Tariff Levels and the Economic Unity of Europe

An Examination of Tariff Policy, Export Movements and the Economic Integration of Europe, 1913-1931

H. Liepmann

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138298514
• eBook ISBN: 9781351580724
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The years between the Wars saw rapid and far-reaching changes to the character and distribution of the world's trade. Governments of the world attempted to mould and control their own economies, and economic nationalism grew to unseen levels. This book, first published in 1938, is the comprehensive examination of the European tariffs of the time, and it traces their effects upon the actual course of trade, and in so doing, is one of the few factual studies on the reality of tariffs.

PART I

OBJECTS, METHODS AND LIMITS OF THE INVESTIGATION

I

THE OBJECTS OF THE INQUIRY

PROBLEMS of tariff policy occupy a pre-eminent place in the history of European post-War economy. The number of books and articles in periodicals and newspapers upon tariff questions in the post-War literature of all European countries is beyond computation. An instance of the paramount importance which the tariff problem had attained in questions of post-War economy was the request of the Preparatory Committee of the World Economic Conference of 1927, ¹ addressed to the Economic Secretariat of the League of Nations, to make a statistical inquiry into the levels of tariffs throughout the world. This memorandum was prepared under the supervision of Mr. A. Loveday, the Director of the Economic Department of the League of Nations, and published in the year 1927 with the title Tariff Level Indices. ² Its statistical statement of the general tariff levels of fifteen European and five overseas countries, 1913 and 1925, to which observations by eminent experts on the methods and the difficulties of such investigations were attached, attracted great attention in economic circles, and caused discussions of the problem, even after the conference had closed. ³

Voluminous, however, as is the post-War literature upon the tariff problem, especially upon questions of single tariff rates, the number of inquiries which attempt to provide statistical measurements of levels of whole customs tariffs or greater groups of commodities, in the manner of the Geneva investigation, is very small. Only three noteworthy examples of this character may be cited: first, the inquiries of the English “Committee on Industry and Trade” into the height of duties imposed on England’s most important exports between 1914 and 1924 in her chief markets, which was published in 1926 in the second chapter of the Balfour Report (Survey of Overseas Markets). ¹ Secondly, the inquiry of the Vienna Section of the International Chamber of Commerce into tariff levels in fourteen European states in the year 1926, which was remitted to the World Economic Conference of 1927. ² Thirdly, the report on The Economic Situation of Austria, presented in 1924 to the League of Nations by Sir Walter Layton and Professor Rist. ³

Moreover, comparative studies of the development of the tariff levels in Europe since 1927 are lacking. Recently Professor Condliffe has complained of this fact in the World Economic Survey of the League of Nations, published in 1933. ⁴

In the following inquiry an attempt will be made to repair this omission, for the period from 1927 to 1931, at least with regard to tariff developments in Europe. It will be explained later why the statistical analyses are only continued to the end of the year 1931, and why only the lessons for the present situation (1936) of Europe and the world are drawn from the material discussed in this study. ⁵

There are two main questions which we shall endeavour to answer in this work. These may be quite generally formulated as its two main themes as follows: —

First, statistical bases have been provided for the levels of European tariffs in 1927 and 1931, and for their better appreciation the corresponding figures for the year 1913 are added as a pre-War comparative basis. This has been done in the tables and graphs of the appendix; and the European tariff policy which is expressed by these figures is elucidated in the second part of this study.

Secondly, the influence of the European tariff policy upon the development of the reciprocal foreign trade relations of Continental countries has been analysed. These intra-European foreign trade relations, investigated by Drs. Gaedicke and v. Eynern in a manner very valuable for the present book, are called Die Produktionswirtschaftliche Integration Europas (“The Economic Integration of Europe”), after the title of the study of these two authors; ¹ so that the second main theme of our study consists in an analysis of the effects of European tariff policy upon the economic integration of Europe between 1927 and 1931. The relevant investigations are contained in the third part of the book and are elucidated by numerous smaller tables in the text and a few larger tables in the appendix.

Here important results of recent years (1933–34) are indicated.

The anticipations of the economic future of Europe which are suggested by the individual inquiries in the second and third parts have been summarised in a final chapter on the outlines, causes, and dangers of European post-War commercial policy (between 1927 and 1935).

Before we begin our concrete studies it is necessary, by an examination of the applied methods and limits of such an analysis, to furnish some indication of its very great theoretical and practical difficulties. This will explain why so few statistical inquiries into the levels of whole customs tariffs have thus far been undertaken.

¹ Hereinafter referred to as “W. E. C. 1927.”

² Tariff Level Indices, Geneva, 1927, hereinafter called Tariff Levels.

³ Comp. Loveday’s London lecture in 1928 and its discussion, “The Measurement of Tariff Levels,” in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol. cxii, pp. 487–529, hereinafter called “Loveday.”

¹ Survey of Overseas Markets, chap. ii, pp. 539 et seq., London, 1926, hereinafter called “Balfour Report.”

² Zollhöhe und Warenwerte, Vienna, 1927, hereinafter called Vienna Study.

³ Comp. W. T. Layton and Ch. Rist, The Economic Situation of Austria, Part II, chap. iii, pp. 88–89, Geneva, 1925, hereinafter referred to as the Layton-Rist report.

⁴ World Economic Survey, 1932–33, p. 194, hereinafter called “Survey I.”

⁵ Comp. pp. 41–42 of this book.

¹ Comp. Gaedicke and v. Еупеrn, “Die produktionswirtschaftliche Integration Europas,” Text-u-Tabellenband (Zum wirtschaftlichen Schicksal Europas, Teil i), Berlin, 1933.

II

THE METHODS OF THE INVESTIGATION

PRELIMINARY REMARK: Every measurement of a tariff level demands as its data a knowledge of the system of the customs tariffs involved, of the rates of duties of the goods in question, and of the prices of these commodities. Finally, it must be ascertained what kind of averages have been used in the inquiry.

(a) Tariffs

EVERY duty is a tax imposed by a State on the entry of foreign goods into the country, or on the export of its own commodities abroad. In the former case, we are concerned with import, in the latter with export duties. As export duties played a minor part in European commerce both before and after the War, except in a number of the smaller states (e. g. the Balkan States), they will be left out of account in this study.

Two objectives may occasion the imposition of import duties: the state may desire to raise revenue, in which case they become revenue or fiscal duties.

The second type of import duty did not develop until the mercantilist age, and only in the nineteenth century did it assume considerable proportions.¹ The purpose of this duty consists in impeding—on urgent occasions—in preventing, the importation of foreign goods which are already produced by home industries or are likely to be produced in the future, although at higher prices than those quoted by foreign competitors. These are the protective duties, which, when they prevent import, may be designated prohibitive duties. Their intended effect always lies in raising the price level of the goods upon which a tariff is imposed above the level which unrestricted foreign competition would bring about in the home market. Pure fiscal and pure protective tariffs are antagonistic. For whereas the former strive after the highest possible revenue, and therefore the greatest possible importation of the taxed goods, the latter aim at securing the most comprehensive protection of that branch of home industry which is protected, and therefore the most effective prevention of import. The nature of a revenue tariff, free from any protectionist taint, may only be ascribed to those duties which a country imposes on such imported goods as are neither produced by it nor are likely to be produced by it in the future. (Example: the duties of European countries on colonial produce.)

In view of the pronounced differences in the productive possibilities of European climates or European technique, as well as the frequent admixture of financial and protectionist motives of the various countries when fixing their tariff rates, by far the greater number of all duties of the European states possess a fiscal and protectionist character. ¹

Owing to this mutually exclusive nature of revenue and protective duties, such investigations as those of the League of Nations Memorandum of 1927, or the Vienna Study on the protectionist nature of tariffs, have omitted the fiscal duties on alcohol, tobacco and colonial produce, ² or have subjected them to special calculations. ³

In the present study we shall be concerned only with such duties as those imposed by European countries upon products of European origin between 1913 and 1931; we shall therefore have to include duties on European alcoholic beverages and European tobacco.

For, in the first place, it is not correct that these duties have a purely or primary fiscal importance for all European countries, and are therefore of no significance whatever,¹ in the analysis of the changes in protectionist tariff levels. Secondly, the treatment of the relation between the economic integration of Europe and the development of tariff levels in Europe necessitated their inclusion. For this question involved the discussion of all European tariffs operating t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreward
• Preface
• PART I: OBJECTS, METHODS AND LIMITS OF THE INVESTIGATION
• PART II: OUTLINES OF EUROPEAN TARIFF POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT OF POTENTIAL TARIFF LEVELS BETWEEN 1913 AND 1931. (SEE TABLES AI AND AII OF APPENDIX.)
• PART III: ACTUAL TARIFF LEVELS IN EUROPE, 1913–1931. (See Tables BI-IV of Appendix.)
• APPENDIX—TABLES AND GRAPHS OF POTENTIAL AND ACTUAL TARIFF LEVELS AND OF FOREIGN TRADE RELATIONS OF THE EUROPEAN STATES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX