IT’S A TOUCH unsettling to discover the proof, however much one might have believed it before, that our rulers are economic illiterates. The European Union, led by our gallant Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, is to place an import tariff of about 20 per cent on imports of Chinese and Vietnamese shoes.

There have been congratulations all round as he suggests that these taxes should be phased in, over some months, to avoid the absurd scenes following his last intervention, when Chinese bra and panty sets piled up in the ports in their millions after the abrupt imposition of quotas. Perhaps the Boys in Brussels who run our trade policy have learnt something, after all? Perhaps — but not actually the important point. Making it more expensive for the mothers of Europe to ensure that their children are properly shod is not a great advance in human welfare.

Unlike the earlier case, where the justification was that the Chinese were simply too good at this form of manufacturing, the shoe tariffs are supposedly necessary because there is state subsidy flowing into the cobblers’ dens of the perfumed East. This is “unfair” competition that leads to dumping: apparently some 215 million pairs of such shoes are being sold at less than the cost of the raw materials.

Leave aside for a moment every economist’s suspicion of such tales of dumping; on close examination they almost never turn out to be true. Think, instead, of what is happening if it actually is true. The taxpayers of Vietnam and China are being gouged by their governments. This money is then — via the subsidy to manufacturers — being offered to us, the shoe buyers of Europe. We get a pair of shoes plus whatever the subsidy was to spend on whatever else it is we wish.

It is near insane that the peasant in the rice paddy be taxed to make us Europeans even richer. But if our rulers actually looked out for us, they wouldn’t slap a tariff on the shoes. No, the only rational response to such an offer of free money is that (attributed to) Calvin Coolidge. When offered his first pay cheque as US President he said to the Treasury messenger who brought it: “Thank you. Please come again.”

The author blogs at timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/