596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



crude or partly manufactured materials shall have given our do- 

 mestic manufacturers an even chance to compete with others. 



If it be admitted that the number of persons who are occupied 

 in branches of agriculture, in manufactures, and in mining, whose 

 home market depends wholly upon sales for export to other coun- 

 tries, exceeds the number of those who are occupied in any branch 

 of domestic production of which a part might be imported under 

 other conditions, then it follows of necessity that the only effect of 

 duties upon imports has been or is to give a different direction to 

 domestic industry from that which it would otherwise have taken. 

 By such a course we do not add anything to or take away any- 

 thing from the work that is to be done, but we do or may dimin- 

 ish the value of the domestic product from which all wages and 

 profits are alike derived, by restricting its market, thus diminish- 

 ing both general wages and profits in the attempt to increase 

 them in specific directions. If the import of foreign goods, either 

 crude or manufactured, is obstructed, then it follows of neces- 

 sity that the export of the products of the farm and of the 

 mine is to that extent obstructed, because we buy our foreign 

 goods in exchange for food that we can not consume, for cotton 

 that we can not spin, and for oil that we can not burn. " But," 

 some one says, " if these foreign goods were manufactured at 

 home, there would then be the same market for the product of 

 the farm, the mine, and the forest, within the limit of our country, 

 that now exists abroad." That view of the matter opens a very 

 complex question. One can neither admit nor deny that position, 

 because we have no experience to guide us. If, however, we did 

 make the finished goods which we import into this country, the 

 work in the factories in which they would be made would give 

 employment to a very much less number of laborers than are 

 engaged in the product of wheat and cotton which we now ex- 

 change for them. The home market which would be established 

 in this artificial way would not take up anything like the quan- 

 tity of products of the farm, the mine, and the forest that is now 

 exported. 



To show the absurdity of this conception, I can not do better 

 than to quote from Mr. Butterworth/s late speech. Having laid 

 down his base-line principle with reference to the revision of the 

 tariff, viz., that of reduction, he says : " Otherwise we should have 

 five gentlemen, honorable and learned gentlemen, arbitrarily shuf- 

 fling and disarranging, according to their own partially enlight- 

 ened judgment, the more than fifty thousand industries of sixty 

 millions of people, scattered over a vast continent, affecting 

 directly and indirectly every home in the land, and having to do 

 with all the nations of the earth." 



Is it not a simple absurdity to expect the men whom we elect 



