ABSTRACT
In its political sense Free Trade simply means the absence of import or export duties of a Protective character. These words should be carefully considered. Free Trade does not mean the absence of Customs duties, but the absence of Protective Customs duties. That is to say, it is opposed to Customs duties designed to favour private or sectional interests, or designed to create entire or partial monopolies in the home market. It is not that Free Trade means opposition to Government interference in trade, or opposition to the idea that Governments ought to help trade. Thus we find modern Free Traders, who have happily sloughed off the idea that opposition to Protective duties necessarily involves opposition to every sort of Government interference, actively engaged in promoting British trade interests by such measures as the Lloyd George Patent law and the Development and Road Improvements Fund Act of 1909. These measures directly assist trade, but they do not, by the stupid and roundabout process of taxing imported competitive articles, deliver the nation over, bound hand and foot, to the mercy of private monopolists.
