Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/371

THE MCKINLEY TARIFF ACT 349 capital into channels which may fairly be called unnatural; or, if that phrase sayours too much of old-fashioned political economy, into channels to which national character and capacity have so far shown themselves little ?dapted. The United States are destined to become a great manufacturing country. Indeed, they are so already, and the real question for the future is only as to the kind of manufactures which will develop. The vast mineral resources, of which the effects are already foreshadowed in the enormously rapid growth of the iron manufacture; the ingenuity, mechanical skill, and enterprise of the workmen and business men,--these factors, with the gradual overtaking of the food supply by the rapid growth of the population, must bring about the result sooner or later. But I do not believe the growth will permanently be in the direction into which the new Tariff Act tries to force it; for I do not believe that the measure will be permanently successful in modifying the general economic con- ditions of the United States. The manufactures which will grow are likely to be, not those which demand high duties, but those for which the whole question of duties is now comparatively indifferent. Such are the manufactures of the staple qualities of cotton goods, of boots and shoes, of tools, household hardware, and utensils, agricultural implements, wooden ware. Industries such as these have already begun .to export their products; they are, so to speak, already nearly down to the exporting line. In some, as in the cotton industry, advantages in the supply of raw material are important elements of success. In most of them labour-saving machinery, the neat adaptation of the article to the precise use intended, mechanical skill in new directions and novel processes, the characteristics, in short, which have made ' American' almost synonymous with ' ingenious,' tell to the utmost. As iron, copper, lead, coal become cheaper within the country, the circle of such industries will widen. The advocates of lower duties insist that, with the free admission of raw materials from abroad it will widen still further; but I have my doubts whether a change of this sort would be as important as they expect. A greater effect would probably come from the change in the value of money and the tendency towards a generally lower range of prices, which might be expected to result from a distinctly lower range of import duties. At all events, it is in these directions that we may look for a growth of manufactures within the United States and for a development of important industries of export, that shall have a stable and permanent basis. How soon the exportation of manufactured articles now