148 
‘INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
in 
 ivnd 
arguments for protection untenable, nay intellectually repellent, 
and those for international codperation and concord strong and 
appealing, there remains no inclination to commend this particular 
method of trying to capture a greater share of the total gain from 
trade between nations. 
As a dry matter of analysis, however, it is to be said that, in this 
matter of import duties and the barter terms of trade, the position 
of the United States was long a comparatively advantageous one. 
The country’s exports were chiefly foodstuffs and raw materials. 
Raw cotton bulked large among them ; an article so much wanted 
by other countries that they never impose duties onit. Foodstuffs, 
again, were never subjected to duties by Great Britain, to which 
they went so largely; and the duties put on them by the countries 
of the Continent did not seriously check the imports that way. 
The countries to which the American exports mainly went were 
thus unwilling or unable to play the game of retaliation with much 
prospect of success. The protective duties imposed by the United 
States, however, did have the effect of checking some imports 
heavily and of stimulating domestic production to a corresponding 
extent; while yet other imports continued to come in. These 
other imports were in part goods of the protected class which came 
in over the barrier of the duties, such as wool, sugar, and sundry 
manufactured goods. In much larger part they were tropical or 
semi-tropical goods which were admitted free. It was the latter 
which came to predominate more and more largely in the import 
trade of the United States. As regards these, the barter terms of 
trade quite possibly become more advantageous, without any such 
offset as must be reckoned in respect of the protected goods. 
So much as regards the general reasoning and some possibilities 
of its application. What bearing it may conceivably have on the 
actual course of the international trade of the United States will 
be considered in another connection.! 
1 See below, Ch. 24, pp. 299-306.