ABSTRACT
Protectionism, thus interpreted, is the expression of a false spirit of patriotism seeking to confine industry within a national or imperial area, so as to defend the nation, or the empire, against what it regards as the disintegrating influences of commercial internationalism. Now this patriotism is doubly false as expressed in that form of preferential Protectionism now before our country. Thus the modified Protectionism of the preferential tariff is an attempt to fight against the spirit of internationalism by a method which actually undermines the genuine forces of nationalism. Protectionism is always likely to survive or to recur in nations where class interests, of land owners, of export manufacturers, the military services, and their industrial parasites, remain politically strong enough to push their group-interests to the detriment of the commonwealth.
