Principles of Political Economy Part 49

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 compet.i.tion of foreign industries, which are already developed. The carriers on 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. .h.i.therto 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 circ.u.mstances, it would be possible, that a whole nation might be made 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 compet.i.tion, 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 must be 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 cla.s.ses or estates of a country to one another. The immense preponderance possessed in medieval times by the n.o.bility, 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 n.o.bility 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 compet.i.tion 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]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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."]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote A3-5-5: _List_ very 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.)]

[Footnote 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 a.s.sert.

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, in _Rau_, Lehrbuch, II, -- 206, a. But when Switzerland is so frequently cited as an ill.u.s.tration in this connection (_J.

Bowring_, On the Commerce and Manufactures of Switzerland, 1836), people forget the many favorable circ.u.mstances of another kind which cooperated 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.]

[Footnote 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.)]

[Footnote 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 n.o.bility; the whole nation belongs to the cla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance from the state. Here, therefore, _A. Walker's_ saying 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.]

[Footnote 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 sq. m.

of inland country; in B, 2 in C, 25.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote A3-5-11: Why most of the reasons above advanced do not apply to a corresponding "protection" of agriculture by duties on corn, see _Roscher_, Nationalokonomik 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]

[Footnote 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.

Compare _Roscher_, 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. I _Sam._, 13, 19; II _Kings_, 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 princ.i.p.al 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. (_Bockh._, Staatsh. der Ath., I, 73 ff.) In Argos and aegina, 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.)]

[Footnote A3-6-2: In Italy's best period, the protective system bears a specifically munic.i.p.al 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, coc.o.o.ns 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 of _expropriation_, in case of houses which a neighbor needed for manufacturing purposes. (_Verri_, Mem. Storiche, p. 62.) Bolognese prohibition of the exportation of ma.n.u.scripts, 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. (Const.i.tut. Due. Urbin., I, p. 388 ff., 422 ff.)]

[Footnote A3-6-3: In England, since the fourteenth century, all genuinely national and popular kings always bore it in mind both to secure emanc.i.p.ation 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 in _Anderson_. 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. Compare _Adam Smith_, IV, ch. 8.]

[Footnote A3-6-4: _Sismondi_, Histoire des Francais, 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.) Compare _Clement_, Histoire de la vie et de l'Administration de C.

(1846). _Jonbleau_, etudes sur C. ou Exposition du Systeme d'economie Politique suivi de 1661 a 1683 (II, 1856).

Lettres, Instructions et Memoires de C. publies par Clement (1861 ff.).]

[Footnote 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 wool _mit 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: Gottingen, 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 other _Plennwerthe_ to 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 a.s.signs 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 growing _Junkerthum_. 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 bra.s.s wares (1654), of gla.s.s (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 compet.i.tion. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 coa.r.s.est 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.)]

[Footnote 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 n.o.bility (_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_: Compare _Bruckner_, 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_, Fursten und Volker, I, 400 ff.) must be considered as a remnant of the medieval scarcity-policy, induced princ.i.p.ally 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 continue its guardianship, the payment of fees, etc., until an advanced age, it would thereby demonstrate either the pupil's want of capacity or the absurdity of its methods. The industrial protective system also can be justified as an educational measure only on the a.s.sumption that it may be gradually dispensed with; that is, that, by its means, there may be a prospect of attaining 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 of exportation 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. This ideal 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]

[Footnote A3-7-1: _Colbert_ advised 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: _Employe comme represailles, le tarif est funeste; Comme faveur, il est abusif; Comme encouragement a une industrie exotique, qui n'est pas importable il est impuissant et inutile. Employe pour proteger un produit, qui a chance de reussir, il est bon; mais il est bon temporairement, il doit finer quand l'education de l'industrie est finie, quand elle est adulte._ _Schmitthenner_, Zwolf Bucher 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's_ view is distinguished from that of _List's_, against which _Schmitthenner_ zealously 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. That _Carey_ advocates a perpetual protective tariff is connected with his absolute inability to conceive the Malthusian law of population. (_Held_, Carey's Socialwissenschaft und das Merkantilsystem, 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, compet.i.tion of the Flemings.]

[Footnote 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 compet.i.tion was formerly excluded; and that, afterwards, the abolition of the barriers to trade worked advantageously to both parties!

(_Dunoyer_, Liberte du Travail, VII, ch. 3.) The Belgian manufacture of (coa.r.s.e) porcelain flourished under Napoleon, spite of the compet.i.tion of Sevres. 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 Mulhausen would necessarily produce their downfall.]

[Footnote 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 Nurnberg 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.