wine in France, or on wheat in America, would therefore be of no advantage to the French wine-grower, or the American farmer. They are consequently precluded from receiv ing any compensation for the higher price which they are compelled to pay for the various articles that are made. dearer through the operation of protective duties.

11. Protection is defended in America and the Colonies on the ground that, as wages are higher there than in England, the American and colonial traders require protection in order to place them in a position of equality with their English competitors.

This claim for protection is evidently based on the assump tion that the amount of wages paid to laborers is the only element of which account need be taken when considering the cost of producing a particular article. The fallacy of such an opinion at once becomes apparent, when it is re membered that agriculture is the particular branch of indus try in which the difference between the wages paid in England and those paid in America or Australia is the greatest. And yet it is in agriculture that America and Australia can, without the slighest protection, compete most successfully against England. The Illinois or Australian farmer has to pay his laborers at least two or three times as much as is paid by the Dorsetshire or Wiltshire farmer. and yet wheat can be produced much more cheaply in Australia or America than in England. It is therefore obvious that other circumstances, besides the amount of wages which may be paid, determine the cost at which any particular article can be produced; if this were not so, the American farmer would have a much stronger claim to protection against the cheap labor of England than the American manufacturer. The efficiency of labor must manifestly exert quite as much influence on the cost of production as the amount of wages which the laborers receive. The great abundance of cheap, fertile

land in Australia and America so much promotes the efficiency or productiveness of the labor employed in its cultivation, that the cost of producing wheat and other agricultural products is much less than in England, where considerably lower wages are paid to farm laborers. Again, with regard to mining industry, it is evident that various circumstances, such for instance as the richness of the mineral deposits and their depth from the surface, must exercise a far greater effect upon the cost of production than the wages which may happen to be paid to the miners. In manufacturing industry also, the possibility of one country obtaining raw material at a less cost than another, may more than compensate the additional expense which may be thrown upon the manufacturers of the former country by the payment of higher wages. With regard to America and Australia, it is to be particularly noted that the great natural resources which they possess must confer upon them many advantages in industrial competition of which there is no probability that they can be deprived. Their almost inexhaustible supplies of fertile land give them advantages such as are possessed by scarcely any other country. Their mineral resources are so great that if they suffer from foreign competition, it must be through their own want of skill and enterprise. Even in manufacturing industry, where it is supposed that protection is most needed, it must be remembered, that as England imports large quantities of cotton from America, and of wool from Australia, these countries must with regard to some most important branches of manufacturing industry enjoy the advantage of cheaper raw material. It is, moreover, de

serving of special remark, that the difference in wages in countries between which there is an extensive migration of labor must constantly diminish. When emigration has continued for some time, the objections to it are gradually to lessen; it becomes much more of a national

sure

habit, and the prospect of a comparatively small difference in the remuneration of labor may be sufficient to induce people to leave their own country, if they think they shall be settling amongst friends and relations, which would prove altogether inadequate if they had to seek a new home amongst strangers. This increasing readiness to emigrate must exert an equalizing influence on wages, and must cause the difference in wages in the two countries, between which the migration takes place, steadily to diminish.

12. Another argument against free trade is that protection, having been once established, cannot be abolished without causing great loss both to employers and employed in those trades which have been protected.

It cannot, I think, be doubted that the loss which might be inflicted upon many special trade interests by the abolition of protection constitutes by far the most serious obstacle. in the way of general adoption of free trade. Exaggerated estimates are no doubt formed of the loss which would be actually caused; but however great may be the stimulus which free trade would give to the prosperity of such a country as the United States, it would in my opinion be impossible suddenly to abolish protection without causing considerable loss to the employers and employed in many trades which, through its aid, had been fostered into a kind of unnatural existence. No industrial change, however beneficial, has ever been introduced without causing some loss and inconvenience to certain special classes. The mechanical inventions which have done most to enrich mankind were not brought into general use without causing great loss and suffering to many whose labor they sup planted. Seldom has a class endured more severe hardships than were borne by our handloom weavers during the years that they carried on a prolonged and hopeless struggle, striving in vain to compete with products which were made by machinery at a far cheaper rate. Even stage-coaches

could not be superseded by railways without some individuals being injured by the change. Although the aggregate wealth of the country was enormously increased, yet in certain special cases property which was before of great value became almost worthless. Along the roads which used to be our great thoroughfares are still to be found the remains of large inns and posting-houses which formerly let for many hundreds a year; but immediately the railways drew away the traffic these inns so entirely lost their custom that they had scarcely any value at all; many of them were pulled down, and others were converted into cottages. Any attempt to oppose the use of a mechanical invention because of the loss which it may cause to certain individuals meets with almost universal disapprobation. Nothing, it is maintained, can be more unreasonable than to allow the temporary interests of a few to stand in the way of the permanent advantage of the entire nation. If this principle holds good with regard to the benefits conferred upon a nation by the introduction of a mechanical invention, it holds equally true with regard to the still greater benefits which a nation will derive from the adoption of an unrestricted commercial policy.

13. Protection can be advantageously introduced into a young country as a temporary expedient, since various industries which will ultimately prosper without protection require its aid in the early stages of their existence.

This argument in favor of protection, which has been reserved to the last for consideration, is deserving of special attention, not only because of the great weight which is attributed to it by the advocates of protection in the Colonies and in the United States, but also because it has obtained a great amount of importance from the support it received from the late Mr. J. S. Mill. In a passage which protectionists at the present day so repeatedly quote that they seem almost to regard it as the charter of their policy, Mr. Mill says:

"The only case in which, on mere principles of political economy, protecting duties can be defensible, is when they are imposed temporarily (especially in a young and rising nation) in hopes of naturalizing a foreign industry, in itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances of the country. The superiority of one country over another in a branch of production often only arises from having begun it sooner. There may be no inherent advantage on one part, or disadvantage on the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire may in other respects be better adapted to the production than those which were earlier in the field: and besides, it is a remark of Mr. Rae, that nothing has a greater tendency to promote improvements in any branch of production than its trial under a new set of conditions. But it cannot be expected that individuals should at their own risk, or rather to their certain loss, introduce a new manufacture, and bear the burden of carrying it on until the producers have been educated up to the level of those with whom the processes are traditional. A protecting duty, continued for a reason. able time, will sometimes be the least inconvenient mode in which the nation can tax itself for the support of such an experiment. But the protectionism should be confined to cases in which there is good ground of assurance that the industry which it fosters will after a time be able to dispense with it; nor should the domestic producers ever be allowed to expect that it will be continued to them beyond the time necessary for a fair trial of what they are capable of accomplishing."*

There is no one more ready than I am to recognize the high authority of Mr. Mill as an economist, and I will at once admit that the arguments which he advances in favor of the imposition of protection in a young country would

See Principles of Political Economy, by J. S. Mill, fifth edition, vol. ii, p. 525.