[A3-4-3]The pottery district of Staffordshire was formerly considered very unfertile. It was industry that first showed how the rich and varied beds of clay at the surface, and the wealth of coal under them, could be fully utilized.
[A3-4-4]Blind free-traders always like to assume that every man capable of working always busies himself; whereas idleness frequently excuses the wasting of its time, by the plea that a remunerative market of the possible new products is improbable, or at least uncertain. CompareJ. Möser, P. Ph., I, 4.Kröncke, Steuerwesen (1804), 324, 328 seq., and even the first German reviewers of Adam Smith inRoscher, Gesch. der N. Oek. in Deutschland, II, 599.
[A3-4-5]Listcalls attention to the case of the stenographic apprentice who writes more slowly for a time than he was wont to formerly.
[A3-4-6]Let us suppose that a country had hitherto produced $10,000,000 worth of corn, and that of this amount it had sent $1,000,000 worth into foreign countries as a counter-value for foreign manufactured articles. It now, by means of a protective tariff, establishes home manufactures, through the instrumentality of which a coal bed or water fall is turned to account. The workmen in the manufactories henceforth consume what was formerly exported. Of course such a change is not effected without loss; but this loss ceases as soon as the home industry becomes the equal of the foreign industry which was crowded out. And then the forces which have been made useful in the meantime appear as clear gain.Listnot unfrequently called special attention to the fact that a consumption of 70,000 persons engaged in home industries means as much to German agriculture as all that it exported to England from 1833 to 1836. (Zollvereinsblatt, 1843, No. 5.)
[A3-4-7]Adam Smith'sfree-trade doctrine has always been contradicted in Germany. Even in 1777, his first great reviewer,Feder, says that many foreign commodities can be dispensed with without damage; and that industries which indemnify the undertakers of them only after a time but which are then very useful to the community in general, would not be begun always without special favor shown them. (Roscher, Geschichte der National Oekonomie, II, p. 599.)Kröncke, Steuerwesen, 324 ff., speaks of attempts towards the education of industries by taxation-favors: "If of ten, only one succeeds, even that is to be considered a great gain." But modern protectionists base themselves chiefly on their interest in the independence of the country, precisely as the free-traders do on that of individual freedom.Ad. Müller, with his organic way of comprehending things, opposes the assumption of a merely mercantile world-market, in which all the merchants engaged in foreign trade constitute a species of republic. (Quesnay.) He also rejects on national grounds the universal freedom of trade as well as the universal empire akin to it; although as a means of opposing it, he suggests not so much a protective tariff as the intellectual cultivation of nationality in general. (Elemente der Staatskunst, 1809, II, 290, III, 215, II, 240, 258.) According toSörgel(Memorial an den Kurfürst v. Sachsen, 1801,) commercial constraint (Handelszwang), by means of export and import duties, is useful in the childhood of manufactures, afterwards injurious, because the powerful incentive to perfection is wanting where no competition is to be feared (67).P. Kaufmann, the opponent of Smith's balance-theory, demands moderate protection against the otherwise irresistible advantages to already developed industrial nations. (Untersuchungen, 1829, I, 98 ff.) The principal advocate in this direction isFr. List, with a great deal of sense for the historical, but with little historical erudition; and after the manner of an intelligent journalist, he reproaches the free-trade school with baseless cosmopolitanism, deadly materialism, and disorganizing individualism. He distinguishes in the development of nations five different stages: hunter-life, shepherd-life, agriculture, the agricultural-manufacturing period, the agricultural-manufacturing-commercial period; and he demands that the state should lend its assistance in the transition from the third to the fourth stage, in the nursing or planting of manufacturing forces in connection, throughout, with the enfeebling of feudalism and bureaucracy, the increase of the middle class, with the power of public opinion, especially of the press, the strengthening of the national consciousness from within and without. CompareRoscher'sreview in the Gött. gelehrten A. 1842, No. 118 ff. As to how List resembles, and differs from Ad. Müller, seeRoscher, Gesch. der N. O., II, 975 ff.;von Thünen'sindependent defense of a protective tariff; Isolirter Staat, II, 2, 81, 92 ff., 98; Leben, p. 255 seq. The socialistMarlo(Weltökonomie, I, ch. 9, 10) distinguishes common products (Gemeinprodukte) which may be obtained equally well in every properly developed country, and peculiar products (Sonderprodukte), like coffee, wine, etc. With respect to the former, he agrees with List; in regard to the latter, with Smith. A protective tariff exerts a constraint on consumers, compelling them to abridge their enjoyments somewhat, and to employ these now in the procuring of instruments of production, in the exercise of skill needed in production and the accumulation of capital. At the same time foreigners should be kept from utilizing home natural forces, and where possible, home manufactures should be helped to utilize foreign natural forces.Marlo, indeed, assumes, as one-sidedly as the followers of Smith do the contrary, that without the tariff the workmen in question would not be employed at all; but he is right in this, that the most fruitful employment of the forces of labor, and the keeping of them most completely busy, mutually replace each other. In France, evenFerrier, Du Gouvernement considéré dans ses Rapports avec le Commerce (1808), had defended the Napoleonic continental system. SeeGanilh, the French List, Theorie de l'Economie politique (1822), who grades the branches of a nation's economy in a way the reverse of Adam Smith, and finds the protective system necessary for the less developed nations, to the end that they may not be confined to the most disadvantageous employments of capital (II, p. 192 ff.). Especially is a greater population made possible in this way (248 ff.). Similarly,Suzanne, Principes de l'E. polit., 1826. Further,H. Richelot, List's translator.M. Chevalier, who recommends free trade for France in our day so strongly, approves the system of Cromwell and Colbert for their own time, and for a long time afterwards (Examen du Système commercial, 1851, ch. 7): a view whichPérinsays is now shared by "all serious writers." (Richesse dans les Sociétés Chrétiennes, 1861, I, p. 510.)Demesnil-Marigny, Les libres Échangistes et les Protectionistes conciliés (1860), bases his protective system on this, chiefly, that it may greatly enhance the money-value of a nation's resources to the detriment of other nations, especially by the transformation of agricultural labor, estimated in money, into the much more productive labor of industry. The value in use of all the national resources[TN 131]is doubtless greatest where full freedom of trade obtains. In Russia,Cancrindemands that every nation should be to some extent independent in respect to all the chief wants to the production of which it has at least a middle (mittlere) opportunity; especially as all civilization, even the higher development of agriculture, must proceed from the cities. (Weltreichthum, 1821, 109 ff. Oekonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaften, 1845, 10, 235 ff.) America's most distinguished protectionist isHamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures presented to the House of Representatives, December 5, 1791.Jefferson'ssaying, that the industry should settle by the side of agriculture, leads us toCarey, who repeats the same idea with wearying unwearisomeness; at first for the reason that the "machine of exchange" should not be allowed to become too costly; but afterwards rather from the Liebig endeavor to prevent the exhaustion of the soil. He describes, indeed, how the East Indian producer and consumer of cotton are united with one another by a pontoon bridge which leads over England. (Principles of Social Science, I, 378.) A good soil and good harbors are the greatest misfortune for a country like Carolina if free trade prevails, because it is turned into an agricultural country (I, 373). The people who, after the manner of the Irish, gradually export their soil, will end by exporting themselves.Careywould force colonies to demean themselves like old countries from the first. If corn be worth 25 cents in Iowa, and in Liverpool $1, for which 20 ells of calico are brought back, the Iowa farmer receives of this quantity about 4 ells. Hence it would be no injury to him were he to supply his want of cotton from a neighbor who produced it at a cost four times as great as the Englishmen. Analogies drawn from natural history, as, for instance, that every organism, the lower it is in the scale of existence, the greater is the homogeneity of its several parts; also a deep aversion for centralization, and hatred of England, coöperate inCarey'srecommendation of the protective system, often called in the United States the "American system," in opposition to the "British," advocated by Webster against Calhoun and Clay against Jackson.John Stuart Mill, Principles, V, ch. 10, 1, allows a protective tariff temporarily, "in hopes of naturalizing a foreign industry in itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances of the country." Peel's colleague, G. Smythe, said, in 1847, at Canterbury, that as an American (citizen of a young country) or as a Frenchman (citizen of an old country with its industry undeveloped), he would be a protectionist. (Colton, Public Economy, p. 81.) EvenHuskissonadmitted, in 1826, that England in the seventeenth century had been very much advanced by its protective system; and that he would continue to vote even now for its maintenance, if there were no reprisals to fear.
SECTION V.
PROTECTION AS A POLICY.
A. So long as a nation is, indeed, politically independent, but economically in a very low stage, it is best served by entire freedom of trade with the outside world; because such freedom causes the influences of the incentives, wants, and the means of satisfaction of a higher civilization to be soonest felt in the country.
B. The further advance which consists in the development of home industries by the country itself, may, indeed, be rendered exceedingly difficult by the unrestricted competition of foreign industries, which are already developed. The carrierson of industry in an old industrial country have a superiority over those in the new, in the amount of capital, the lowness of the rate of interest, the skill of undertakers (Unternehmer) and workmen, generally, also in the consideration in which the whole country hold industry, and the interest they take in it;[A3-5-1]while in the country which has hitherto been merely agricultural, it happens only too frequently that industry is undervalued,and that young industrial talent is, as a consequence, forced to emigrate. How frequently it has happened that England by keeping down her prices for a time has strangled her foreign rivals.[A3-5-2]Even on the supposition of equal natural capacity, the struggle between the two industries would come to a close similar to that between a boy of buoyant spirits and an athletically developed man. What then is to be said of the cases in which the more highly developed nation is at the same time possessed of the more favorable natural advantages, such, for instance, as England possesses over Russia in her incomparable situation in relation to the trade of the world, and which gives her for all distant countries, without any active commerce, a monopoly-like advantage; farther, her magnificent harbors, streams, her well-situated wealth in iron and coal, etc. The advantages of mere priority weigh most heavily, when the great development of all means of transportation almost does away with the natural protection afforded by remoteness; and when, at the same time, a certain universality of fashion, which, as a rule, is governed by the most highly developed nations, causes national and local differences of taste, which could be satisfied only by national or local production, to become obsolete.[A3-5-3]Under such circumstances, it would be possible, that a whole nation might bemade continually to act the part of an agricultural district (plattes Land), to one earlier developed, leaving to the latter, almost exclusively, the life of the city and of industry.[A3-5-4]A wisely conducted protective system might act as a preventive against this evil, the temporary sacrifices which such a system necessitates being justifiable where some of the factors of industrial production unquestionably exist but remain unused, because others, on account of the mere posteriority of the nation, cannot be built up. The abusive term "hot-house plant" should not be used where there is question only of transitory protection, and where there is the full intention to surrender the grown tree to all the wind, rain and sunshine of free competition, and where it is foreseen that it shall be so surrendered.[A3-5-5][A3-5-6]The want of a certain economic many-sidedness which mustbe given to a nation manifests itself in a particularly urgent manner in times of protracted war. Here the error of so many free-traders, that different states should comport themselves towards one another as the different provinces of the same state do, is most clearly refuted.[A3-5-7]
C. No less important is the political side of the question. Since the protective system forces capital and labor away from the production of raw material and into industry, it exerts a great influence on the relations of the classes or estates of a country to one another. The immense preponderance possessed in medieval times by the nobility, agriculture, the country in general as contradistinguished from the city, by the aristocratic and conservative elements, is curtailed in favor of the bourgeoisie, of industry, of the cities generally, and of the democratic and progressive elements. If when the history of a nation is at its highest point, there is supposed a certain equilibrium of the different elements, all of which are equally necessary to the prime of a nation's life, this height is now attained sooner than it would otherwise be. It is no mere accident that in almost every instance, those monarchs who humbled the medieval nobility and introduced the modern era, also established a protective system.[A3-5-8]
D. However, such an education of industry can be attempted with proper success only on a large scale, that is, on a national basis. The least hazardous (unbedenklich) measure of the system, import-duties supposes a relatively short boundary line, such as only a great country, even where its formation is the most favorable imaginable, can possess.[A3-5-9]The greater the tariff territory (Zollgebiet), the less one-sided is its natural capacity wont to be, the sooner may an active competition in its interior be built up, while the foreign market always suffers from uncertainty. Hence all tariff-unions (Zollverein) between related states are to be recommended not only as financially but also as economically advantageous. Between states not related and of equal power, so far-reaching a reciprocity, embracing nearly the whole of economic policy, can scarcely be established; and it would be still harder for it to continue long. If the states not related are of very unequal power, the probable consequence would be the early absorption of the weaker by the stronger.[A3-5-10][A3-5-11]
[A3-5-1]What an advantage it has been to English industry and commerce that the state here so long considered it a matter of honor to have its subjects well represented in foreign countries, to extend their market, etc.
[A3-5-2]Hume, in the parliamentary session of 1828, uses the expression "strangulate," to convey this idea. As early as 1815, Brougham said: "It was well worth while to incur a loss on the exportation of English manufactures in order to stifle in the cradle the foreign manufactures." The report of the House of Commons on the condition of the mining district (1854) speaks of the great losses, frequently in from three to four years, of £300,000 to £400,000, which the employers of labor voluntarily underwent, in order to control foreign markets. "The large capitals of this country are the great instruments of warfare against the competing capital of foreign countries, and are the most essential instruments now remaining by which our manufacturing supremacy can be maintained."
[A3-5-3]Before the development of the machinery system, also, the preponderance of the greatest industrial power could not be nearly as oppressive as later; especially as in highly developed commercial countries, the wages of labor are always high. (List, Zollvereinsblatt, 1843, No. 44, 1845, No. 5, ff.)
[A3-5-4]"Shall the forester wait until the wind in the course of centuries carries the seed from one place to another, and the barren heath is converted into a dense wood?" (List, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 123 seq.) When the Romans had conquered an industrial country, its industries began generally to flourish better, because of the greater market opened to them; whereas, those which had no industries before, continued, for the most part, to remain producers of the raw material after the conquest, also. Related to this is the phenomenon, that the provinces not favored by nature, were much less backward in the middle ages than they are to-day. Compare the description of the misery of Mitchelstown, after the Earl of Kingston had ceased to consume £40,000 there:Inglis, Journey through Ireland, 1835, I, 142. The royal commission appointed to investigate the misery of Spessart in 1852, show that the home-made clothing had gone out of use there, and that the wooden shoes, so well adapted to wooded countries, had been changed for leather ones. This becoming acquainted with foreign wants in a region not adapted to industries, without a large market, greatly increased the distress. As soon as such a region becomes an independent state, a productive system would suggest itself.
[A3-5-5]Listvery well remarks that otherwise most of our fruit trees, vines, domestic animals would be "hot-house plants." And even men are brought up in the hot-house of the nursery, the school, etc. (Zollvereinsblatt, 1843, No. 36.)
[A3-5-6]That a posterior people would never be in a condition to establish industries of their own, where full freedom of trade prevails, I do not by any means assert. Compare the list of industries which attained to so flourishing a condition without the aid of a protective tariff, that they were able to supply foreign markets, inRau, Lehrbuch, II, § 206, a. But when Switzerland is so frequently cited as an illustration in this connection (J. Bowring, On the Commerce and Manufactures of Switzerland, 1836), people forget the many favorable circumstances of another kind which coöperated here to elevate industry; a neutrality of three hundred years, during the French Huguenot War, the Thirty Years' War, the Wars of Louis XIV., and as a consequence of this, no military budgets, few taxes and state debts, etc. In addition to this, at an earlier period, the many mercenary troops, and afterwards the foreign travelers.
[A3-5-7]As free trade in Holland's best period was more an international law than a politico-economical system, so, afterwards, the Dutch protective system grew out of war prohibitions; and, in times of peace, the newly established industry was not abandoned. At last, in the time of its decline, all industries, with a strange logic, sought protection, even the most ancient one, the one whose growth was the most natural, the fisheries. (Laspeyres, Gesch. der volksw. Ansch., 134 ff., 146, 159.) The United States, during the war of 1812, with England, doubled their protective duties. (A. Young, Report on the Customs-tariff Legislation of the U. S., 1874.)
[A3-5-8]Hence, we should not judge the Russian and the American systems of industrial protection, for instance, by the same rule. In Russia, it may be necessary to strengthen artificially the still weak bourgeoisie, and to awaken numberless slumbering forces and opportunities by encouragement of their use by state measures. Here, also, the absolute ruler is called upon, and accustomed to educate his people. In the United States, on the other hand, there is no nobility; the whole nation belongs to the class of burghers, and even the cultivators of the land are raisers of corn, cattle traders, land speculators etc. Considering the universal activity and laborious energy of the people, it is to be expected that every really profitable opportunity will be turned to account in such a country, without any suggestion or assistance from the state. Here, therefore,A. Walker'ssaying is true: America should produce no iron, not because it does not know how, because it has not sufficient capital, because the nature of the country is not adapted to it, or because it has no natural protection, but "because we can do better." (Sc. of W., 94 seq.) Since a democracy cannot, properly speaking, educate the people, the protective duties of the United States are, for the most part, only attempts by one part of the people, who claim to be the whole, to prey upon the other parts.
[A3-5-9]If we suppose three countries, each in the form of a square: A = 1 sq. m., B = 100 sq. m., C = 10,000 sq. m.; there is in A for every mile of boundary ¼ sq. m. of inland country; in B, 2½ in C, 25.
[A3-5-10]Towards the close of the middle ages, the vigorous commercial policy of Venice, for instance, towards Greece, or the Mohammedan power, was thwarted by other Italian cities, Genoa, Pisa, and later, by Florence especially.
[A3-5-11]Why most of the reasons above advanced do not apply to a corresponding "protection" of agriculture by duties on corn, seeRoscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, § 159 ff.
SECTION VI.
WHY THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM WAS ADOPTED.
This explains why so many nations in the periods of transition between their medieval age and their higher stages of civilization, adopted the industrial protective system.[A3-6-1][A3-6-2][A3-6-3][A3-6-4][A3-6-5][A3-6-6]
[A3-6-1]The fact that among the ancients there was so little thought bestowed on the protection of industry is related to the comparative insignificance of their industry. CompareRoscher, Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, 3 ed., 1878, vol. 1, p. 23 ff. It occasionally happened in the east that workers in metal, especially the makers of metallic weapons, were dragged out of the country. ISam., 13, 19; IIKings, 24, 14 ff.;Jerem., 24, 1, 29, 2. Among the Jews, certain costly products were subjected to export prohibitions for fear that the heathen might use them for purposes of sacrifice. (Mischna, De Cultu peregr., § 6.) Persian law, that the king should consume only home products:Athen., V, p. 372; XIV, p. c. 62. The Athenians went farthest in reducing such provisions to a system. Solon had strictly prohibited the exportation of all raw material save oil (Plutarch, Sol., 24), and a complaint was allowed against any one who scoffed at a citizen because of the industry he carried on in the market. (Demosth., adv. Eubul., p. 1308.) The exportation of corn was always prohibited; also that of the principal materials used in ship-building. In war, prohibitions of the exportation of weapons; importation from enemy countries also prohibited. No Athenian was permitted to loan money on ships which did not bring a return cargo to Athens (Demosth.adv. Lacrit., p. 941), nor carry wheat to any place but Athens. (Böckh., Staatsh. der Ath., I, 73 ff.) In Argos and Ægina, the importation of Athenian clay commodities and articles of adornment, prohibited. (Herodot., V, 88; Athen., IV, 13; XI, 60.)
The Athenians imposed a duty of two per cent. both on imports and exports. Similarly, in Rome, where the higher duties imposed on many articles of luxury served an ethico-political purpose. We have, besides, accounts of prohibitions of the exportation of money:Cicero, pro Flacco, 28 (L., 2, Cod. Just., IV, 63). Plato's advice to prohibit the importation of luxuries and the exportation of the means of subsistence (De Legg.) on ethico-political considerations; and the Byzantine prohibition of the exportation of certain articles of display from court vanity. (Porph. Decaerim, p. 271 ff. Reiske.)
[A3-6-2]In Italy's best period, the protective system bears a specifically municipal complexion; in democracies, a guild-complexion; the former especially because of the many differential duties in favor of the capital.
A very highly-developed protective system in Florence. The exportation of the means of subsistence forbidden (Della Decima, II, 13), and so likewise the importation of finished cloths. (Stat Flor., 1415, V, p. 3; Rubr., 32, 39, 41, 43, 45.) In the streets devoted to the woolen industries, it was not permitted to give the manufacturers notice to quit their dwellings, nor to increase their rent, unless the connoisseurs in the industry had admitted a higher rate of profit. (Decima, II, 88.) In order to promote the silk industry, the importation of silk-worms and of the mulberry leaf was freed from the payment of duties in 1423, the exportation of raw silk, cocoons and of the mulberry leaf forbidden in 1443; and in 1440, every countryman was commanded to plant mulberry trees. (Decima, II, 115.) When Pisa was subdued, the Florentines reserved to themselves all the wholesale trade, and prohibited there all silk and woolen industries. (Sismondi, Gesch. der italienischen Republic, XII, 171.) It was a principle followed by Milan in its best period, to exempt manufacturers from taxation. Yearly subsidies, accorded about 1442, to Florentine silk-manufacturers, who immigrated; in 1493, a species ofexpropriation, in case of houses which a neighbor needed for manufacturing purposes. (Verri, Mem. Storiche, p. 62.) Bolognese prohibition of the exportation of manuscripts, because they wanted to monopolize science. (Cibrario, E. polit. del. medio. Evo., III, 166.) Even in the seventeenth century, a city like Urbino forbade the exportation of cattle, wheat, wood, wool, skins, coal, as well as the importation of cloth, with the exception of the very costliest kinds. (Constitut. Due. Urbin., I, p. 388 ff., 422 ff.)
[A3-6-3]In England, since the fourteenth century, all genuinely national and popular kings always bore it in mind both to secure emancipation from the Hanseates, to invite foreigners skilled in industry to the country (the Flemings since 1331, although the English people disliked to see them come;Rymer, Foedd., IV, 496) and to adopt protective measures, especially when they had reason to rely on the bourgeoisie. (Pauli, Gesch. von England, V, 372.) The precursors of the navigation act, 1381, 1390, 1440. (Anderson, Origin of Commerce.) The prohibition of exporting raw wool (1337, II Edw. III., c. 1 ff.) lasted only one year. Wool remained a long time still so much of a chief staple commodity that in 1354, for instance, £277,000 worth were exported; of all other commodities taken together, only £16,400. (Anderson.) On the other hand, the prohibition to import foreign stuffs (1337), for instance, was repeated in 1399, and the prohibition to export woolen yarn and unfulled cloths in 1376, 1467, 1488. The statutes of employment operated very generally. The statutes provided that foreign merchants should employ the English money they received only to purchase English commodities, and their hosts, with whom they were obliged to live, had to become security therefor. Thus, in 1390, 4 Henry IV., c. 15, and 15 Henry IV., c. 9; 18 Henry VI., c. 4, 1477. Prohibitions of the exportation of money, 1335, 1344, 1381. Even in the case of payment by the bishops to the pope, the exportation of money was forbidden in 1391, 1406, 1414. Henry VIII. (3 Henry VIII., c. 1) threatened the exportation of money with the penalty of double payment. Even in 1455, the importation of all finished silk wares was prohibited for five years. See a long list of similar prohibitions inAnderson. The prohibitions relating to the exporting of raw materials, and especially wool, were exceedingly strict in Elizabeth's time, and stricter yet in the seventeenth century. The penalty of death was attached to their violation, and producers subjected to the most burthensome control. Moderated especially by 8 Geo. I., c. 15. In the eighteenth century we again find a series of import-premiums for raw material from the English colonies. CompareAdam Smith, IV, ch. 8.
[A3-6-4]Sismondi, Histoire des Français, XIX, 126, considers as the beginning of the French industrial protective system, the edict of 1572, by which, with a view of promoting the woolen, hemp and linen manufactures, the exportation of the raw material and the importation of the finished commodities are prohibited. (Isambert, Recueil, XIV, p. 241.) Yet even Philip IV., in 1302, had prohibited the exportation of the precious metals, of corn, wine and other means of subsistence. (Ordonn., I, 351, 372.) About 1332, the decision of the question whether the exportation of wool also should be forbidden was made to depend on who offered the most, the raw-producers or those engaged in industry. (Sismondi, X, 67 seq.) The third estate not unfrequently asked for protective measures from the parliaments: thus, in 1484, a prohibition against the importation of cloth and silk stuffs, and against the exportation of money (Sismondi, XIV, 673), claims which went much further in 1614, when freedom of trade, reform of the guilds, etc., were desired. Opposition of Sully to the industrial-political measures of Henry IV., whose prohibition of foreign and gold stuffs lasted scarcely one year. (Forbonnais, Finances de Fr., c. 44.) The edict of 1664, which, for the first time, created a boundary tariff-system for the greater part of France, with the removal of numerous export and import duties of the several provinces, and the abolition even of the duty-liberties of the King's court, marks an epoch. The introduction in which Colbert lets the King speak of his services to the taxation-system, the marine, colonies, etc., in which he describes the chaos of those earlier duties, and demonstrates their desirability of doing away with them, is very interesting. Colbert, inconsistently enough, allowed a number of export duties for industrial products to remain, that he might not alienate any domanial rights. (Forbonnais, I, 352.) The tariff, then very moderate, was, in 1677, doubled in part, and even trebled, which provoked retaliation, and led to the war of 1672. Hence, in 1678, the tariff of 1664 was, for the most part, restored. Colbert entirely prohibited these commodities, which were still imported, spite of the tariff: thus, Venetian mirrors and laces in 1669 and 1671. Among his characteristic measures are the export-premiums for salt-meats which went to the colonies in order to draw this business away from Holland to France. (Forbonnais, I, 465.) He caused the transit between Portugal and Flanders to be made through France by providing that it should be carried on by means of royal ships at any price. (Forbonnais, I, 438.) CompareClement, Histoire de la vie et de l'Administration de C. (1846).Jonbleau, Études sur C. ou Exposition du Système d'Économie Politique suivi de 1661 à 1683 (II, 1856). Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de C. publiés par Clément (1861 ff.).
[A3-6-5]In Germany, the tariff projects of the empire of 1522, contemplated no protection, inasmuch as imports and exports were equally taxed, but the importation of the most necessary means of subsistence was left free. Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals in 1524; of the exportation of raw woolmit grossen Haufen(R. P. O., of 1548, art. 21; 1566, and in the R. P. O. of 1577, limited to the pleasure of the several districts). Hence, in Brandenburg, 1572 and 1578, the Saxons, Pommeranians and Mecklenburghers were prohibited to export wool and to import cloth, in retaliation. Individual states had much earlier adopted protective measures: Göttingen, in 1430, prohibited the exportation of yarn, and in 1438, the wearing of foreign woolen stuffs. (Havemann, Gesch. von Braunschweig und Luneburg, I, 780 seq.) Hanseatic politics recall in many respects the Venetian. After 1426, the sale of Prussian ships to non-Hanseates was made as difficult as possible; and in 1433, the importation of Spanish wool was prohibited in order to compel the payment of debts by Spain. (Hirsch, Gesch. des Danziger, H. 87, 268.) Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals to Russia at the end of the thirteenth century.Sartorius, II, 444, 453, III, 191. The elector, Augustus of Saxony, forbade the exportation of corn, wool, hemp and flax (Cod. Aug. I., 1414). The Bavarian L. O., of 1553, prohibits generally the sale of corn, cattle, malt, tallow, leather or otherPlennwertheto foreigners; which prohibition was, in 1557, limited to cattle, malt, tallow, wool and yarn.
The protective system received its most important development in Prussia. Prohibition by the margrave, about the end of the thirteenth century, of the exportation of woolen yarn. (Stengel, Pr. Gesch., I, 84.) In the privilege accorded to the weavers of woolen wares, in 1414, the importation of the less important cloths is forbidden for two years. (Droysen, Preuss. Gesch. I, 323.) The prohibition of the exportation of wool of 1582 assigns as a reason of the prohibition, that the numerous leading weavers should not be ruined for the sake of a few unmarried journeymen and sellers. (Mylius, C. C. M., V, 2, 207.) In the prohibitions of 1611 and 1629, the domains, the estates of prelates and knights were exempted; similarly, in Saxony, 1613-1626; which is one of the many symptoms of the then growingJunkerthum. The great elector, who attached, both in war and peace, great value to the possession of coasts, men-of-war and colonies, forbade, for instance, the importation of copper and brass wares (1654), of glass (1658), of steel and iron (1666), of tin (1687); farther, the exportation of wool (1644), leather (1669), skins and furs (1678), silver (1683), rags (1685). Home commodities were, for the most part, stamped with the elector's arms, and all which were not so stamped were prohibited. The prohibition was generally preceded by a notice that the elector had himself established or improved a manufactory, or that the guilds (Innungen) had entered complaints against foreign competition. Not till 1682 did the idea occur to impose a moderate excise on the home product to be favored, and a much higher duty on the foreign one; thus in the case of sugar. (Mylius, IV, 3, 2, 16.) Frederick I. continued this system especially for the forty-three branches of industry hitherto unknown, and the introduction of which was contemporaneous with the reception of the Huguenots. (Stengel, 3, 48, 208.) Frederick William I., in 1719 and 1723, threatened the exportation of wool, under certain circumstances, with death. (Mylius, V, 2, 4, 64, 80.) The severity with which he insisted that his officials and officers should wear only home cloth is characteristic; and the fact that in 1719 he threatened tailors who worked foreign cloth, with heavy money fines and the loss of their guild-rights. At the same time all workers in wool were freed from military duty, and capitalists who had loaned money to wool manufacturers were given a preference (1729). Frederick the Great, who continued nearly all this, prohibited the exportation of Silesian yarn, with the exception of the very coarsest and finest, as well as of that which had been bleached. Its exportation was allowed to Bohemia only, because from here the linen went back again to Silesia to be bleached and sold there. (Mirabeau, De la Monarchie Pruss., II, 54.)
[A3-6-6]Important beginnings of a protective system in Sweden, under Gustavus Wasa, and again under Charles IX., the violent opponent of the supremacy of the nobility (Geijer, Schwed. Gesch. II, 118 ff., 346); while Christian II., of Denmark, failed in all such endeavors. The founder of the Russian industrial protection was Peter the Great, who was in complete accordance with the native theorist,I. Possoschkow: CompareBrückner, in the Baltische Monatschrift, Bd. VI (1862), and VI (1863). Spain first adopted a real protective system under the Bourbons. The export prohibitions issued mostly at the request of the cortes between 1550 and 1560 (Ranke, Fürsten und Völker, I, 400 ff.) must be considered as a remnant of the medieval scarcity-policy, induced principally by a misunderstood depreciation of the precious metals.
SECTION VII.
HOW LONG IS PROTECTION JUSTIFIABLE?
All rational education keeps in view as its object, the subsequent independence of the pupil. If it desired to continueits guardianship, the payment of fees, etc., until an advanced age, it would thereby demonstrate either the pupil's want ofcapacity or the absurdity of its methods. The industrial protective system also can be justified as an educational measureonly on the assumption that it may be gradually dispensed with; that is, that, by its means, there may be a prospect ofattaining to freedom of trade.[A3-7-1]In the case of all highly civilized nations, the presumption is in favor of freedom of trade,both at home and abroad, and in such nations, the desire for a protective system must be looked upon as a symptom of disease.[A3-7-2][A3-7-3]It is true, that recently the inferiority of young countries, even when inhabited by a very active and highly educated people, is greatly enhanced by the improvement of the means of communication. But this is richly compensated for by the simultaneous instinct towards emigration, both of capital and workmen from over-full, highly industrial countries; whereas, the prohibitions by the state, that extreme ofexportation embargoes, formerly so frequently resorted to, it is no longer possible to carry out.[A3-7-4][A3-7-5]Now the young country has the advantage of being able immediately to use the newest processes of labor, etc., without being hindered by the existence there of earlier imperfect apparatus. It is certain that international freedom of trade must be of advantage to a people's nationality the moment they have attained to the maturity of manhood, for the reason that they are thereby forced to make the most of that which is peculiar to them. Care must be taken not to confound many-sidedness with all-sidedness.[A3-7-6]The best "protection of national labor" might consist in this, that all products should be really individually characteristic (artistic), all individuals really national, and national also in their tastes as consumers. Thisideal has been pretty closely approximated to by the French in respect to fashionable commodities, so that they will hardly purchase such from abroad, even without a protective tariff; and the cultured of most nations in respect to works of art. Here, too, it is worth considering, that even the most national of poets, when they are great enough to rise to the height of the universally human, possess the greatest universality.[A3-7-7]
[A3-7-1]Colbertadvised the companies in Lyons to consider the privileges granted them only as crutches, by means of which they might learn to walk the soonest possible, it being the intention afterwards to do away with them. (Journ. des Econom., Mai, 1854, p. 277.) Thiers said, in the chamber of deputies, in 1834:Employé comme représailles,[TN 132]le tarif est funeste; Comme faveur, il est abusif; Comme encouragement à une industrie exotique, qui n'est pas importable il est impuissant et inutile. Employé pour protéger un produit, qui a chance de réussir, il est bon; mais il est bon temporairement, il doit finer quand l'education de l'industrie est finie, quand elle est adulte.Schmitthenner, Zwölf Bücher vom Staate, I, 657 ff., admits that full freedom of trade between England and Germany would be advantageous to the world in general; but that England might here secure the entire gain even at the cost of Germany, in part.Schmitthenner'sview is distinguished from that ofList's, against whichSchmitthennerzealously seeks to maintain the priority of his own (II, 365), disadvantageously enough, by this, that it contains no pledge of subsequent freedom of trade.List, on the contrary, considers universal freedom of trade, not only as the ideal, but also as the object which is to be striven for by temporary limitations on trade; an object, indeed, attainable only where there are a great many nations highly developed and in an equal degree, just as perpetual peace supposes a plurality of states equal in power. Ges. Schr., II, 35; III, 194. Compare, on this point,Hildebrand, N. O. der Gegenwart und Zukunft, I, 87. ThatCareyadvocates a perpetual protective tariff is connected with his absolute inability to conceive the Malthusian law of population. (Held, Carey's Socialwissenschaft und das Merkantilsystem,[TN 133]1866, p. 166.)
Thus, for instance, the prohibition of foreign cloths in Florence begins in 1393, that is, at a time when the protected industry had long been developed, so that its products were exported on a great scale, but when it began to fear the young, vigorous, competition of the Flemings.
[A3-7-2]How frequently it happened in the conquests of the French revolution or of Napoleon, or when the Zollverein was extended, that two territories, now united to each other, feared an outflanking of their industries, each by the other, whose competition was formerly excluded; and that, afterwards, the abolition of the barriers to trade worked advantageously to both parties! (Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, VII, ch. 3.) The Belgian manufacture of (coarse) porcelain flourished under Napoleon, spite of the competition of Sèvres. It declined after the separation from France, notwithstanding protective duties of 20 per cent. (Briavoinne, Industrie Belge, II, 483.) The French cotton manufacturers feared, in 1791, that the incorporation of Mülhausen would necessarily produce their downfall.
[A3-7-3]In Venice, the relations of a workman who had emigrated and refused to return home were imprisoned. If this was of no avail, the emigrant was to be put to death. (Daru, Hist. de V., III, 90.) It is said that this was still the practice in 1754. (Acad. des Sc. mor. et polit., 1866, I, 132.) Florence, in 1419, threatened its subjects who carried on the brocade or silk industry, in foreign countries, with death. Similarly, when the Nürnberg Rothgiessers were prohibited, under pain of the house of correction, showing their mills to a stranger. (Roth, Gesch. des N. Handles, III, 176.) In Belgium, enticing manufacturers of bone lace to emigrate was made punishable. Austrian prohibition for glass-makers, in 1752; for scythe-makers, in 1781. Colbert also approved of the imprisonment of manufacturers desirous to emigrate. (Lettres, etc., II, 568 ff.) By 5 Geo. I., ch. 28, and 23 Geo. II., ch. 13, the soliciting of an artificer to emigrate to foreign countries is punished by one year's imprisonment and £500 fine; and even workmen who do not respond to a call home within six months lose all their reachable property in England, and their capacity to inherit there. Every emigrant had to certify that he was no artificer. The only effect of this law was that the emigration of artificers to the United States was made by the way of Canada; the poorer ones, at most, were kept back by the cost of this circuitous route. Hence the law was repealed in 1825. Compare Edinb. Rev., XXXIX, p. 341 ff.
[A3-7-4]The first English prohibition of the exportation of machinery was made in reference to the Lee stocking frame, in 1696, the second in 1750; whereupon others followed very rapidly after 1774. As late as 1825, prohibitions of the exportation of a large number of machines and of parts of machines were still in force; but the Board of Trade might dispense with them. Here it was considered whether a greater disadvantage was caused to the industries by permitting the exportation, or to the manufacturers of the machines by prohibiting it.Porter, Progress, I, 318 ff., recommends full freedom of exportation especially for the reason that Englishmen can now procure all new machines, and sell the old ones to foreign countries. On the other hand, a French manufacturer purchased old machinesparce que sous le système prohibitif je gagnerai encore de l'argent avec ces metiers. (Rau, Lehrbuch, II, § 209.) Similar cases in the United States.Cairnes, Principles, p. 485.
[A3-7-5]Bandrillart, Manuel, p. 299. Every nation needs, in order to become fully mature, an industry of some magnitude. But it may just as well be the silk industry as the cotton which shall lead to this maturity; and when the nation has much greater natural capacity for the former than for the latter, it would do well to reach its object by the shortest course.
[A3-7-6]Riehl, die deutsche Arbeit, p. 102 ff., 107. Shakespeare, the most English of Englishmen, and yet the most universal of poets! During the last centuries of the middle ages most nations had come to have national and even local costumes which were in strong contrast with the universality of fashions during the age of chivalry. This must have greatly contributed to the advancement of industry, even before the introduction of the state protective system.
[A3-7-7]How much more convenient it is for the statesman, when he does not need to give any thought to the education of industry, is shown, especially by the great difficulty of striking precisely the proper height of a protective tariff. If too low, it fails of its object; and so, likewise, if too high; because then, in a very unpedagogical way, it lulls one into a lazy security. And how impossible it is to make the tariff vary with every variation in the cost of production, in price, etc.; as List desired it should, not, however, without a good deal of variation in his own views. (Roscher, Gesch. der N. O., II, 989 seq.) How greatly would not List have been obliged to limit his assumptions, if he had lived to see the universal exposition of 1862, at which English connoisseurs expressed their pleasure that England had not remained behind France and Germany in locomotive building? (Ausland, 19 Oct., 1862.) HenceSchäffleopposes all protective duties as an educational measure, because the "protected" classes, by means of diets (Landtage), newspapers, etc. so greatly influence legislation; that is, the educator is influenced by the pupil! (System, 409 ff.) The usual calculation of the cost for home undertakers (Unternehmer) can always only strike the average, and hence it is too high for some and too low for others. (Rau, Lehrbuch, II, § 214.) It frequently occurs that large manufacturers already existing desire a low protective tariff to facilitate their competition with foreign countries, possible even without such tariff, but not high enough to encourage others to compete with them at home.
SECTION VIII.
INDUSTRIAL-PROTECTIVE POLICY IN PARTICULAR.
If it be once established generally that an industry is to be artificially promoted, and if there be question only of a choice between the different measures to be adopted to thus promote it, moderate[A3-8-1]import duties are not only the most equable, leastsubject to abuse, but also attended by the greatest number of secondary advantages. Here the sacrifice is imposed on all the consumers of the "protected" commodity, that is, on the entire people, to the extent that they come in contact with the commodity in question. Export duties on raw materials, on the other hand, compel one single class of the people to make sacrifices in order to advance the favored industry.[A3-8-2]Export premiums for commodities on which labor has been expended are distinguished from import duties as the offensive from the defensive: the former promote the artificial trade, the trade which has gone beyond its natural basis, the latter curtail it.
Premiums, advances without interest, gifts of machinery etc., to persons engaged in industry would operate very usefully under an omniscient government.[A3-8-3]But they generally fall to the lot not of the most skillful manufacturers, but of the most acceptable supplicants, who now are doubly dangerous to the former as competitors.[A3-8-4]The same is true to a still greater extent of monopolies granted to undertakings whichit is intended to promote.[A3-8-5]They require, at least, to be vigilantly superintended in case of sale from one person to another; otherwise the individual to whom they were first granted is very apt to withdraw with the capitalized value of the privilege accorded, and his successors, loaded with a heavy debt in the nature of a mortgage, to derive no advantage from it.[A3-8-6]
Further, import duties, besides the fiscal advantage which they afford, have the police advantage that they may, like quarantine provisions, prevent somewhat the inroads of many economic diseases: thus, for instance, gluts of the market, and still more, the severe chronic disease of ruinously low wages.[A3-8-7]But only very moderate hopes from protective duties should be entertained in all such respects as these.[A3-8-8]
Prohibition proper operates, as a rule, very disastrously.[A3-8-9]It spoils those engaged in industry by a feeling of too great security (mortals' chiefest enemy: Shakespeare). It may even lead to complete monopoly, when the industry requires very large means and the country is small. The inducement to smuggling is peculiarly great here. But even duties, so high that they far exceed the insurance premium of smuggling, can be of very little advantage either to industry or to the exchequer. They can only promote the smuggling trade. However, the repeal of an import prohibition or the abolition of a tariff approaching to a prohibition should be announced long enough in advance to enable the capital invested in the protected industry to be withdrawn without too heavy a loss.
[A3-8-1]In general,Mäserwas in favor ofColbert, and opposed toMirabeau. (P. Ph. II, 26.) He ridicules the prohibitions of the exportation of raw material by saying that not only flax-seed, flax-yarn, but also the linen, must remain in the country. As Raphael Mengs once ennobled four ells of linen to a value of 10,000 ducats, a hundred Mengs should be sent for, to the end that all the linen should be exported painted. (v. 25.)
[A3-8-2]Rau, Lehrbuch, II, § 214, would prefer to tolerate state premiums (politically so dangerous), rather than protective duties, because, in the case of the former, the magnitude of the assumed sacrifice may be exactly estimated in advance. Similarly,Bastiat, Sophismes, ch. 5.
[A3-8-3]Many striking examples inList'sZollvereinsblatt, 1843, No. 47.
[A3-8-4]UnderColbert, the granting of a monopoly had frequently no effect but to ruin an already existing rural industry in the interest of a city manufactory. Thus, in the case of lace, in Bourges and Alençon, and soap in the south, etc. The upshot of the matter in some places was simply that the carriers on of industry on a small scale were allowed to carry on their industries in consideration of a payment made to the owners of the privilege. (Journ. des Econ., 1857, II, 290.) The King of Denmark bought back, in 1756, at a high price, industrial privileges which his predecessors had granted gratis. (Justi, Polizeiwissensch., § 444.) The Colbert monopoly of the Hollander v. Robais (1665), who was the first to manufacture fine cloths in France, was not abolished until 1767. (Encycl. Mech. Arts et Manuf., II, 345.)
[A3-8-5]Thus, for instance, in 1863, the apothecary shops of the governmental district of Breslau had a value of 2,791,227 thalers, of which the land and inventories of stock were only 29 per cent. The concessions represented 71 per cent. The sick, in the entire state of Prussia, were obliged to contribute 1,780,000 thalers a year to compensate these monopolists. CompareBrefeld, Die Apotheken, Schutz oder Freiheit? (1863).
[A3-8-6]Hermann, in his review of Dönniges' System des freien Handels und der Schützzölle (Münch. G. A. Sept. und Octbr., 1847) calls attention to the point that a decrease of the cost of production, by merely lowering wages, is no gain to the national resources, but only an altered distribution of them, for the most part a very unfavorable one. But when a nation is advancing on this road, it may strengthen its exportation by such means, as it might granting export premiums at the expense of the workmen. This would lead, on the supposition of entire freedom of trade, to a corresponding depression of the lower classes in other countries; and against such contagion a protective tariff may operate in a manner similar to the quarantine. This is much exaggerated byColton, Public Economy of the United States (1849), p. 65, 178. America needs a protective tariff more than any other nation, because of its dear workmen and capital. In Europe, the upper classes rob labor of its product, while in America, labor itself enjoys its products. Free trade would lower America to the level of Europe.
[A3-8-7]Severe crisis in the woolen industries of America in 1874 ff., spite of an enormously high protective tariff. The financial utility of a protective tariff can be scarcely great, because the intention of the tariff to permit as little as possible to be imported, and of the tax to levy as much as possible, are irreconcilable.
[A3-8-8]Frederick II., in 1766, forbade the importation of 490 different commodities which, up to that time, had only paid high duties. (Mirabeau, Monarchie, Pr., II, 168.) In 1835, France still had 58 import and 25 export prohibitions.
They might, by way of exception, become necessary, in case a foreign state should desire to make our protective duties illusory by export premiums. But the exportation of Prussian cotton stuffs, for instance, has increased, with a moderate tariff, much more than the Austrian, with full prohibition. The English silk manufactures were, so long as the prohibition continued, inferior to the French, even in respect to the machinery system. (McCulloch, Statist., I, 681.)
[A3-8-9]In the case of circulating capital this is generally done rapidly. The machines would have worn out, and care is taken not to renew them. Buildings also can, for the most part, serve other purposes. The most difficult thing of all is for the masses of men, gathered together at the principal seats of industry, artificially created, to distribute themselves. Between the two rules: "No leap, but gradual transition," and "cut the dog's tail off at once, not piecemeal," the right mean is struck in the abolition of a prohibitive protection, when, what it is intended to do, is announced long in advance without maintaining vain hopes, and a long space of time is left to enable people to make their arrangements accordingly. This plan was followed in a model manner in reference to the English silk prohibition, under Huskisson. It was announced as early as 1824 that protective duties of 30 per cent. would on the 5th of July, 1826, take the place of the prohibition. The duty on raw silk was immediately reduced from 4 sh. to 3d. per pound, and after a time, even to 1d., which so increased the demand that the number of spindles rapidly increased from 780,000 to 1,180,000. During the 10 years from 1824, the importation of raw and twisted silk amounted to about 1,941,000 pounds, and in the 10 years after, to 4,164,000 pounds. The English exports of silk wares had before 1824 a value of £350,000 to £380,000; in 1830, of over £521,000; in 1854, of almost £1,700,000; in 1863, of £3,147,000. ComparePorter, Progress, I, 255 ff. On the other hand, Austria was over-hasty when it went over from the prohibition of foreign silk stuffs to duties of 180 florins per cwt. (Oest. Weltausstellungsbericht von 1867, IV, 140.)
SECTION IX.
WHAT INDUSTRIES ONLY SHOULD BE FAVORED.
That as a rule only such industries should be favored which, by reason of the natural capacities of the country and of the people, have a good prospect of being able soon to dispense with the favors accorded, would be self-evident were it not for the fact that it has been ignored a thousand times in practice.[A3-9-1]It is especially necessary to take the natural station (Standort)[A3-9-2]as well as the natural succession of the different branches of industry into consideration. Half manufactured articles offoreign raw material should not be protected until the entire manufactured article has completely outgrown protection; which condition manifests itself most clearly by a strong, independent exportation of the article.[A3-9-3]The celebrated tariff controversy between the cotton spinners and the weavers in the Zollverein was probably without any conscious plan, but certainly to the well-being of German industry, settled essentially in accordance with these principles. In such struggles of the different stages of a branch of production with one another, it is necessary not only mechanically to weigh the number of workmen, the amount of capital, etc., on both sides, but also organically the capacity for development and the influence of both sides on the entire national life.[A3-9-4]Half-manufacturedarticles of a very superior quality should not be kept away, since by promoting commodities of the first quality they have an educational influence on the whole industry. Thus, in the case of the duties on iron, it should not be forgotten, that they enhance the price of all instruments of industry.[A3-9-5]Just as objectionable are protective duties for machines or for intellectual elements of training.[A3-9-6]
[A3-9-1]Torrenscalls an industry which can, in the long run, bear no competition: "A parasitical formation, wanting the vital energies while permitted to remain, and yet requiring for its removal a painful operation." (Budget, p. 49.) Especially frequent in the case of luxury—industries in which the court was interested. The oysters which were sent for to Venice under Leopold I., in order to stock the artificial beds in the garden of the president of the Exchequer reached Vienna, dead. (Mailath, Gesch., IV, 384.) As to how Elizabeth, and Catharine II. in Russia, desired to compel the cultivation of silk, and caused the peasantry to be levied like recruits for that purpose; as to how the latter petitioned against it in a thousand ways, and endeavored to destroy the silk worms, mulberry trees, etc., seePallas, Reise durch das südliche Russland, I, 154 ff. Frederick II.'s silk-protection is characterized mainly by the order for church-inspectors to keep tables (Tabellen) concerning it, and to look after clergymen's and teachers' knowledge of the cultivation of silk. Tragico-comic endeavors of the Shah Nasreddin to establish manufactories in Persia:Pollak, Persien, II, 138 ff. One of the principal effects of the Mexican protective system, since 1827, was the establishing of manufactories on the coast only to cover up smuggling. (Wappäus, Mexiko, 83 ff.)
[A3-9-2]When Holland stunted its bleach-yards by high duties on linen, an industry in which it must always remain behind many other nations, was favored at the expense of another for which it possesses incomparable advantages.
[A3-9-3]Even beforeColbert'stime, French jewelry was prepared from Italian gold wire, and exported in great quantities. The mere rumor that it was contemplated to impose heavy duties on gold wire, provoked plans for the removal of the industry from Geneva to Avignon. (Farbonnais, F. de Fr., I, 275.) When France protects its raw silk, it makes the purchase of raw material in Italy cheaper to all its competitors.
[A3-9-4]According toL. Kühne(Preuss. Staatszeitung, 17 Decbr., 1842), the cotton yarn consumption of Germany amounted to 561,000 cwt. per annum, of which the home spin-houses yielded 194,000 cwt. Weaving employed 311,500 workmen with 32,250,000 thalers wages, spinning only 16,300 workmen with a little over 1,000,000 thalers wages. Even if the entire yarn-want (Garnbedarf) were spun in the interior, yet spinning would stand to weaving only as 1:5 in the number of workmen, and as 1:8 in the amount of wages. Hence the tariff of the Zollverein defended by Prussia, placed the tariff on tissues (Gewebe) 25 times as high as on yarn, while their prices stood to each other as 1:3-4.List(Zollvereinsblatt, 1844, No. 40 ff.) objected that only by spinning industries of its own could Germany's cotton-tissue industries become independent; since it was a very different thing to procure the material to be worked from the many mutually competing cotton countries, rather than from an intermediate hand; and indeed, from the most powerful industrial country of the world. (Compare, however,Faucher'sVierteljahrsschrift, 1863, Bd. I.) Besides, there is the great importance of the spinning industries, in order to come into immediate connection with America, the most rapidly growing market, to influence Holland, and also to advance navigation and the manufacture of machinery. In opposition toKühne'scalculation,Listsays: A man who lost eyes, ears, fingers and toes, would undergo only a small loss of weight.