International Trade in Relation to Agricultural Development

B ECAUSE of a misunderstanding I received the request to givean opening address on this subject just a few weeks before sailing.Under these circumstances it would perhaps have been better not to venture upon this task, but the request was so urgent that I could not resist, and so I have put my ideas on paper, not as a base, but as an exordium for a discussion.Free trade, in the sense that every one is able to buy all his requirements where they are cheapest to obtain, whereas every seller is able to dispose of his goods in the place where he can get the highest prices, probably never existed.Although after 18 5 o various countries recognized the principle of free trade, in nearly every country the production of certain goods was promoted artificially.Before the World War this was generally done by imposing a duty on imported goods and by allowing export bounties and subsidies on products to be exported.Next to this, however, many special ways of protecting home produce were found.I need only point to the many ways in which the home production of sugar in almost every country was advantaged and to the disabilities on the importation of live cattle, nominally to prevent contagious diseases being introduced, but in reality with the specific intention of reducing competition of foreign cattle or of excluding them entirely.In spite of these measures to protect home produce, an extensive trade in goods all over the world was to be observed before the War of 1914.This trade not only took place on a large scale between neighbouring countries, but many articles, especially agrarian ones, such as wheat, corn, rice, sugar, &c., were dispersed in large quantities over the globe.They formed the base of world trade, against which other parts, especially Europe and the United States, exported industrial goods.After the War, however, we observe everywhere a further development of the endeavour to produce the necessary requirements primarily or entirely at home.Next to and backed by political