[Rezension zu S. Cognetti de Martiis: I due sistemi della politica commerciale, I. Parte]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Cognetti de Martiis (1897)

Schullern’s review assesses the first part of S. Cognetti de Martiis’s I due sistemi della politica commerciale (1896), which tests theories of trade policy against Venetian history. Cognetti examines Spencer, Dunoyer, Chevalier, List, Marx, and Ricca-Salerno. Venice’s completed historical trajectory supplies the decisive evidence: its domestic and foreign commercial policies followed neither free trade nor protectionism as an abstract principle, but practical judgments about promoting industry, commerce, and especially shipping for national welfare.

Schullern’s principal reservation concerns the treatment of List, whose historical and specifically national orientation he considers insufficiently emphasized. This criticism establishes his hierarchy of the book’s achievements:

Insbesondere die Darstellung der Listischen Lehre scheint uns etwas zu gedrungen, und ihr historischer und spezifisch nationaler Charakter zu wenig stark markiert; nichtsdestoweniger ist auch der dogmengeschichtliche Theil des Buches sehr verdienstlich; einen erheblich grösseren Wert legen wir aber auf die Geschichte der venezianischen Handelspolitik, welche das eingehende Studium eines jeden Fachmannes vollauf verdient.

English translation: The presentation of List's doctrine in particular seems to us somewhat too compressed, and its historical and specifically national character too weakly marked; nonetheless the doctrine-historical part of the book is also very meritorious; a considerably greater value, however, we place upon the history of Venetian commercial policy, which fully deserves the thorough study of every specialist.

The review thus values doctrinal history while locating the book’s strongest contribution in historical inquiry into actual policy. Its relevance lies in showing how national economic objectives could guide decisions across the conventional opposition between free trade and protectionism. Cognetti’s promised second part would investigate both systems’ effects in contemporary flourishing states. Schullern closes with explicit confidence in that extension:

Wir erwarten mit Spannung diese Fortsetzung einer so vielversprechend begonnenen Arbeit.

English translation: We await with eager expectation this continuation of a work so promisingly begun.