Introduction

In 1763, the Duc de Choiseul, Minister to Louis XV, wrote to the President of the Board of Trade, pleading that: ‘pour l’amour de Dieu, ne laissons pas les querrelles de pêcheurs dégénérer en querrelles de nations’ (ed. Coleman, 1969, p. 80). During the intervening centuries progress in human civilisation has been so slow that the quarrels of fishermen continue to degenerate into quarrels between nations. These days, quarrels about fish have little economic significance though still a considerable political significance. But whether or not the competition between producers of different nationalities is in products of economic significance, it continues to generate rivalry between governments. Governments do not doubt that they have a role to play in support of their own producers. Governments believe that they should stimulate exports and discourage imports. Exports are good. Imports of manufactured goods are in part a measure of the failures of domestic industry, in part the reluctant price paid for the right to export. If the price can be reduced, so much the better. Choiseul’s peaceful message has fallen on deaf ears.