Excerpt from The American Commercial Policy: Three Historical Essays The student of the great question of international trade cannot but be struck by the strange contrast between economic science and the actual state of things: on the one hand, science, which during the whole of this century has been endeavour ing to perfect and complete the doctrines of Adam Smith and Ricardo, and which has built up a theory of international trade, esteemed one of its greatest triumphs, proclaiming harmony and union of human interests; on the other hand, history, which lays before us the sad spectacle of animosities and cruelly persistent struggles. The theory of free-trade is held by economists almost as a dogma of faith; history shows us in reality the mercantile policy and the colonial system of past centuries, and the protectionist policy so widely diffused at the present day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.