The Tariff Controversy with France

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THERE is a curious reversal in the attitudes taken by France and the United States in their controversy regarding tariff rates. France now takes a position which, though she once held it, was given up by her at a date comparatively recent. The United States on her part now holds to one which she has chosen within a very few years, abandoning that which she had maintained through the greater part of her history. The United States once held to reciprocity, and now stands by the policy of most-favored-nation treatment. France once held to the most-favored-nation policy, and now stands by reciprocity.

France, as need hardly be said, has proposed, in the now pending negotiations, to deal with the United States separately, -- quite without regard to what she may do for other countries. What rates of duty she may impose on products from Germany or Italy have no necessary bearing on her commercial relations with the United States. Each and every country is to be dealt with on the merits or demerits of the individual case; it is a matter of quid pro quo with each. This is what has come to be called the policy of reciprocity; a somewhat narrow use of the term, but one convenient for understanding the existing international complications...