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Protection, meant to be a good servant, becomes a dominant and costly master.

The new American tariff

Jun 21st 1930
From The Economist print edition

The signature by President Hoover of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Bill at Washington is the tragi-comic finale to one of the most amazing chapters in world tariff history, and it is one that protectionist enthusiasts the world over would do well to study. The reason for tariff revision was a desire to restore a balance of protection which had been tilted to the disadvantage of the agriculturalist. But so soon as ever the tariff schedules were cast into the melting-pot of revision, log-rollers and politicians set to work stirring with all their might, and a measure which started with the single object of giving satisfaction to the farmer emerges as a full-fledged high tariff act in which nearly 900 duties have been raised, some extravagantly. Such is the inevitable result of vested interests working through political influence, ending in signature by a president, antagonistic to the bill, under compulsion of political necessities. No one, except the interests who fancy their own pockets may benefit, wanted the tariff; big business in the East is against it; the economists of America have condemned it in unison; the motor manufacturers have implored Mr Hoover to use his veto; and the fear of its economic consequences at home and abroad was mainly responsible for the heaviest slump of the year in Wall Street. Yet it is now the law of that land, and we have the spectacle of a great country, at a moment of severe trade depression, and faced with a growing necessity to export her manufactures, deliberately erecting barriers against trade with the rest of the world. Here, indeed, is a classic example of what happens to a country which once starts on the slope of protection. Protection, meant to be a good servant, becomes a dominant and costly master. President Hoover, we see, endeavours to coat the pill by suggesting that the "flexible" provisions will be used to mitigate the effects of the tariff, where it may be found to be irksome. This hope is surely illusory, as similar hopes held out in the past have proved to lie. In the first two years of President Coolidge's administration a number of duties were raised, but only two reduced—namely, on the vital items of bran and live bobwhite quail. We are compelled to accept the view expressed some years ago by Dr Taussig that "the interests involved in tariff-making are so powerful, and can exert such influence on the party in power, that disinterested and non-partisan administration of the flexible provisions is a vain dream." If there is any comfort to be derived from this latest chapter in tariff folly, it is the belief that American eyes will be forcibly opened to the fact that they are faced by areductio ad absurdum. Incidentally, every week brings new evidence of the realisation by American business leaders of the dangers of the fiscal path which America is treading. In a contribution to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Mr Edward A. Filene, while disavowing Free Trade convictions, argues powerfully that a lowering of American tariffs is essential for the stimulation both of world trade in general and American exports in particular.Magna est veritas et prevalebit.