Page:The New Protectionism.djvu/71

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THE TANGLES OF A TARIFF
47

giving a wholly false limitation to the term "key-industry."

4. So far as the object of our New Protection is to damage German trade by refusing admission to our markets, it is clearly unattainable. Prohibitive or high tariffs can, of course, preclude direct German imports. But it will be very difficult to extend this prohibition to German goods imported through neutral countries. In respect of many kinds of goods it will be easy to cancel or to disguise their place of origin, when it is the interest of the neutral country to encourage such deceit, and of the British importer to connive at the deceit. Large quantities of German goods, we may be sure, would find their way into our markets via Belgium and Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain. They would simply cost us extra carriage and the profits of another middleman.

Even supposing that our regulations were so stringent as to enable us to detect and to exclude goods of German origin coming

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