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This chapter shows the complex ways in which Hobson's views on imperialism were influenced by his encounter of the First World War and the beginning of the next. During the First World War, his views gradually shifted back towards those he had put forward in Imperialism: A Study, as evident in The New Protectionism and especially in Democracy after the War. After the war and through to the mid-1930s, his views moved in the opposite direction, back to those expressed in An Economic Interpretation of Investment though without ever quite matching the heady optimism of that work. After the war, and to some extent because of it, Hobson's views as expressed in Imperialism: A Study slowly became more acceptable in academic circles and on the left of politics. The chapter ends with a brief summary of Hobson's views on imperialism over the period 1887-1938.

This chapter discusses the first premiership of Lord Derby in 1852. Derby became prime minister of Great Britain in February 1852, just five weeks short of his 53rd birthday. This was the political summit upon which Derby set his sights nearly twenty years before. However, his assumption of office without the possession of power rendered the event less than the triumphant fulfilment of his ambitions. He headed a party with a minority in the House of Commons and with no official experience or talent to compensate for the lack of numbers. In addition to this, Derby also had to contend with the incubus of Protectionism, which had been the focus of the legislative agenda of the Commons majority.

This chapter discusses the establishment of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and its impact on Hong Kong. The chapter explains how, under the GATT framework, Hong Kong obtained access for its industrial products – mainly textiles, garments, toys – in markets around the world. It also discusses growing trade protectionism in major markets in the 1950s and 1960s – much of it directed against Hong Kong products.

This chapter explains the origins and uses of the certificate of origin, used in international trade for goods not entitled to the benefits of a free trade area or customs union. A complex system of certificates of origin were used extensively in Hong Kong, which by the 1960s was exporting goods to over a hundred different markets, each with its own set of origin rules. The chapter examines the Hong Kong government’s involvement in certification of origin and its development in the 1960s, and its attempts to promote free trade in an increasingly protectionist world.

Commonwealth preference was a system of trade co-operation giving varying degrees of preference to products from members of the British Commonwealth. As a British colony, Hong Kong was eligible for commonwealth preference through a certification system similar to that revolving on certificates of origin. However, Hong Kong’s participation in the system, and its application to a wide variety of Hong Kong products, came up increasingly against protectionist sentiment in the UK domestic market. In the end, Hong Kong, along with some other Commonwealth members, was forced into voluntary restraints on its exports, particularly for garments and textiles. This required a system within Hong Kong for administering quotas to factories.

In 1950 the USA introduced the Foreign Assets Control Regulations, which effectively stopped all imports into the USA using Chinese raw materials. Hong Kong’s industry was hit hard by this, and a Comprehensive Certificate of Origin system developed to assure the US authorities that products claiming Hong Kong origin did, in fact, originate from Hong Kong and not from China. This chapter describes the development of that system and the problems that arose in a variety of Hong Kong products – from jade carvings to duck eggs. The chapter also describes the author’s experiences during the Disturbances of 1967 – a series of riots and terrorist incidents in Hong Kong relating to the Cultural Revolution in China.

This chapter describes some of the international trade negotiations in which the author participated, particularly in Europe and the USA. It explains how increasingly the USA sought to impose restraints on textile and other imports from Hong Kong, and how, despite this, Hong Kong negotiators were able, through tactical negotiation, to advance its interest. At the same time, Hong Kong industrialists were upgrading their products to work within the quotas imposed by importing countries.

This chapter examines Hong Kong’s participation in the Multi-Fibre Arrangement, a system under the auspices of the GATT originating in the early 1970s. Originally intended to be merely temporary, the arrangement lasted for 30 years and sought to bring existing international trade agreements relating to textiles and garments under a single umbrella and to provide limited scope for liberalisation. The chapter argues that this arrangement created the intriguing paradox, captured in the title of the book, of enabling Hong Kong to emerge as the world’s largest exporter of garments, prospering while upholding its free trade principles through the acceptance of increasing restrictions on it most important industry.

Hong Kong enjoyed its greatest success with the implementation of the restraint agreements described in preceding chapters, and by maximising the opportunities within them. This chapter examines how the restrictions, including quotas on production, were implemented within Hong Kong through the Department of Commerce and Industry and on the advice of the Textiles Advisory Board.

This chapter discusses the practice of distributing, and redistributing quotas for exports and manufactures in Hong Kong under the trade restraints. The chapter addresses criticisms of the system, in particular the practice of transferring quotas between companies. It concludes that, despite the criticisms, the system worked well and in Hong Kong’s overall economic interests.

This chapter examines repeated renewals and extensions of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement – a system that was originally intended to be only temporary. The author describes his experiences as Hong Kong’s chief trade negotiator in the late 1970s, and the tactics used in international trade negotiations. Several examples and interesting anecdotes are given.

This chapter describes trade negotiations between Hong Kong and the USA and the then European Economic Community (EEC). It contrasts the generally relaxed and flexible style of US negotiators with the more formal style of EEC negotiators, and describes many incidents during the successive rounds of negotiation.

This chapter explores the difficulty of Hong Kong’s position under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in relying on the UK to voice its interests during negotiations when the UK’s own trade interests were very different from Hong Kong’s. It examines the different styles that Hong Kong had to adopt in dealing with different forums and with different counterparties

This chapter examines more generally Hong Kong’s trading relations with western countries in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s in the light of its status as a developing economy. It also addresses the persistent accusations in Britain and other countries that Hong Kong was a sweat-shop economy with appalling working conditions and labour rights, which was flooding the developed world with poor-quality cheap imports.

Perils of Protection utilizes literary and historical parallels to identify a deep structure of protectionism that, through a history of privatizing childhood, has infact left minors increasingly isolated indwindling (and sometimes none xistent) social units such as "nuclear family," vulnerable to multiple in justices made possible by eroded or unrecognized participatory rights. Tracing the ideologies used to rationalize protective encroachment on child participation, the author links these shifts to premise shidden but in herent to industrial modernization, privatized property, and the nuclearized family. This pattern of oppressivelogic will be exposed in the varied contexts of "women and children first "policy in ship wrecks, geographic restriction through enclosing child spaces, abandonment practices, censorship, and medical consent. The authoral so highlights pervasivemotifs of chivalry, fragility, and manipulation through containment: ships in bottles, enclosures, islands, babies in boxes, baskets, playpens, and the "prison-houses" of language and pretense.

The current protectionist paradigm for ethical review of human subjects research is based on an implicit assumption that scientists, left on their own, are either unable or unwilling to fulfil their personal responsibilities to ensure the safety and well-being of individuals participating in their studies. A sound ethical framework exists, but a well-intended effort to implement its principles through rules, regulation and guidance has failed to achieve its intended goals. The resulting process itself is excessively focused on achieving regulatory compliance at the expense of meaningful ethical consideration. Calls for reform focus on relieving regulatory burdens and expediting review and approval without substantively changing the underlying protectionist assumptions. Consistent with modern regulatory science, a pragmatic alternative paradigm based on existing and proven models of professionalism is proposed to address these challenges with greater effectiveness and efficiency. This new approach would require that investigators and research teams be appropriately qualified, assume responsibility for their actions, and aspire to the values delineated by Henry Beecher more than half a century ago—a reasonable and achievable, although so far elusive, goal.

Chapter 2 shows that the failure to develop a jurisprudence incorporating corporate wrongdoing into the architecture of the criminal law is not surprising. It was a consequence of Ireland’s history as a predominantly agrarian state and the resulting political and social inertia surrounding corporate affairs. Ireland remained a largely agrarian state for most of the 20th century. Initially it advanced protectionist policies to shield Irish industry from outside competition and as an assertion of sovereignty. Later, it opened up its economy, embracing free market capitalism to boost the prosperity of the State. However, earlier protectionist policies meant that there was little big business in Ireland so it had neither need nor experience of constructing a regulatory framework. Corporate activity was viewed positively and there was little political reflection on the desirability of corporate accountability and there was even less cultural recognition of the negative effects of corporate activity. The Irish State did not regularly or rigorously review company law and it avoided passing any original Irish company legislation. Corporate wrongdoing was addressed using conventional criminal law, without adoption or reflection, because it was easier than designing a specialised system of corporate enforcement.

Arvid Lukauskas explores the political underpinnings of protectionism and trade liberalization. Lukauskas argues that political factors fundamentally influence commercial policy design and implementation, including the decisions to impose or remove barriers to trade such as tariffs, quotas, and non-tariff barriers. Trade liberalization is most likely to occur when protected industries themselves no longer desire trade barriers or politicians determine that the political costs of protectionism have increased. Deepening globalization has increased the costs of maintaining highly protected markets, giving public officials an incentive to undertake trade reform. To be successful, liberalization must be accompanied by complementary reforms in other economic policy areas, particularly those concerning factor markets. Lukauskas also shows that the international political and economic context in which trade takes place is critical for understanding trade policy as it generates a powerful set of constraints and incentives that policymakers must consider when formulating strategy.

William Richardson was the only Irishmen to refute Thomas Malthus's ideas in his famous Essay on the Principles of Population. This chapter explores Richardson's foray into political economy. Richardson intervened in the debate about agricultural protectionism. He adopted the middle course of some Tories and Whigs which rejected self-interested protection and full scale intervention, classifying the English Poor Law as an example of ‘unskilled intervention.’ He also disagreed with Malthus's argument about the correlation between population growth and famine, citing the Irish experience that more land could be cultivated thus facilitating population growth. This chapter argues that Richardson's real criticism of Malthus was for pronouncing on a country, Ireland, which he had never visited and delivering judgements which discredited the landowning class. His core concern was that post-union governments did not understand Ireland.