The really important factor, as to raw materials, is access to the market on an equal footing.
In practice there are only two ways in which a State or its citizens can be discriminated against, in time of peace, so far as the State's access to supplies of raw materials is concerned. They are as follows:
(1) By discriminatory export duties, or similar duties. In practice these are not important.
(2) By discrimination in respect of prices, or similar matters, by monopolistic producers. To achieve this result it is necessary not merely that one State should have a "monopoly" of the supply of some raw materials, but also that within that State, the production and sales of the raw materials should be in the hands of monopoly. Further, the domestic monopolistic organization, must, in order that discrimination should be an outcome of the situation, find it profitable (not merely "patriotic") to discriminate in favor of the domestic market. There is no important instance of such discrimination.
Such conjunction of circumstances is one which is exceedingly unlikely to occur. There is more chance that there will be discrimination in favor of the foreign buyer. In short, the matter is not one of great practical importance, for
(1) a raw material supplied only by one State
and (2) controlled, within the State, by a monopoly, which
also (3) finds it profitable to discriminate against foreign buyers
is something to be found only in imagination.
I venture to say that there has never been a time in modern civilization when the people of any country have been prevented by the international situation from obtaining any raw material whatever for which they had the capacity to pay. The only possible exception to this statement has been in time of war[[15]]; and the only possible change in the situation in time of peace would, as I have suggested, amount to some form of compulsory international charity.