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THE REVIVAL OF PROTECTIONISM
9

which his Protection enabled him to get would be outweighed by the added higher prices of the various articles required for use in his trade and for his private consumption. This appeal to the separate interests of each trade is sometimes known as "the distributive fallacy." It consists in arguing that what is true of each must be true of all. It is well illustrated in the hortatory method in vogue in American schools, where upon the Fourth of July the boys assembled are reminded that every one present is capable of becoming President of the United States, though it is evidently impossible that more than about ten in the whole country can attain the position.

The whole economics of Protection is thus seen to be rooted in the soil of separatism, disruption, and antagonism. Its policy is realized in a number of conflicting preferences and pulls, that of producer against consumer, trade against trade, locality against locality, capital against labour, land against both, and, lastly, nation against