SUMMARYThe present paper uses ‘optimality analysis’ in order to evaluate the case for protection. It has been found that the general principles of optimal government intervention remain inviolate both in the ‘static’ welfare‐economics world and in the context of ‘growth’. The vast existing literature on the subject has been critically examined in order to drive home to the reader the main message of the present paper: that arguments for using protection as a primary instrument to remove domestic distortion, arising either from external economies, monopoly elements in production or a rural‐urban wage differential, or from a differential in the rates of transformation between present and future goods are in effect arguments for providing subsidies on domestic production. Also protection is a wasteful policy in order to promote saving and investment. Instead it is far better to achieve this objective more directly by using appropriate fiscal policies. However, under certain conditions, protection may prove beneficial by attracting foreign investors to set up joint projects in the country. The novelty of the general approach of this paper lies in relating the argument to Tinbergen's‘targets—and—instruments’ approach. More emphasis is given in the paper to the infant‐industry argument and the use of tariff to attract foreign capital. This last and the growth‐promotion‐through‐saving argument are the two new topics, not covered in the existing literature, that have been di