186 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



comparison with that summum bonum cheap goods 

 deserves a word of notice. I therefore beg leave to call 

 attention to Richard Cobden's opinion of the supreme 

 importance of these manufactures to England's welfare. 

 He says : 



"Upon the prosperity, then, of this interest [the manufacturing] 

 hangs our foreign commerce ; on which depends our external rank 

 as a maritime state ; our custom-duties, which are necessary to the 

 payment of the national debt ; and the supply of every foreign 

 article of domestic consumption every pound of tea, sugar, coffee, 

 or rice, and all the other commodities consumed by the entire 

 population of these realms. In a word, our national existence is 

 involved in the well-being of our manufacturers. 



* ' If we are asked, To what are we indebted for this commerce ? we 

 answer, in the name of every manufacturer and merchant in the 

 kingdom, The cheapness alone of our manufactures. Are we asked, 

 How is this trade protected, and by what means is it enlarged ? 

 the reply still is, By the cheapness of our manufactures. Is it in- 

 quired how this mighty industry, upon which depend the comfort 

 and existence of the whole empire, can be torn from us ? we 

 rejoin, Only by the greater cheapness of the manufactures of another 

 country." 1 



In another passage in the same volume he says : 



" The French, whilst they are obliged to prohibit our fabrics from 

 their own market, because their manufacturers cannot, they say, 

 sustain a competition with us, even with a heavy protective duty, 

 never will become our rivals in third markets where both will 

 pay alike ; " 



from which it appears that he never contemplated the state 

 of things that has actually come about, when, by means 

 of protective duties, and our open markets supplying 

 all the world with cheap coal, iron, and machinery, 

 other nations have been enabled to foster their manu- 

 factures till they have reached such a magnitude as 

 not only to supply themselves, but, with their surplus 

 goods, produced cheaply by means of protection, are 

 actually able to undersell us at home. That time has, 

 however, come ; and I feel sure that if Cobden were 

 now among us, his strong sense of justice and clear 



1 Cobden's Political Writing*, vol. i. p. 221. 



