Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/368

 :346 THE ECONOMIC JOURN,r, commodities are not admitted into the South American countries at what seem to us reasonable rates. The second source in which the origin of the reciprocity provision is to be sought is more significant. The McKinley Act passed the House of Representa- tives without it. But the trend of public discussion upon the Act, especially in the West, foreshadowed the dangers of the measure, which have since been made so clearly evident by the election; and there was an uneasy feeling among the shrewder Republican leaders that their tariff measure might prove to be a political mistake. That 'feeling was strong in Mr. Blaine, not the least shrewd of the Republican leaders; and he may be said practically to have forced the Reciprocity provision into the Mc Kinley Act as a means of securing suppprt in the West for the party measure. He proposed to increase the outlet for the produce of the West, to open for them agricultural markets in regions where they were now handicapped by high import duties. The proviso, in other words, is a bid for the agricultural vote, a bid inserted into the bill at the last moment as a means of . conciliating the opposition of which the Republican leaders were uneasily conscious_ It has failed to accomplish that object, at least for the present; and it is not clear whether any important results will come from it in the future. Mr. Blaine has suc- ceeded in negotiating a treaty with the newly-established Re- public of Brazil by which a remission of duties up to 25 per cent. is conceded on imports from the United States.  Whether other treaties will follow, and whether this treaty will have any con- siderable effect on the trade to be seen. It is clear long, especially after the between the two countries remains that the President would hesitate recent elections, in proclaiming a re-imposition of duty on articles like sugar or hides; and in any case the threat of imposing a duty is not so effective a diplomatic move as would be the offer to remit existing duties. Moreover, it is probable that any remissions of duty secured to the United States would not long remain preferential; the machinery of commercial treaties has usually resulted in making the remissions practically open to all the world. Nevertheless, the reciprocity move is in many ways a shrewd one. It has a distinct economic advantage over the ordinary form of reciprocity,--the simple remission of duties to a favoured country. Such a remission is likely to redound not to the advantage of the domestic con-  Since these lines were written, the announcement has been made that a treaty has also been concluded with Spain, relaxing duties on commodities imported into Cuba.