Some Aspects of Tariff Protection in Canada

PRESCRIPTIONS ination of present economic conditions and of past policies. The former indicate future possibilities and the latter traditional attitudes. On these bases we can decide what is possible and hazard a guess as to what may be thought desirable. Decisions about the structure and level of the Canadian tariff have been based on conflicting considerations. On the one hand we have wanted to reproduce in Canada the manufacturing industries of advanced Western nations, notably that of the United States. On the other we have wished to benefit from as high a level of international trade as possible. The first aim required a high tariff and the second a low one. The actual course of policy wavered between high and low tariffs, the phase depending on the changing climate of opinion and on changing international circumstances especially changes in the course of United States economic policy and in the stages of the trade cycle. The grounds for wanting a high level of international trade are clear enough in a country so abundantly endowed with certain natural resources as Canada. The gain to be obtained from exporting raw materials and manufactures based on raw materials and from importing other goods in exchange has been so obvious throughout our history as to have required particular ingenuity from those inclined to argue the benefits of protection on economic grounds. The grounds for wanting a well developed secondary manufacturing industry have been as much political as economic. Secondary manufacturing first developed in Europe when its national incomes were growing particularly rapidly and when their relative power was greatest. Manufacturing, growth, wealth and power, associated together in the public mind in Canada as elsewhere, were thought to be causally related and gave support to policies intended to stimulate manufacturing in Canada. The

Business · Commercial policy · Economic policy · Economics · Ingenuity · International trade · Political science · Politics · Tariff · Canadian Policy and Governance · European and International Law Studies · European Union Policy and Governance · Law · World Trade Organization Law