ABSTRACT
As this is an opening paper for the conference I shall touch on various issues that will no doubt be more thoroughly explored in later papers. I shall not trouble to restate the orthodox argument for free trade, but in the first section I will review some of the possible qualifications to it, to show that there are circumstances when the case for absolute free trade is not unambiguous. Then I shall turn to "practice" - i.e. to a discussion of why protection is established and continues even when "theory" may recommend otherwise. This involves the new subject of the political economy of protectionism. Finally I shall discuss various aspects of trade liberalization.
