reason of enlarged markets abroad.

Says Leveleye, one of the ablest of French Political Economists, and a pronounced free-trader :-" Commercial treaties are useful in assuring to industry what is so essential to it, the fixity of foreign customs dues throughout the period embraced by the treaty. Nowadays commercial treaties are of more importance than political treaties, for it is on commercial treaties that the progress of industry in each country in a great measure depends, and also what is no less im

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