Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/48

40 loss and damage to the society — works against the general interest, not for it. A factory which gets in the way and hinders us from attaining the comforts which we are all trying to get — which makes harder the terms of acquisition when we are all the time struggling by our arts and sciences to make those terms easier — is a harmful thing, and noxious to the common interest.

43. Hence, once more, starting from the protectionist's hypothesis, and assuming his own doctrine, we find that he cannot create an industry. He only fixes one industry as a parasite upon another, and just as certainly as he has intervened in the matter at all, just so certainly has he forced labor and capital into less favorable employment than they would have sought if he had let them alone. When we ask which "channels" those are which are to be "favored or created by law," we find that they are, by the hypothesis, and by the whole logic of the protectionist system, the industries which do not pay. The protectionists propose to make the country rich by laws which shall favor or create these industries, but these industries can only waste capital, so that if they are the source of wealth, waste is the source of wealth. Hence the protectionist's assumption that by his system he could correct our errors and lead us to greater prosperity than we would have obtained under liberty, has failed again, and we find that he wastes what power we do possess.

(F) Examination of the Proposal to Develop our Natural Resources.

44. "But," says the protectionist, "do you mean to say that, if we have an iron deposit in our soil, it is not wise for us to open and work it?" "You mean, no doubt," I reply, "open and work it under protective help and stimulus; for, if there is an iron deposit, the United States does not