Economics Volume II: Modern Economic ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
Economics Volume II: Modern Economic Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
§ 3. #Growth of a protective system.# The protective policy developed
at first accidentally, as it were, out of the practice of levying
taxes for revenue only. Tolls, dues (or duties), customs (that is, in
former times the customary dues paid by merchants, now the dues fixed
by law), tariffs (that is, schedules or lists of rates of duties) were
at first intended to raise revenues for the sovereign, the city, or
the state. The unintended, and to some degree inevitable, result of
the taxation of goods in commerce, whether imports or exports, is
to prevent and discourage trade and to raise the prices of the goods
imported. Any change in tariff duties, therefore, at once alters
the previously existing adjustment of profits and of industries in a
country.
The first effect of the tariff is the same as that of any new factor
in enterpriser's cost; the same, for example, as that of a new
domestic tax on an article or as that of a rise of freight rates--the
domestic price of the taxed article tends to rise. Other results then
follow. If the article cannot, even at the higher price, be produced
within the country (as in the cases of oranges, spices, and coffee
in England, Norway, and Sweden), its consumption is reduced. The
lessening of demand may, however, depress somewhat the price in
the producing country. But as such a tariff does not increase home
production of the taxed article, it is therefore for revenue, not for
protection.
But if the article can be profitably produced in the importing
country at the new price, "home industries" will start. Where the
transportation charges are low, as on the coasts and on the main lines
of railways, some imported goods may be bought, while farther inland
where transportation charges are higher home production of some or all
grades of such goods may take place. If the whole demand at home is
supplied and all imports stop, therewith cease all revenues to
the government from that source. A completely protective tariff is
completely prohibitive.
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