INTRODUCTION One of the outstanding facts of the Great War so far as the United States is concerned is clearly our closer contact with the problems of European politics. This is not merely a case of increased interest on the part of the American people, but a situation into which we have been forced by the fact that we have become participants in the determination of European policies in a sense little dreamed of a few years ago. As a result we shall be obliged to look at many of our home policies from a broader point of view than formerly. This is particularly true of the tariff. For generations the tariff problem has seemed to most American statesmen and to the public to be a purely domestic one. We adopted tariffs partly to raise revenue and partly to protect American industry. In any case we opened or closed our door according to our own will and with little regard to the broader questions of commercial policy the world over. The tariff was simply raised or lowered according to the particular financial needs of the moment or according to the economic theory of the party in power at any given time. Furthermore, for a century all consideration of the tariff was based on the assumption that the imports into this country would be largely manufactured goods and our exports would be largely raw materials. The question was merely how far importation of manufactured goods should be restricted. with the object of stimulating the growth of manufacture at home. Even before the war the United States was beginning to assume a new position as an exporting nation, and today the situation in our foreign commerce has become nearly reversed. Manufacturers are no longer merely asking for the protection of the home market in their favor, but they are asking the assistance and encouragement of the Government in securing markets abroad. European nations have for generations framed their tariffs with a view to improving their positions in foreign competition. In tariff making there were always contemplated the problems of commercial treaties based on negotiation between different countries. Tariffs have been arranged as much for bargaining purposes as for purposes of revenue or protection to the home producer. In recent years American students of the tariff have frequently urged this as a desirable policy for the United States to follow, but to most business men such propositions have seemed rather impractical and far away. Especially in Congress has there been an extraordinary indifference to this phase of the tariff question. With this indifference has gone an almost complete ignorance as to the broader aspects of the tariff question as they appear in European discussions and as they affected European tariff policies. In the period of reconstruction the tariff problem will play as big a rôle as ever. It is likely, however, that it will be debated along quite different lines from those so long familiar. Our tariff policy from now on should pay as much attention to the export problem as it formerly paid to the relation of imports to the home producer. In the matter of the tariff, as in many other problems formerly considered purely domestic, we are bound to be more and more affected by the general international situation. The indifference and ignorance referred to above will prove a handicap in getting the American business public, and the politicians as well, familiar with the practical working of commercial policies in this broader sense. But we are no longer confronted merely with the desirability or undesirability of a protective tariff. We must equip ourselves to understand the nature of bargaining tariffs, maximum and minimum tariffs, commercial treaties, most-favorednation treatment, anti-dumping legislation, and many others of the elements of commercial policy. Mr. Culbertson's broad survey of this whole range of topics is a most timely introduction to a field with which we are bound to become more and more familiar whether we like it or not. Besides the fact that our tariff in any case must from now on be treated in closer relation to the complex problems of international trade, there is the further fact that it assumes a new aspect in the light of its relation to the efforts that are being made to bring about some form of international agreement for the prevention of war and the maintenance of just relations between the nations. The conclusions of Mr. Culbertson as to the relation of our commercial policy to this broader question will doubtless call out strenuous protest. They are, however, worthy of very serious attention. Furthermore, any thoughtful man before rejecting them must search his mind and see whether or not others of his convictions of a more general political nature do not force him to accept the conclusions of this book as a necessary corollary to ideas already accepted by him. If he already believes firmly in the desirability of a League of Nations, it will be hard for him, after reading this book, not to recognize that problems of commercial policy, including tariffs, involve the necessity for some kind of an international tribunal. If, on the other hand, the reader is already convinced that the idea of a League of Nations involves nothing but complications and dangers to be avoided, he will probably find that the extension of the concept made by Mr. Culbertson furnishes him with new reasons for dreading such a departure from established policies. There is, however, a large intermediate group who find it difficult to come to any very strong conviction on the all-absorbing question of the day. They are too hard-headed to believe that mankind has suddenly changed, or that mere preaching regarding the harmony of nations will alter the age-long contest for prestige and power. They see clearly the new complexities and difficulties that must inevitably arise. At the same time. they are too profoundly impressed with the horrors of the last four years, too receptive to the new current of ideas, to accept the fatalistic conclusion that these national rivalries and struggles must go on in the same old way in saecula saeculorum. To this large group Mr. Culbertson's discussion of the manifold problems of commercial policy, on the basis of supplementing the old purely national control with a new international control, will appeal in diverse ways. Some will find in it a practical working out of principles in detail that will make the League idea more concrete and acceptable. Others will perhaps become more fearful in realizing the array of problems that are to be faced and the number of international commissions and courts that will be necessary. The author's main contention is most clearly stated in his twelfth chapter, entitled, "Where National Control Breaks Down." Just as the old extreme theory of individualism broke down, as an adequate means of guaranteeing the individual "a square deal" in his economic life, so the extreme form of nationalism has in turn broken down. Such is the contention. The individual nation had to step in to protect its citizens, one against the other, in matters of "unfair competition." This meant various protective statutes and the erection of various administrative bodies, such as, in the United States, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the like. The same problem, it is asserted, has now arisen as among nations. "The economic life of the world has in many ways burst the confines of the individual state. In so far as it has, it is without a co-extensive control. Nations |