1882.] 
On Technical Education. 
475 
of neutralising a foreign industry r in itself perfectly suitable 
to the circumstances of the country. The superiority of one 
country over another in a branch of production often arises only 
from having begun it sooner. There may be no inherent ad- 
vantage on one part, or disadvantage on the other, but only 
a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A 
country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire 
may, in other respeCts, be better adapted to the produdbion 
than those which were earlier in the field ; and besides, it is 
a just remark of Mr. Rae that nothing has a greater ten- 
dency to promote improvements in any branch of produdtion 
than its trial under a new set of conditions. But it cannot 
be expected that individuals should at their own risk, or rather to 
their certain loss , introduce a new manufacture, and bear the 
burden of carrying it on until the producers have been educated 
up to the level of those with whom the processes are traditional . 
A protecting duty, continued for a reasonable time, will some- 
times be the least inconvenient mode in which the nation 
can tax itself for the support of such an experiment. But 
the protection should be confined to cases in which there is 
good ground of assurance that the industry which it fosters 
will after a time be able to dispense with it ; nor should the 
domestic producers even be allowed to expedt that it will be 
continued to them beyond the time necessary for a fair trial 
of what they are capable of accomplishing.’' 
But whether supported by political economists or not, it 
seems all but certain that America and continental nations 
will continue to protedb all their important manufacturing 
industries until they can equal or surpass us in price and 
quality in our own market, notwithstanding all the advice 
we may give them to follow our example. Success, they 
may say, in anything is always attended with more or less 
sacrifice at the start ; and they may also reply, in the lan- 
guage of Prof. Goldwin Smith, slightly altered, that many 
of your so-called Free Traders are nothing of the kind, — - 
you are merely advocates of a particular tariff, very wisely 
framed, no doubt, with reference to British industries and 
interests, but not necessarily suited to those of all the 
countries in the world. You have had, they may say, men, 
like Cobden and Bright, who did thoroughly understand the 
meaning of the principle ; but with the rank and file of the 
movement Free Trade has meant nothing but an alteration 
of the tariff in their own favour. And they might point to 
the petition of the Lancashire mill-owners against the 
import duty the Indian Government levied on cotton goods, 
when it began to affedb their interests ; and the subsequent 
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