* 

 PROTECTIVE DUTIES AND PRICES. 71 



It is because of constant competition among themselves to hold 

 and to gain customers. If one of our manufacturers should arbi- 

 trarily undertake to raise his price, the rest would step in and take 

 away from him his markets. 



Briefly stated, the general effect of Protective duties is to arouse 

 the activities of production and to provide work and wages for 

 labor. When we buy abroad an article which might have been 

 manufactured at home, we take away from our own mechanics to 

 bestow upon foreigners the employment and pay for services in- 

 volved in the fabrication of that article. If this plan of purchase is 

 carried on extensively, the result is that thousands of our own peo- 

 ple are deprived of opportunities to earn a livelihood in the arts of 

 reproduction. The circle of occupations being thus contracted, 

 there ensues a more energetic competition within that narrowed 

 area for the sale of services, with the necessary consequence of di- 

 minishing wages and the laborer's purchasing power. Now, it is 

 the ability of the great masses of the people to buy that creates 

 universal prosperity. It is the expenditure of their earnings that 

 causes the rapid circulation of commodities the thrift of manu- 

 facturing establishments, the enterprise of merchants, transporta- 

 tion by rail and water, the growth of cities, the rise in the value of 

 real estate, and the whole series of movements involved in material 

 advancement. 



