Customs Duties as a Chief Means of Establishing and Protecting theinternal Manufacturing PowerIt is not part of our plan to treat of those means of promotinginternal industry whose efficacy and applicability are nowherecalled in question.To these belong e.g.educational establishments(especially technical schools), industrial exhibitions, offers ofprizes, transport improvements, patent laws, &c.; in short, allthose laws and institutions by means of which industry isfurthered, and internal and external commerce facilitated andregulated.We have here merely to speak of the institution ofcustoms duties as a means for the development of industry.
According to our system, prohibitions of, or duties on, exportscan only be thought of as exceptional things; the imports ofnatural products must everywhere be subject to revenue duties only,and never to duties intended to protect native agriculturalproduction.In manufacturing states, articles of luxury from warmclimates are chiefly subject to duties for revenue, but not thecommon necessaries of life, as e.g.corn or fat cattle; but thecountries of warmer climate or countries of smaller population orlimited territory, or countries not yet sufficiently populous, orsuch as are still far behind in civilisation and in their socialand political institutions, are those which should only impose mererevenue duties on manufactured goods.
Revenue duties of every kind, however, should everywhere be somoderate as not essentially to restrict importation andconsumption; because, otherwise, not only would the internalproductive power be weakened, but the object of raising revenue bedefeated.
Measures of protection are justifiable only for the purpose offurthering and protecting the internal manufacturing power, andonly in the case of nations which through an extensive and compactterritory, large population, possession of natural resources, faradvanced agriculture, a high degree of civilisation and politicaldevelopment, are qualified to maintain an equal rank with theprincipal agricultural manufacturing commercial nations, with thegreatest naval and military powers.
Protection can be afforded, either by the prohibition ofcertain manufactured articles, or by rates of duty which amountwholly, or at least partly, to prohibition, or by moderate importduties.None of these kinds of protection are invariably beneficialor invariably objectionable; and it depends on the specialcircumstances of the nation and on the condition of its industrywhich of these is the right one to be applied to it.
War exercises a great influence on the selection of the precisesystem of protection, inasmuch as it effects a compulsoryprohibitive system.In time of war, exchange between thebelligerent parties ceases, and every nation must endeavour,without regard to its economical conditions, to be sufficient toitself.Hence, on the one hand, in the less advanced manufacturingnations commercial industry, on the other hand, in the mostadvanced manufacturing nation agricultural production, becomesstimulated in an extraordinary manner, indeed to such a degree thatit appears advisable to the less advanced manufacturing nation(especially if war has continued for several years) to allow theexclusion which war has occasioned of those manufactured articlesin which it cannot yet freely compete with the most advancedmanufacturing nation, to continue for some time during peace.
France and Germany were in this condition after the generalpeace.If in 1815 France had allowed English competition, asGermany, Russia, and North America did, she would also haveexperienced the same fate; the greatest part of her manufactorieswhich had sprung up during the war would have come to grief; theprogress which has since been made in all branches of manufacture,in improving the internal means of transport, in foreign commerce,in steam river and sea navigation, in the increase in the value ofland (which, by the way, has doubled in value during this time inFrance), in the augmentation of population and of the State'srevenues, could not have been hoped for.The manufactories ofFrance at that time were still in their childhood; the countrypossessed but few canals; the mines had been but little worked;political convulsions and wars had not yet permitted considerablecapital to accumulate, sufficient technical cultivation to exist,a sufficient number of really qualified workmen or an industrialand enterprising spirit to have been called into existence; themind of the nation was still turned more towards war than towardsthe arts of peace; the small capital which a state of war permittedto accumulate, still flowed principally into agriculture, which haddeclined very much indeed.Then, for the first time, could Franceperceive what progress England had made during the war; then, forthe first time, was it possible for France to import from Englandmachinery, artificers, workmen, capital, and the spirit ofenterprise; then, to secure the home market exclusively for thebenefit of home industry, demanded the exertion of her best powers,and the utilisation of all her natural resources.The effects ofthis protective policy are very evident; nothing but blindcosmopolitanism can ignore them, or maintain that France wouldhave, under a policy of free competition with other nations, madegreater progress.Does not the experience of Germany, the UnitedStates of America, and Russia, conclusively prove the contrary?
