It is very well for Dr Bowring to give us an estimate showingthat in Germany three persons are engaged in agriculture to everyone in manufactures, but that statement convinces us that thenumber of Germans engaged in manufacturing is not yet in properproportion to the number of German agriculturists.And we cannotsee by what other means this disproportion can be equalised, thanby increasing the protection on those branches of manufacture whichare still carried on in England for the supply of the German marketby persons who consume English instead of German agriculturalproduce.It is all very well for Dr Bowring to assert that Germanagriculture must only direct its attention to foreign countries ifit desires to increase its sale of produce; but that a great demandfor agricultural produce can only be attained by a flourishing homemanufacturing power is taught us not alone by the experience ofEngland, but Dr Bowring himself implicitly admits this, by theapprehension which he expresses in his report, that if Englanddelays for some time to abolish her corn laws, Germany will thenhave no surplus of either corn or timber to sell to foreigncountries.
Dr Bowring is certainly right when he asserts that theagricultural interest in Germany is still the predominant one, butjust for the very reason that it is predominant it must (as we haveshown in former chapters), by promoting the manufacturinginterests, seek to place itself in a just proportion with them,because the prosperity of agriculture depends on its being in equalproportion with the manufacturing interest, but not on its ownpreponderance over it.
Further, the author of the report appears to be utterly steepedin error when he maintains that foreign competition in Germanmarkets is necessary for the German manufacturing interest itself,because the German manufacturers, as soon as they are in a positionto supply the German markets, must compete with the manufacturersof other countries for the disposal of their surplus produce, whichcompetition they can only sustain by means of cheap production.Butcheap production will not consist with the existence of theprotective system, inasmuch as the object of that system is tosecure higher prices to the manufacturers.
This argument contains as many errors and falsehoods as words.
Dr Bowring cannot deny that the manufacturer can offer his productsat cheaper prices, the more he is enabled to manufacture -- that,therefore, a manufacturing Power which exclusively possesses itshome market can work so much the cheaper for foreign trade.Theproof of this he can find in the same tables which he has publishedon the advances made by German industry; for in the same proportionin which the German manufactories have acquired possession of theirown home market, their export of manufactured goods has alsoincreased.Thus the recent experience of Germany, like the ancientexperience of England, shows us that high prices of manufacturedgoods are by no means a necessary consequence of protection.
Finally, German industry is still very far from entirelysupplying her home market.In order to do that, she must firstmanufacture for herself the 13,000 centners of cotton fabrics, the18,000 centners of woollen fabrics, the 500,000 centners of cottonyarn, thread, and linen yarn, which at present are imported fromEngland.If, however, she accomplishes that, she will then import500,000 centners more raw cotton than before, by which she willcarry on so much the more direct exchange trade with tropicalcountries, and be able to pay for the greater part if not the wholeof that requirement with her own manufactured goods.
We must correct the view of the author of the report, thatpublic opinion in Germany is in favour of free trade, by statingthat since the establishment of the Commercial Union people haveacquired a clearer perception of what it is that England usuallyunderstands by the term 'free trade,' for, as he himself says,'Since that period the sentiments of the German people have beendiverted from the region of hope and of fantasy to that of theiractual and material interests.' The author of the report is quiteright when he says that intelligence is very greatly diffusedamongst the German people, but for that very reason people inGermany have ceased to indulge in cosmopolitical dreams.Peoplehere now think for themselves -- they trust their own conclusions,their own experience, their own sound common sense, more thanone-sided systems which are opposed to all experience.They beginto comprehend why it was that Burke declared in confidence to AdamSmith 'that a nation must not be governed according tocosmopolitical systems, but according to knowledge of their specialnational interests acquired by deep research.' People in Germanydistrust counsellors who blow both cold and hot out of the samemouth.People know also how to estimate at their proper value theinterests and the advice of those who are our industrialcompetitors.Finally, people in Germany bear in mind as often asEnglish offers are under discussion the well-known proverb of thepresents offered by the Danaidae.
