6. Mitigation by Tariff 1

(i) Proposals for a Revenue Tariff(March 7, 1931)

Do you think it a paradox that we can con-tinue to increase our capital wealth by addingboth to our foreign investments and to ourequipment at home, that we can continue tolive (most of us) much as usual or better, andsupport at the same time a vast body of personsin idleness with a dole greater than the incomeof a man in full employment in most parts of theworld—and yet do all this with one quarter ofour industrial plant closed down and one quarterof our industrial workers unemployed? Itwould be not merely a paradox, but an im-possibility, if our potential capacity for thecreation of wealth were not much greater thanit used to be. But this greater capacity doesexist. It is to be attributed mainly to three

1 [For some months before the collapse of the gold standardit had become obvious that this collapse was becoming inevitableunless special steps were taken to mitigate the gravity of our pro-blem. Somewhat in desperation, I made various suggestions, and,amongst them, a proposal for a Tariff combined, if possible, witha bounty to exports. Mr. Snowden, endowed with more than anormal share of blindness and obstinacy, opposed his negative toall the possible alternatives, until, at last, natural forces took chargeand put us out of our misery.]