292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



foreign countries which has not within recent years materially ad- 

 vanced its import or export duties. 



Russia commenced raising her duties on imports in 1877, and has 

 continued to do so until the Russian tariff at the present time is in a 

 great degree prohibitory, and one of the highest ever enacted in mod- 

 ern times by any nation, the aggregate value of its importations for 

 1886 being returned at only 8194,450,000, a reduction of about 25 per 

 cent in three years, or since 1883. It is also to be noted that, when- 

 ever Russia extends its dominion, laws are at once promulgated with 

 the undisguised purpose of greatly restricting or entirely destroying 

 any commerce which people of the newly-acquired territory may have 

 previously possessed with other nations. Italy and Austria-Hungary 

 raised their tariffs in 1878 ; Germany in 1879 ; France in 1881 ; Aus- 

 tria-Hungary again in 1882 and 1887 ; Switzerland in 1885 ; the Do- 

 minion of Canada in 1883 and 1887 ; Roumania in 1886 ; Belgium 

 and Brazil in 1887 ; while in the United States, owing to the decline 

 in the prices of goods subject to specific duties, the average ad-valorem 

 rate of duty on dutiable merchandise has advanced from 41 '61 per 

 cent in 1884 to 45"55 per cent in 1886. In Spain the restrictions on 

 trade have become so excessive, that the only relief open to the con- 

 sumer is by alliance with the contrabandist, whose profession is be- 

 coming almost as well established as in the middle ages, when but for 

 him, according to Blanqui, commerce would have well-nigh perished. 

 In Holland, which has hitherto resisted all demands for increased re- 

 strictions on her foreign commerce, an association of manufacturers 

 petitioned the Government in May, 1887, in favor of speedy legisla- 

 tion on the tariff, for the purpose of protection to home industries, and 

 set forth the following as reasons for their request : 



The national industry lives in a most difficult time. It seems that the last 

 period of the battle of life has appeared for many of its branches. Foreign com- 

 petition, steeled by protection, equipped and encouraged to a decisive battle for 

 the overpowering of a marlvct for the world, even appears to drive aside the 

 most natural protections of native industry. Now flour has its turn ; next, cattle 

 and meat. In otiier words, the aim of adjacent and more distant countries ap- 

 pears daily more openly. The industry of the Netherlands is menaced, with a 

 total ruin by their oppression. 



And, as further illustrations of the degree to which a restrictive 

 commercial policy is favored, and the extremes to which it is prac- 

 tically carried, it may be mentioned that some of the small British 

 islands of the West Indies (Trinidad and St. Vincent, for example) 

 maintain duties in a hifjh degree restrictive of the interchange of their 

 comparatively small products; while Venezuela, in 1886, when new and 

 prospectively rich alluvial deposits of gold were discovered within her 

 territory, at once imposed a duty of £5 (§25) on her exports of "raw 

 gold." 



To many, doubtless, these economic phenomena do not appear to 



