quite so certain, that if all countries practised freetrade, all countries would necessarily be gainers. It is possible he may be disposed to believe that many, perhaps most countries, and the most important classes in them would be very great losers.

And certainly the great majority of nations and governments are, and seem likely still to remain, of this opinion.

So that if the maxim at the head of this chapter were as demonstrable as it is disputable, it would still be but a metaphysical abstraction, and a very poor foundation for a wise and practical stateman to legislate upon.

CHAPTER VII.

"Protected manufactures are sickly."

A METAPHORICAL expression, constantly repeated, little contradicted, and therefore by the half-informed believed. Whatever a men hears or reads constantly without contradiction, he is apt to believe. Sale, the translator of the Koran, by constantly poring over it, is Isaid to have become a Mahometan.

But this proposition is so far from being true, that a slight review of the history of any manufacture dis proves it.

All great manufactures had their origin in the protective system. Take our own, the greatest and leas sickly of any. All our own manufactures took thei rise in a system of protective duties, so high as to amount to prohibitions. In addition to this, owing to the fearful hostilities that raged in Europe for nearly quarter of a century before 1815, we enjoyed a furthe accidental monoply of the manufacturing industry o the world. And this stringent protection has not onl created manufactures, but created them where the would not naturally have existed, in spite of grea

natural disadvantages. Other nations have coal and

iron ore as well as we. The United States are even richer in this respect. But other nations have also, what we have not, they have native raw materials. It has been justly observed, that Great Britain is singu. larly poor in the raw materials, which constitute the basis of the greater portion of her manufacturing industry. We have no cotton, no silk, no fine wool. Even our best iron for the manufacture of hard-ware comes from Sweden; our oils, gums, colours, woods, from the ends of the earth.

Next to us in manufacturing industry, is France. Her manufacturing industry, though still inferior to ours, has nevertheless, since the peace, augmented in an even greater ratio, but under strict and jealous protection.

No political parties can differ more widely than do the partisans of the exiled Head of the house of Bourbon (really including the larger portion of the upper and educated classes) from the Orleanists and middle classes; or than these again from the republicans, propagandists, socialists and ultra reformers. Yet on the subject of protection (with the exception of here and there a speculative enthusiast, and a few winegrowers in the south) they are all agreed. Protection to French industry, from the time of Colbert downwards, has been, and will be the policy of whatever party is uppermost in France; and in this policy, and

this alone, will the dominant party receive the support of all other parties. The few French partisans of freetrade being mostly speculative and literary men, we might have supposed that the French newspaper-press, rich as it is in literary talent of the first order, or that at least a considerable portion of it, would be favourable to their views. But it is not so. Nay, the very newspaper which has been for many years the advocate of progress and liberal views, the Constitutionnel, is and always has been, the most determined champion of protection. In fact, among all classes, and in all parts of the country, in the metropolis and in the provinces, the doctrines of protection prevail and flourish. The stupendous natural boundaries of the country, the very Alps and Pyrenees themselves, do not repose on their everlasting foundations more securely than the artificial barriers that protect and foster the native industry of France.*

After France comes Germany. Let any one, before the late struggles, have visited the countries embraced by the Zolverein. To say that protection has there produced manufacturing prosperity, would be to beg the question. But one thing is certain, that exactly co-incident in time and place with the most stringent productive laws, has arisen a manufacturing industry and production of wealth, without an approach to a

* Look at the overwhelming majority for protection, including all parties, in the recent debate of the National Assembly.

parallel in all the former history of Germany. On every side are seen rising mills, factories, workshops, and warehouses, teeming with an industrious and busy population; and so far from agriculture being neglected, it never made more rapid progress, to say nothing of the mining and metallurgical industry, which has also received the most astonishing impetus. Yet with us -the richest country in the world—the Zolverein, in proportion to her vast extent, multitudinous population and increasing wealth, has little trade. But as she has protected herself from the influx of our manufactures, she has undoubtedly been growing richer and busier. Nay, hardware, the product of protected German industry, is actually finding its way into Birmingham itself, and articles of German manufacture are superseding articles of Birmingham make. The more protected are beginning to beat the less protected manufactures on their own ground, The Birmingham people have no power to retaliate. German tariffs take care of that. German thinkers, deeper and more independent than the English, have exposed the shallowness of those theories, which have turned the heads of our rulers. Princes, ministers, philosophers and people, are agreed to maintain the protection which has 30 abundantly justified their sagacity.

Look next at Russia. Examine the protective and jealous tariff of that infant but colossal state: then contemplate its results. Take the testimony of that

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