Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/348

 TIlE McKINLEY TARIFF ACT  THS protective system which the United States has adopted during the last generation is sometimes spoken of as if it were simply a phase of the general reaction against a liberal policy in foreign trade which has shown itself since 1873 in almost every country in the reaction except England. United States is a in other countries In fact, however, the movement separate and distinct one. The has been due to wide-reaching causes, such as brought about, under very similar circumstances, a similar result in the early part of the present century. The great inventions in textile manufactures and in the production of iron at the close of the eighteenth century brought about a sweeping change in the processes of production and in international trade. To that change the Continental countries accommodated them- selves but slowly; and the difficulties of the transition led to oppo- sition which took, in part, the form of protective duties. Similarly, we have had in this generation enormous changes in the arts of production, and above all in transportation, which have compelled a shifting and rearrangement of the protective machinery, and have inevitably caused discomfort and suffering to large classes in many countries. Among the attempts to stave off or mitigate the effects of these great changes, have been the productive duties im- posed since 1873 in France, in Germany, in Austria, and in Italy. As the older movement was directed chiefly against the cheapened manufactures of Great Britain, so the present movement is directed chiefly against the cheapened agricultural products of new coun- tries, and especially of the United States. Obviously, therefore, the protective movement in the United States stands by itself, and presents aspects of its own. In truth, the movement here has been very largely of an accidental sort, explicable mainly from political causes. The United States has simply drifted into its present position of high and pronounced pro-  Reproduced (with some additions by the author) from the (//oraa/ degli Economisti, Jan. 1891, by the kind permission of the editor of that Journal.