The Curse of Quotas Tariffs are bad enough. Quota systems,
imposing absolute restrictions on the quantity of imports, are still more effective in stifling international trade. Their alleged aim is, by securing a favourable trade balance, to preserve the stability of the national currency. But Germany is finding that they can have exactly the opposite effect. Her scheme to impose new quota re- strictions, cutting down agricultural imports other than grain to 40 per cent. of last autumn's average, has already produced reprisals and threats of reprisals in six countries dependent on the German market, consequent alarm among German industrialists, and sharp dissension in the German Cabinet, where the Minister of Agriculture has been on the side of the quotas and the Ministers for Finance and Economic Affairs strongly against them. But the man who has stopped the new restrictions for the moment—they are to be postponed till after next month's elections—is Dr. Luther, the President of the Reichsbank, acting purely in the interests of the mark. Our own Government, meanwhile, goes cheerfully on adding meat quotas to wheat quotas.
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