TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1169 
As these rates for wages and commodities are raised to the European standard, 
and they have been rising of late years, the people will have a larger exchangeable 
surplus for the purchase of goods, and a diminished power of competitors in 
production. Indian wheat is raised with wages of 24d. per day. 
3. On Customs Tariffs. By A. E. Bateman. 
4. How its Fiscal Policy may affect the Prosperity of a Nation.! 
By ALEXANDER Forbes. 
The author said that if free trade could be universal, it would be indisputably 
better for Great Britain and all other nations; but 1t will never become so, as no 
two nations are similar, either in their position or products, and each will always 
naturally follow that fiscal policy which recommends itself most to its own 
individual interests. 
It was advantageous for nations not to have a hard and fast fiscal policy, 
because without it, they could the better maintain their bargaining powers with 
other States. 
It was this bargaining which England by her pronounced free trade had lost,. 
and the loss of which was the principal if not sole cause of our diminishing and 
ere export trade, and consequent commercial depression and agricultural 
istress. 
England had only to announce that she would treat every country in future as 
she was treated by it to have the whole world competing for her trade, and will-- 
ing to do business un the principle of reciprocity. Since 1846 we had as a nation 
followed too much the policy of studying the interests of the mere consumer, 
an extraordinary fallacy for a practical and manufacturing people. If our artisans 
had to pay 8d. for the 4b. loaf, and had a shilling to buy it with, it was surely 
better than that they should be offered for 6d. what they were through want of 
employment without the means of purchasing. 
The fiscal policy of a State should be guided by the same principles as controlled 
a business man in his own relations. The latter preferred to give his orders to such 
as were customers of his own, even although in some cases he might more 
advantageously place those orders elsewhere, and so gain an immediate partial 
benefit, at the cost of a subsequent permanent loss. 
If the customs duties imposed by other countries with whom we traded were 
swept away, the demand for goods of British manufacture would be enormously 
increased. 
If we could not induce foreign countries to trade with us on the principle of 
reciprocal free trade, let us at least place ourselves on an equality with them, and 
take advantage of the opportunities of making them share part of our heavy 
taxation by imposing customs duties on the goods they sent into our markets. 
If statesmen would not initiate legislation in this direction for fear of bringing 
disaster to their party, the day was not far distant when the working men would 
take the question of our fiscal policy into their own hands. 
It was quite evident from our experience of forty years, that through mere 
example we were powerless to induce other countries to adopt free trade principles 
as we understand them, and it was equally manifest that if we conceded to foreigners 
facilities to trade with us which they in turn refused to reciprocate, we must as a 
manufacturing and commercial nation be serious losers. 
For not only did the almost prohibitory tariffs imposed by foreign nations 
preclude our trafficking profitably with them, but, by our own fiscal policy, our 
home manufacturers did not enjoy in their own market their legitimate trade, 
through our encouraging the unfettered and ever-increasing competition of foreign 
producers, whilst we were at the same time, by not imposing customs duties on 
1 Published in extenso by John Avery & Co. (Limited), Aberdeen. 
1885. 4P 
