166 PREFERENTIAL TARIFF 



to be able to exist without a tariff in the face 

 of foreign competition, the resultant gain might 

 counterbalance or even exceed the initial loss. 



Can the advocates of Protection in India satisfy 

 the legislature that, under a protective tariff, it 

 will be possible to establish industries in this 

 country which will eventually be able to fulfil 

 the conditions thus laid down as a test of success ? 

 Do you believe that, with I quote from Mill 

 " a moderate Protecting duty granted for a certain 

 limited number of years say, ten, or at the very 

 most, twenty, during the latter part of which the 

 duty should be on a gradually diminishing scale, 

 and at the end of which it should expire," you can 

 build up industries in India ? Can you assure 

 those responsible for the Government of India 

 that these industries " will be able to produce 

 articles as cheap as, or cheaper than, the price at 

 which they can be imported " under a limited 

 Protective system ? Unless you are in a position 

 to demonstrate these important points, the case 

 for tariff Protection is on unsound ground. 



Foreign competition, unimpeded by Protection, 

 may have acted as a stimulus to industry, necessi- 

 tating enterprise, inventiveness, economy, and 

 efficiency in production to a high degree. It 

 has not had that effect to any appreciable extent 

 in India; but until our endeavours to improve 

 our industrial methods and organisation in general 

 have hopelessly failed, we can hardly call on the 

 State to assist us by protecting our industries at 

 the cost of the enormous number of our very poor 

 consumers. 



I have now stated a number of the chief argu- 

 ments for and against Protection as an abstract 

 theory. I am conscious that I may have stated 

 them with somewhat more insistence on the 

 objections than on the arguments in favour of the 



