ABSTRACT
If a prize were to have been awarded for the most original and relevant idea to the conference’s title, in my view Christopher Bliss should have got it. The issue he addresses in his chapter is: What are the effects of agricultural protection on manufacturing competitiveness? This question was raised in the nineteenth century at the time of the Corn Laws and is still relevant today in the context of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The first question that springs to mind when one reads about a comparison between the Corn Laws and the CAP is: have we learned nothing from history? Does history repeat itself or are we comparing two different things? The chapter by Bliss seems to suggest that the nineteenth century does not differ too much from the present for the comparison to be appropriate.
