FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION 251

that the commodity is so necessary that it must be had, in
as full supply as before, in spite of the raised price. This
implies that neither it nor an efficient substitute can be
secured from elsewhere at any price below that of the taxed
goods, including the whole of the tax. Such entire
dependence on a single source of supply for a commodity
would be exceptional, and more exceptional still the absence
of any check to demand on a rise in price. The conditions
for the placing of the undivided burden on either party are
not generally fulfilled, but are approximated to in some
special cases. In the degree in which the one or the other
set of conditions more nearly represents the conditions of
an actual case, will the burden of a new duty be likely to
fall mainly on the producer, or mainly on the consumer,
as the case may be.
A similar examination of the remission of a tax formerly
levied would lead to similar conclusions.
If, on the imposition of a new import duty, the new
burden is shared between producers of the imported goods
and the consumers of them (and of similar goods of domestic
production) ; and, on the remission of an old import duty,
the gain is shared between consumers of the imported
product and its foreign producers; we may reasonably argue
that, during the continuance of such a tax, the burden is
similarly divided, and only under quite exceptional conditions
 can fall entirely on the one or entirely on the other.
A bounty on exports of a commodity from a country,
on its institution, acts like the removal of an import duty
in each and all of the countries importing the goods, and,
on its cessation, like the imposition of an import duty in
those countries. Hence, during its continuance, the division
of its effects may be expected, and the principles considered
above suffice for this problem, the detailed examination of
which would involve the repetition of much that has already
heen said in reference to an import duty.
A bounty on import of a commodity into a particular
country differs from the bounty on export, in that all sources
of production to which the bounty applies are brought into
account on the one side, the consumption of one particular