Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/462

446 c. It is neither lawful nor expedient to impose duties upon imports without exercising such discrimination in the choice of subjects of taxation as will most fully promote the public interest, irrespective of private gain.

d. It is neither lawful nor expedient to frame measures for the collection of revenue from duties on imports for the purpose of raising or permanently maintaining the price of any given article above what it would otherwise be; except under the necessity of taxing such article for purposes of revenue only.

e. It is neither lawful nor expedient to put either a duty or a tax upon any crude or partly manufactured article which is necessary in the processes of domestic industry, by which large numbers of persons may be burdened, even if the interests of a lesser number might be for a time promoted.

If such are the conditions which we are now called upon to meet, and if such are the lines on which we are to work, then manifestly the first consideration must be given to sorting and classifying articles which are or may be imported, with a view to their use rather than with a view to the question whether or not they may be produced in this country. On the other hand, it must be admitted that there may have been some branches of industry which have been promoted by high duties and which may have been developed a little more rapidly than they would otherwise have been, under a high tariff, at the cost of the consumers for the time being. How shall they be treated?

It may be held that the position which has been assumed by most of the advocates of the protective system, I mean protectionists, according to the common acceptance of the meaning of that term, has been mainly due to the former misconception in regard to the source of wages, which was held even down to the time of Mill, and by him until a late period in his own life and work; to wit, a conception that wages are derived from a fund previously accumulated, and therefore from a "wage-fund" which might be to some extent under the control of capitalists by whom it should be administered, either in one direction or in another at their own choice. This mistaken conception of the source of wages leads to the further misconception that we must make work, or provide work, for a multitude, arbitrarily or willfully directing the force of capital in one way or another. What we really desire to do, what we really seek to attain, is that which is the purpose of all science and invention—not to make work, but to save work; to diminish the effort which is necessary to procure subsistence, shelter, and clothing, thereby increasing abundance. When we do that, it becomes necessary that there should be the widest possible and the freest possible exchange of services, or an exchange of product for product, of service for service, of product for