180 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



been constantly increasing. The same thing applies more 

 or less in the case of other civilized nations with whom we 

 have commercial intercourse, and thus all security for the 

 investment of capital in any manufacture is taken away 

 from our people. Whether in our mineral products or 

 our hardware, our cotton, paper, silk, or sugar, or any other 

 of the thousand industries on which the prosperity of our 

 producers and workers depends, all alike are subject to 

 periodical floods of the surplus stocks of other countries, 

 from whose markets we are shut out by protective and 

 generally prohibitive duties. 



The advantage to foreign manufacturers, on the other 

 hand, of having an open market for their surplus goods, 

 while they are themselves protected from competition at 

 home, is so obvious and so great, that, instead of our 

 example having any tendency to make them follow in our 

 steps, it really becomes a premium to them to continue 

 their system of exclusion. They obtain all the advantages 

 of free trade, we all the disadvantages of protection. 

 Internal competition keeps down prices in a protected 

 country to a fair standard, and thus the consumers do not 

 greatly suffer ; while the free market we offer for surplus 

 stocks gives to the manufacturers the great advantage of 

 utilising their plant and machinery to its full extent, and 

 thus working with a maximum of economy. Our boasted 

 freedom of trade, on the other hand, consists in our being 

 at a great disadvantage in half the markets of the world, 

 and in being further handicapped by the irregular influx 

 of surplus stocks which foreign manufacturers .are (in the 

 words of Professor Fawcett) " bribed to sell us under cost 

 price ! " How differently do we act when there is a 

 suspicion of prison-manufactured goods competing with 

 those of regular traders ! The representations of those 

 traders are always listened to with respect by our Govern- 

 ment, and it is invariably admitted that they have a 

 genuine case of grievance. They are never told that the 

 people benefit, and therefore they must suffer ; that prison 

 mats and brooms can be sold at least a penny in the 

 shilling lower than the usual prices, and that the public 

 must not be deprived of this advantage, even though mat 



