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increased number of factories and mills within tlie country, 

 will instead of protecting the handloom weavers precipitate 

 their decline and increase their sufferings. Ordinarily when 

 human labour is displaced by machinery, there ensues con- 

 siderable impoverishment and suffering to the labourers 

 employed in the industry, but as machinery comes into use 

 by slow degrees, there is generally time for the labourers to 

 adapt themselves to the new conditions until the impetus 

 given to increased production by the introduction of labour- 

 saving appliances eventually gives employment to the dis- 

 placed labour. While, on the one hand, it would be wrong 

 in the general interests of the community to prevent the 

 introduction of machinery and other agents tending to 

 increase the efficiency of production, it would, on the other 

 hand, be cruel to accelerate the decline of the labouring 

 classes and tax them indirectly at the same time by means of 

 protective duties. 



Turning to the argument, based on the necessity for main- 

 taining a due balance between agricultural and manufactur- 

 ing industries, it is doubtless true that purely agricultural 

 countries are generally found to be in a low economic position, 

 but the only way in which such countries can be eco- 

 nomically raised is by giving an opening for and increasing- 

 foreign trade ; and protective duties by diminishing that 

 trade would hinder and not help their progress, the pro- 

 fessed object of protective duties being to diminish imports 

 and consequently exports also, as all imports must in the long 

 run be paid for by exports. It was pointed out by Mr. Mill 

 forty-five years ago in his work on Political Economy, that 

 the expansion of foreign trade was the only means by which a 

 backward country like India could be economically elevated. 

 He observed that it was the deficiency of town population 

 which limited the productiveness of the industry of this country 

 in which agriculture was conducted entirely on a system of 

 small holdings. There was a considerable amount of combi- 

 nation of labour, but on a limited scale, and village institutions 

 and customs which were the real frame-work of society made 

 provision for joint action in cases in which it was seen to be 

 necessary ; or when they failed to do so, the government, when 

 tolerably well administered, stepped in, and by an outlay from 

 the revenue executed by combined labour the tanks, embank- 

 ments and works of irrigation which were indispensable. The 

 implements and processes of agriculture were so rude that the 

 produce of the soil, in spite of great natural fertility, was 

 miserably small. Mr. Mill was, at the same time, of opinion 



