Letters to the Editor
BUY BRITISH GOODS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] pnt,—I should like to express my appreciation of your courteous, if cautious, reply to the psychological problem which I submitted to you. It is evident that the slogan, " Buy British Goods," appeals to the emotion of abstract patriotism, and is in conflict with the economic judgment of the Free Trader ; but that does not explain how the Protectionist, in whom the patriotic emotion reinforces his economic judgment, can conscientiously ignore his principles and buy foreign goods, not for reasons of purse but because Of aesthetic, social, or personal preferences. " The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hand' is the hand of Esau."
The conclusion reached, then, is that the slogan, " Buy
British Goods," is merely an advertising stunt, and that the Protectionist (free trading on his own) is, in your charitable .yiew, deficient in purse or, in your uncharitable view, false to his principles.
In Mr. Bernard Rochfort's explanation, which he so kindly
offers me, there is a serious flaw. The interest on the foreign investment which pays for my foreign purchase will stay abroad unless it comes to this country in material form for which I can pay money—an economic fact which you had already emphasized in connexion with the American debt. If it were possible to earmark and exclude all the imports which formed the interest on our foreign investments, it would have the double effect of robbing the investor of his interest and of depriving the workers of all those jobs in 'connexion with the exported materials which are the substance iliof foreign investments. His economic argunient has, of course, no bearing on the psychological puzzle I propounded and, while I am still puzzled, I am no longer, Sir,
CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN.
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