Be that as it may, it is very strange that Dr Bowring attachessuch great importance to the private statements of heads ofdepartments, he an English author who ought to be well aware of thepower of public opinion -- who ought to know that in our days theprivate views of heads of departments even in unconstitutionalstates count for very little if they are opposed to public opinion,and especially to the material interests of the whole nation, andif they favour retrograde steps which endanger the wholenationality.The author of the report also feels this well enoughhimself, when he states at page 98 that the Prussian Government hassufficiently experienced, as the English Government has done inconnection with the abolition of the English corn laws, that theviews of public officials cannot everywhere be carried into effect,that hence it might be necessary to consider whether German grainand timber should not be admitted to the English markets evenwithout previous concessions on the part of the German Union,because by that very means the way might be paved for the admissionof the English manufactured goods into the German market.This viewis in any case a correct one.Dr Bowring sees clearly that theGerman industry would never have been strengthened but for thoselaws; that consequently the abolition of the corn laws would notonly check the further advances of German industry, but must causeit again to retrograde greatly, provided always that in that casethe German customs legislation remains unchanged.It is only a pitythat the British did not perceive the soundness of this argumenttwenty years ago; but now, after that the legislation of Englandhas itself undertaken the divorce of German agriculture fromEnglish manufactures, after that Germany has pursued the path ofperfecting her industry for twenty years, and has made enormoussacrifices for this object, it would betoken political blindness ifGermany were now, owing to the abolition of the English corn laws,to abstain in any degree from pursuing her great national career.
Indeed, we are firmly convinced that in such a case it would benecessary for Germany to increase her protective duties in the sameproportion in which the English manufactories would deriveadvantage from the abolition of the corn laws as compared withthose of Germany.Germany can for a long time follow no otherpolicy in respect to England than that of a less advancedmanufacturing nation which is striving with all her power to raiseherself to an equal position with the most advanced manufacturingnation.Every other policy or measure than that, involves theimperilling of the German nationality.If the English are in wantof foreign corn or timber, then they may get it in Germany or whereelse they please.Germany will not on that account any the lessprotect the advances in industry which she has made up to thistime, or strive any the less to make future advances.If theBritish will have nothing to do with German grain and timber, somuch the better.In that case the industry, the navigation, theforeign trade of Germany will raise their heads so much thequicker, the German internal means of transport will be so much thesooner completed, the German nationality will so much the morecertainly rest on its natural foundation.Perhaps Prussia may notin this way so soon be able to sell the corn and timber of herBaltic provinces at high prices as if the English markets weresuddenly opened to her.But through the completion of the internalmeans of transport, and through the internal demand foragricultural produce created by the manufactories, the sales ofthose provinces to the interior of Germany will increase fastenough, and every benefit to these provinces which is founded onthe home demand for agricultural produce will be gained by them forall future time.They will never more have to oscillate asheretofore between calamity and prosperity from one decade toanother.But further, as a political power Prussia will gain ahundred-fold more in concentrated strength in the interior ofGermany by this policy than the material values which shesacrifices for the moment in her maritime provinces, or ratherinvests for repayment in the future.
The object of the English ministry in this report is clearly toobtain the admission into Germany of ordinary English woollen andcotton fabrics, partly through the abolition or at leastmodification of charging duties by weight, partly through thelowering of the tariff, and partly by the admission of the Germangrain and timber into the English market.By these means the firstbreach can be made in the German protective system.These articlesof ordinary use (as we have already shown in a former chapter) areby far the most important, they are the fundamental element of thenational industry.Duties of ten per cent ad valorem, which areclearly aimed at by England, would, with the assistance of theusual tricks of under declaration of value, sacrifice the greaterpart of the German industry to English competition, especially ifin consequence of commercial crises the English manufacturers weresometimes induced to throw on the market their stocks of goods atany price.It is therefore no exaggeration if we maintain that thetendency of the English proposals aims at nothing less than theoverthrow of the entire Germ an protective system, in order toreduce Germany to the position of an English agricultural colony.
