90. Protectionism, therefore, is at war with improvement. It is only useful to annul and offset the effects of those very improvements of which we boast. In time, the improvements win power so great that protectionism cannot withstand them. Then it turns about and tries to control and regulate them at great expense by diplomacy or war. The greater and more worldwide these improvements are, the more numerous are the efforts in different parts of the world to revive or extend protection. No doubt there is loss and inconvenience in the changes which improvement brings about. A notable case is the loss and inconvenience of a laborer where a machine is first introduced to supplant him. Patient endurance and hope, in the confidence that he will in the end be better off, has long been preached to him. It is true that he will be better off; but why not apply the same doctrine in connection with the other inconveniences of improvement, where it is equally true?
3. PROTECTION LOWERS WAGES
91. On a pure wages system, that is, where there is a class who have no capital and no land, wages are determined by supply and demand of labor. The demand for labor is measured by the capital in hand to pay for it just as the demand for anything else is measured by the supply of goods offered in exchange for it. In Cobden's language: "When two men are after one boss, wages are low; when two bosses are after one man, wages are high."
should be allowed only upon goods carried in Chilian or American vessels, he said that Chili did not want any such means to encourage her commerce: her ports were open to all the vessels of the world upon an equality, and none should have especial privileges." — (N. Y. Times, July 3, 1885.)If this is a fair specimen of the political and economic enlightenment which prevails at the other end of the American Continent, it is a great pity that the "Commission" is not a great deal larger. They are like the illiterate missionaries who found themselves unawares in a theological seminary. We would do well to send our whole Congress out there.
