84 HOME TRADE AND FOREIGN TRADE 



It has been argued that if a country manu- 

 factures certain articles, and levies a duty on 

 those articles when sent to her by a foreign 

 country, her own people, as consumers, not only 

 pay that duty, but also find the prices of their 

 own goods raised against them by the amount of 

 the duty. 



Suppose that Great Britain manufactured 

 ^100,000,000 worth of piece goods for home con- 

 sumption, and that at the same time, in spite 

 of a duty levied, ;!{^i,ooo worth of foreign piece 

 goods were imported. It is not to be supposed 

 such an import as against such a home con- 

 sumption would have any effect on the price 

 of the goods. But suppose ^^"40,000,000 worth of 

 piece goods were manufactured in Great Britain, 

 and ;i^6o,ooo,ooo worth were imported ; then no 

 doubt the foreign supply would seriously affect 

 prices in Great Britain. There must then be 

 some percentage, in the case of each kind of 

 manufactured article, below which an import 

 produces no effect on home prices, and would 

 not do so if a duty were levied. There must 

 also be some percentage of import, at which a 

 duty levied would begin to cause a rise in prices 

 to the customer. Without full and detailed 

 statistics of all home production of manufactured 

 goods, these percentages would have no meaning. 

 To give them a meaning the total home pro- 

 duction of each article must be known. Then 

 the Minister drawing up the tariff list would be 

 able to tell on what articles he might levy a duty 

 without danger to the consumer, and on what 



