Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/47

 of that unfortunate labor—and it is reasonable to look for the support of the idealist when justification is claimed—there is equal moral justification for forbidding by interdiction the passage into the Union of the products of similar or even more deplorable conditions in States, situated outside our national boundaries, where economic democracy is repudiated. In spite of the powerful sentimental appeal in the phrase “free trade,” it is also reasonable to demand the support of the idealists for a wider use of their method of dealing with domestic unpleasantness. They cannot refuse to recognize that the barriers created between righteous and unregenerate states within the Union are only maintained in the end by Federal force; and in the end also any barriers erected between economically emancipated and economically backward countries can only be maintained by an Army and Navy. It is very sad to realize that such popular remedies as “Free trade” and “Disarmament,” even though specifically labelled by the idealist as unquestionable virtues, must be carefully scrutinized for the sake of our experiment in democracy, as long as we are dealing with autocracy or arbitrary power in any form whatever—and, unfortunately, this cautious attitude may, quite properly, be taken toward us as well as by us.

Free trade, like internationalism, is a beautiful dream. Protection under certain conditions is a deplorable political necessity. Our failure lies in permitting it to be anything but protection. What it has been, very notably, is cleverly manipulated privilege in the name of protection.

Import duties, if they are designed for revenue, are taxes on consumption, or, more baldly, they are taxes on need. If they are designed for the protection of importunate industries they are often super-taxes on consumption or need.

There is probably no very pleasant dose for the clearing up of this complication. It must be faced honestly, taking into consideration from a purely economic standpoint the fact that tariff for revenue is a major example of pernicious taxation and that tariff for the protection of the intrenched beneficiaries of our present system is even more pernicious. Such taxation is a toll taken from the weaker in either case, and has nothing