304 THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 



self-evident, and that economic science, regarding the "entire 

 world, can never approve a protective tariff which is intended 

 to benefit one nation at the expense of others. 



I am not aware of any published book or article which 

 squarely grapples with these propositions, which, indeed, as 

 claimed, seem almost self-evident. Men would indeed seem 

 to produce most abundantly and economically when producing 

 that which they can secure most readily. Commerce, like a 

 river, would indeed seem likely to move most freely in chan- 

 nels wholly free from obstruction. Protectionists, therefore, 

 have usually, and very naturally, directed their argument to 

 showing the advantages of the system to the particular country 

 for which tiiey were writing, without concerning themselves 

 as to whether or pot the advantages thus claimed were to be 

 gained at the expense of other nations, or with protection as 

 a fiscal system for developing the entire resources of the world. 

 To these fundamental postulates of the free traders, however, it 

 may be replied as follows:* Unrestricted free trade is disastrous 

 to any country, for the reason that it tends to premature exhaus- 

 tion of its natural resources. With trade entirely unhampered, 

 the result would in truth be, as free-traders claim, that all 

 men would engage in those industries from which they could 

 obtain the quickest and most profitable results; this would in 

 all cases mean the exploitation of accumulated stores of coal, 

 timber, iron, and other minerals, while the fertility of agricul- 

 tural districts would be rapidly diminished by extensive culti- 

 vation, for the reason that food products will not bear the cost 

 of the intensive cultivation essential to the maintenance of 

 fertility, in addition to the cost of transj)ortation to distant 

 markets. In due process of time this would leave all nations 

 shorn of what had been their greatest strength, and with 



*For all but the language of tlie remainder of this paragraph, I am indebted 

 to Mr. John P. Young, of San Francisco — probably the best informed, most 

 logical, and most uncompromising Protectionist now living in America. Mr. 

 Young has been kind enough to read the proof sheets of this chapter, and 

 permits me in the above paragraph, to anticipate a little from a book of his 

 own, to be entitled " Protection and Progress," now in manuscript, and about 

 to 1)6 published. 



