Chapter CXLI: Section VII: How Long Is Protection Justifiable?

All rational education keeps in view as its object, the subsequent independence of the pupil. If it desired to continue its guardianship, the payment of fees, etc., until an advanced age, it would thereby demonstrate either the pupil's want of capacity or the absurdity of its methods. The industrial protective system also can be justified as an educational measure only on the assumption that it may be gradually dispensed with; that is, that, by its means, there may be a prospect of attaining to freedom of trade.[A3-7-1] In the case of all highly civilized nations, the presumption is in favor of freedom of trade, both at home and abroad, and in such nations, the desire for a protective system must be looked upon as a symptom of disease.[A3-7-2] [A3-7-3] It is true, that recently the inferiority of young countries, even when inhabited by a very active and highly educated people, is greatly enhanced by the improvement of the means of communication. But this is richly compensated for by the simultaneous instinct towards emigration, both of capital and workmen from over-full, highly industrial countries; whereas, the prohibitions by the state, that extreme of exportation embargoes, formerly so frequently resorted to, it is no longer possible to carry out.[A3-7-4] [A3-7-5] Now the young country has the advantage of being able immediately to use the newest processes of labor, etc., without being hindered by the existence there of earlier imperfect apparatus. It is certain that international freedom of trade must be of advantage to a people's nationality the moment they have attained to the maturity of manhood, for the reason that they are thereby forced to make the most of that which is peculiar to them. Care must be taken not to confound many-sidedness with all-sidedness.[A3-7-6] The best "protection of national labor" might consist in this, that all products should be really individually characteristic (artistic), all individuals really national, and national also in their tastes as consumers. This ideal has been pretty closely approximated to by the French in respect to fashionable commodities, so that they will hardly purchase such from abroad, even without a protective tariff; and the cultured of most nations in respect to works of art. Here, too, it is worth considering, that even the most national of poets, when they are great enough to rise to the height of the universally human, possess the greatest universality.[A3-7-7]

[Footnote A3-7-1: _Colbert_ advised the companies in Lyons
to consider the privileges granted them only as crutches, by
means of which they might learn to walk the soonest
possible, it being the intention afterwards to do away with
them. (Journ. des Econom., Mai, 1854, p. 277.) Thiers said,
in the chamber of deputies, in 1834: _Employé comme
représailles, le tarif est funeste; Comme faveur, il est
abusif; Comme encouragement à une industrie exotique, qui
n'est pas importable il est impuissant et inutile. Employé
pour protéger un produit, qui a chance de réussir, il est
bon; mais il est bon temporairement, il doit finer quand
l'education de l'industrie est finie, quand elle est
adulte._ _Schmitthenner_, Zwölf Bücher vom Staate, I, 657
ff., admits that full freedom of trade between England and
Germany would be advantageous to the world in general; but
that England might here secure the entire gain even at the
cost of Germany, in part. _Schmitthenner's_ view is
distinguished from that of _List's_, against which
_Schmitthenner_ zealously seeks to maintain the priority of
his own (II, 365), disadvantageously enough, by this, that
it contains no pledge of subsequent freedom of trade.
_List_, on the contrary, considers universal freedom of
trade, not only as the ideal, but also as the object which
is to be striven for by temporary limitations on trade; an
object, indeed, attainable only where there are a great many
nations highly developed and in an equal degree, just as
perpetual peace supposes a plurality of states equal in
power. Ges. Schr., II, 35; III, 194. Compare, on this point,
_Hildebrand_, N. O. der Gegenwart und Zukunft, I, 87. That
_Carey_ advocates a perpetual protective tariff is connected
with his absolute inability to conceive the Malthusian law
of population. (_Held_, Carey's Socialwissenschaft und das
Merkantilsystem, 1866, p. 166.)

Thus, for instance, the prohibition of foreign cloths in
Florence begins in 1393, that is, at a time when the
protected industry had long been developed, so that its
products were exported on a great scale, but when it began
to fear the young, vigorous, competition of the Flemings.]

[Footnote A3-7-2: How frequently it happened in the
conquests of the French revolution or of Napoleon, or when
the Zollverein was extended, that two territories, now
united to each other, feared an outflanking of their
industries, each by the other, whose competition was
formerly excluded; and that, afterwards, the abolition of
the barriers to trade worked advantageously to both parties!
(_Dunoyer_, Liberté du Travail, VII, ch. 3.) The Belgian
manufacture of (coarse) porcelain flourished under Napoleon,
spite of the competition of Sèvres. It declined after the
separation from France, notwithstanding protective duties of
20 per cent. (_Briavoinne_, Industrie Belge, II, 483.) The
French cotton manufacturers feared, in 1791, that the
incorporation of Mülhausen would necessarily produce their
downfall.]

[Footnote A3-7-3: In Venice, the relations of a workman who
had emigrated and refused to return home were imprisoned. If
this was of no avail, the emigrant was to be put to death.
(_Daru_, Hist. de V., III, 90.) It is said that this was
still the practice in 1754. (Acad. des Sc. mor. et polit.,
1866, I, 132.) Florence, in 1419, threatened its subjects
who carried on the brocade or silk industry, in foreign
countries, with death. Similarly, when the Nürnberg
Rothgiessers were prohibited, under pain of the house of
correction, showing their mills to a stranger. (_Roth_,
Gesch. des N. Handles, III, 176.) In Belgium, enticing
manufacturers of bone lace to emigrate was made punishable.
Austrian prohibition for glass-makers, in 1752; for
scythe-makers, in 1781. Colbert also approved of the
imprisonment of manufacturers desirous to emigrate.
(Lettres, etc., II, 568 ff.) By 5 Geo. I., ch. 28, and 23
Geo. II., ch. 13, the soliciting of an artificer to emigrate
to foreign countries is punished by one year's imprisonment
and £500 fine; and even workmen who do not respond to a call
home within six months lose all their reachable property in
England, and their capacity to inherit there. Every emigrant
had to certify that he was no artificer. The only effect of
this law was that the emigration of artificers to the United
States was made by the way of Canada; the poorer ones, at
most, were kept back by the cost of this circuitous route.
Hence the law was repealed in 1825. Compare Edinb. Rev.,
XXXIX, p. 341 ff.]

[Footnote A3-7-4: The first English prohibition of the
exportation of machinery was made in reference to the Lee
stocking frame, in 1696, the second in 1750; whereupon
others followed very rapidly after 1774. As late as 1825,
prohibitions of the exportation of a large number of
machines and of parts of machines were still in force; but
the Board of Trade might dispense with them. Here it was
considered whether a greater disadvantage was caused to the
industries by permitting the exportation, or to the
manufacturers of the machines by prohibiting it. _Porter_,
Progress, I, 318 ff., recommends full freedom of exportation
especially for the reason that Englishmen can now procure
all new machines, and sell the old ones to foreign
countries. On the other hand, a French manufacturer
purchased old machines _parce que sous le système prohibitif
je gagnerai encore de l'argent avec ces metiers_. (_Rau_,
Lehrbuch, II, § 209.) Similar cases in the United States.
_Cairnes_, Principles, p. 485.]

[Footnote A3-7-5: _Bandrillart_, Manuel, p. 299. Every
nation needs, in order to become fully mature, an industry
of some magnitude. But it may just as well be the silk
industry as the cotton which shall lead to this maturity;
and when the nation has much greater natural capacity for
the former than for the latter, it would do well to reach
its object by the shortest course.]

[Footnote A3-7-6: _Riehl_, die deutsche Arbeit, p. 102 ff.,
107. Shakespeare, the most English of Englishmen, and yet
the most universal of poets! During the last centuries of
the middle ages most nations had come to have national and
even local costumes which were in strong contrast with the
universality of fashions during the age of chivalry. This
must have greatly contributed to the advancement of
industry, even before the introduction of the state
protective system.]

[Footnote A3-7-7: How much more convenient it is for the
statesman, when he does not need to give any thought to the
education of industry, is shown, especially by the great
difficulty of striking precisely the proper height of a
protective tariff. If too low, it fails of its object; and
so, likewise, if too high; because then, in a very
unpedagogical way, it lulls one into a lazy security. And
how impossible it is to make the tariff vary with every
variation in the cost of production, in price, etc.; as List
desired it should, not, however, without a good deal of
variation in his own views. (_Roscher_, Gesch. der N. O.,
II, 989 seq.) How greatly would not List have been obliged
to limit his assumptions, if he had lived to see the
universal exposition of 1862, at which English connoisseurs
expressed their pleasure that England had not remained
behind France and Germany in locomotive building? (Ausland,
19 Oct., 1862.) Hence _Schäffle_ opposes all protective
duties as an educational measure, because the "protected"
classes, by means of diets (_Landtage_), newspapers, etc. so
greatly influence legislation; that is, the educator is
influenced by the pupil! (System, 409 ff.) The usual
calculation of the cost for home undertakers (_Unternehmer_)
can always only strike the average, and hence it is too high
for some and too low for others. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, II, §
214.) It frequently occurs that large manufacturers already
existing desire a low protective tariff to facilitate their
competition with foreign countries, possible even without
such tariff, but not high enough to encourage others to
compete with them at home.]