Reciprocity

Reciprocity, in Political Economy, a term for an arrangement between two countries having a protective tariff against other countries, to admit each into the other's territories certain specified taxable articles of commerce duty-free or at exceptionally light duties. The classes of articles are arranged to balance one another on one side and the other. Such mutual arrangements are sometimes called Fair Trade (q.v.) as opposed to Free Trade (q.v.) and thoroughgoing Protection (q.v.), and has been advocated as between Britain and her colonies. The mutual relation between Canada and the United States, advocated in 1885-91 by a powerful party in Canada as well as on the other side of the frontier, proposed a complete commercial union—Zollverein (q.v.); so that, while between Canada and the United States there should be no tariff at all, all goods from the rest of the world (including Great Britain) should have a strong protective tariff to face. See A. J. Wilson's Reciprocity, &c. (1880).