EFFECTS OF PROTECTION ON IMPORTS. 623 



duties had done good work in keeping down that natural 

 increase. It is not difficult to show that this has not been 

 the case, but the readiest and best answer will again be a 

 pictorial one. Look at the chart of the imports of New South 

 Wales, drawn up under the same system. There are no pro- 

 tective duties there, and yet the line of imports shows no 

 tendency to a steady rise. It has its ups and downs as one 

 would certainly expect ; but on the average it does not differ 

 in any notable way eithei" in height or in variations from the 

 line of imports for Victoria. 



Another doubt may occur in this way, and that very 

 reasonably. It may be urged that although the total of 

 imports has not been affected, yet the incidence of our import- 

 ation may be radically altered. And to a very decided extent 

 that is true ; not so much by a good deal as protectionists are 

 incHned to believe, and yet sufficient to show some tangible 

 effect of protection. What the net result of that change has 

 been would be a most intricate question to solve ; but though 

 it is a most important one, it is quite beyond the resources of 

 pohtical economy in its present inexact conditions to solve 

 the problem. 



But it is not unfair to insist that the question should be 

 treated in its broad and shnple outlines ; and from that point 

 of view it is perfectly safe to say that our protective duties 

 have not shut out the products of foreign labour. We now 

 import foreign products to the extent of about twenty 

 millions' worth per annum ; that is perhaps the equivalent of 

 the labour of some quarter of a million of men for a year. 

 That is to say, we provide employment for that number of 

 men in other lands. The great idea that underlies the theory 

 of protection is that the employment should be in whole 

 or in part taken from these people and transferred to people 

 who live within our own borders. The table herein enclosed 

 shows that if this was the object proposed, the theory has 

 clearly failed when reduced to practice. 



I am not one of those who think that protection exercises 

 a very great or very ruinous effect upon a community. To 

 me it seems to be only a little more than a question of the 

 incidence of taxation. But whatever small influence it 

 actually has seems to me to offer only a few advantages, but 

 a much larger number of disadvantages. 



This, however, is beside the present question. Confining 

 our attention to the point in hand, I am convinced that pro- 

 tective duties have been entirely inoperative in regard to the 



