It would be expedient so to define a "protectionist tariff" as to permit (a) the total prohibition of certain imports; (b) the imposition of sumptuary or revenue customs duties on commodities not produced at home; (c) the imposition of customs duties which did not exceed by more than five per cent a countervailing excise on similar commodities produced at home; (d) export duties. Further, special exceptions might be permitted by a majority vote of the countries entering the Union. Duties which had existed for five years prior to a country's entering the Union might be allowed to disappear gradually by equal instalments spread over the five years subsequent to joining the Union.

The figures in this table are partly estimated, and are probably not completely accurate in detail; but they show the approximate figures with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of the present argument. The British figures are taken from the White Paper of October 23, 1919 (Cmd. 377). In any actual settlement, adjustments would be required in connection with certain loans of gold and also in other respects, and I am concerned in what follows with the broad principle only. The total excludes loans raised by the United Kingdom on the market in the United States, and loans raised by France on the market in the United Kingdom or the United States, or from the Bank of England.