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180 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
Protectionist countries than it would otherwise be, and
the world as a whole suffers less from Protection than
it certainly would do, if the British Empire, like some
of its neighbours, were to engage in the game of erect-
ing barriers to trade.
This is not all. The greater part of the world is now
formed into large States, and within the ring-fence of
each there is complete Free Trade.
We have now at the top of the world six great
States-the British Empire, the V nited States, Russia,
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France, to which
I taly might, perhaps, be added as a very considerable
State. The bulk of the foreign trade of the world
is carried on between these States themselves, and if
they are all, excepting ourselves, Protectionist in
their policy in their external relations, they are as
certainly Free-Trading internally, each within its own
borders.
The only exceptions, not important ones, are some
of our own self-governing colonies.
The British Empire, no doubt, is also not within a
single ring-fence. For geographical reasons it cannot
have a Zollverein. But trade is practically free inside
the Empire all the same, with exceptions which are of
no real importance.
All this means that the great countries of the world
have so much Free Trade at home that the conditions
of each individual industry at home are assimilated or
approximate to those which would exist if there were
unrestricted competition with all the world.
It is quite obvious that the larger and more varied
in geographical conditions the area of a.State is-the
more that it is an image of the whole world-the more
like the conditions of trade inside it must be to those
of the world generally.
Protectionists, however, notwithstanding all their
boasting, have not the courage of their convictions.
They will not set up Customs lines with Protective
tariffs inside a particular political area, however large,