When it is added that the complex and elaborate estimates, which are necessary for a right decision, will have to be made by a legislative body liable to be affected by the influence of interested producers, and at best imperfectly equipped for the task, the risk of trying to encourage by means of protection ought to be sufficiently clear. . . . The free trade case . . . All attainable evidence goes to show that where the ordinary conditions of social life are maintained, the care and interest of those concerned in the work of production are by far the best guarantees, for a beneficial employment of the productive resources available. That part of the argument which claims that the power of production is increased by protection . The acquisition of industrial skill is quite as likely to advance under free-trade as under protection, though the lines which it takes will probably differ.
Economic armaments are the tools of economic nationalism. . . .
The primary source of economic and military armaments . . . Political nationalism is the creed which places the national State at the top of the scale of human values, not only above the individual, but mankind itself. It is the creed which . . . Economic and military armaments. That common ancestor is war. . . .