Journal of Political Economy Vol. 12 No. 4 1904
The Political Significance of Reciprocity
Abstract
RECENT investigation has disclosed the fact that our reciprocity legislation in the past has not been the result of any systematic comlmercial policy. On the contrary, reciprocity has been clearly shown to have been the outgrowth of political expediency. Its origin has been traced in most cases to the exigencies of party politics. It has been pointed out, for example, that the reciprocity legislation of the I\IcKinley and Dingley laxvs wvas niot adopted for the purpose of inaugurating a regime of less restricted trade relations in which the tariff burdens of the consuminer woul(l be lightened, but that the provisions for reciprocal trade in both instances were clever political exDedients devised to placate those interests which wTere clamoring for tariff revision and the expansion of American trade. The irrisistible conclusion is, in short, that reciprocity has suffered in the past as a political makeshift in the hands of our politicians and statesmen, who, from an econoimic standpoinlt, have used it with a fine disregard of what the name is gelerally supposed to imply.' It may be addecd further that our reciprocity experience has had a broader political significance. It has been concerned with external as well as internal politics. Detailed investigation reveals important tendencies and results in the field of world-politics. From the point of vTiew of international relations the developments that have grownl out of our reciprocity history have been even more significant than the economic considerations or the questions of domestic politics involved. Some of our treaties, such as the convention with Hawaii, have led to controversies with foreign governm-nents regarding the most-favored-nation clatuse of existing treaties, and have given rise to an interpretation by our State Departm, ent of the favored-nation clatuse, entirely distinct from the European idea, in which it is held that reciprocity agreements are special arrangements to secure the advalntages of which another governmient 1mutst make grants similar to those conceded by the country with which the reciprocity treaty is made.2 The principal factor of international import, however, to be
- DOI
- 10.1086/251071
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 495-524
- Language
- en
- Sources
- semanticscholar openalex crossref