Centre and Circumference in a Tariff Protected Area

Extract

It is a current fashion among economists of certain schools to spend a great deal of time and energy in attempting to ascertain the incidence of a given protective tariff upon some particular fraction of the total area at whose borders it is collected. This is not at all surprising, for economists are nothing if not obliging, and when they find a demand they are usually ready to supply it, just as lawyers when they find a case are usually ready to plead it; and there happens to be a keen demand at the moment for arguments which will support the claims of sections—Canadian provinces, Australian states, innumerable other sorts of local organisms within greater organisms—for better treatment by, or for separation from, their respective central authorities. Those economists who are not busy calculating this tariff incidence as felt by the village of Podunk or the Eastern Townships or the Peace River Valley are equally busy denouncing the methods employed by the other economists in their calculations. And I must say that I think the denouncers are doing the more useful job of the two.