submitting to our imposts, and selling us as much as we should be able to take under the circumstances. And what would be the circumstances? Prices would of course be raised, and the consumer of these foreign goods would either buy less of them, or he would have to pay more for what he wants of them. In the first case, production on the part of the foreigner is checked, and he either gives up his manufacture, and thus loses his purchasing power in the world's markets, and you lose him as a customer—directly or indirectly, as I shall show you presently; or else, being baffled in your market, he turns his attention to neutral markets, competes with and injures you there, and perhaps drives you out of them. Anyhow, you impoverish both yourself and him. In the second case, where our home consumer consents to pay more for the article he wants, it is clear that, whatever the increased price may be, by so much is he directly impoverished—by so much is he less able to buy other commodities. There is less production; less demand for goods, and for labour; less trade; less shipping; less everything which contributes to make up the moral and material well-being of mankind.
And now let me explain practically what I meant when I spoke just now about our losing a customer directly or indirectly. Let us take French silks and French wines. It is a favourite idea with Fair Traders to tax these productions, because, as they urge, France does not buy of us anything like what she sells to us, and they arrive at the conclusion from this bare fact, that this is a state of things favourable to French commerce and detrimental to English commerce, in fine, a one-sided Free Trade extremely hurtful to us. Now, I wish particularly to draw your attention to this view of theirs, because in it is wrapped up one of the grossest fallacies of our opponents. This is what they overlook:—
By buying silks and wines of France, we give her so much purchasing power in the world's markets, a power which, as her trade returns show—she is a large importer upon balance—she fully exercises. Well, if she spends the money she receives from you in those products of foreign
