Free Trade and Laissez-Faire

The liberal school claims to have established beyond reasonable doubt that a liberal world trade order conduces to economic prosperity and hence to the maximum of welfare. The freer the trade, the greater and more widespread the benefits. What is quite as important, the benefits are not just widely spread, they accrue to every nation. No nation can do itself as much good as by joining in the drive for freer and freer trade. Indeed what greater combination of benefits could be produced by one single act of policy? Nations would be more secure because the danger of war would recede. They would be more prosperous because competition would lead to all those benefits which Adam Smith had foreseen from the international division of labour based on natural advantages.