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* INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
Fo 
to the point of unreality (as, for example, that of taxes in kind). 
More commonly, the deduced conclusions, even if resting on prob- 
able assumptions, are such as cannot be specifically discerned or 
verified in the actual course of events. And, as I need hardly 
confess again, the mathematical processes by which alone some of 
these conclusions can be deduced are beyond my competence; 
[ could make no pretense of contributing anything new either in 
substance or in the way of exposition. 
Neither is it within the scope of the present volume to enter on 
the controversy regarding free trade and protection. This in its 
main outlines is simple; simple at all events as compared with 
the topics taken up in the preceding pages. In a later chapter I 
have summarized those results of my inquiries on the effects of 
tariff legislation which have some direct bearing on the principles 
with which the present volume deals. 
There is, however, one possible effect of taxes, and one phase 
of the protective controversy, on which something may here be 
said. I direct attention to this particular point of theory because 
of its connection with certain concrete problems of verification 
or interpretation which arise in connection with the international 
trade of the United States. The point is not of an essentially 
new or intricate kind. It relates to the effects which taxes on 
imports, and especially taxes which are protective, may have on 
the barter terms of trade. 
Suppose, first, that a country imposes duties on imports which 
are purely of a revenue character. The proximate effect is to raise 
within the country the price of the dutiable article or articles 
(hereafter we may speak for simplicity of but a single article). 
True, in the case of a commodity produced under monopoly condi- 
tions, and having an extraordinarily elastic demand schedule, the 
price might remain unaffected. But this is a negligible case ; under 
almost every imaginable condition there will be some rise in price. 
Assuming then, as we may, that price rises, less of the commodity 
will be bought. Only if demand were absolutely inelastic would 
the quantity bought remain the same. Demand being always in 
some degree elastic, less will be bought, and imports will decline.