Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/111

 graziers and tanners on the island had a great deal to say against the use of San Franciscan leather; the matting manufacturers at San Francisco felt themselves very hardly treated when they were driven out of the market by the matting-makers from Isle Pleasant. Both these sets of people suffered a real loss in their businesses by the establishment of the trade between the two countries. They had gradually to transfer their labour and capital to other occupations, and this could not be done without considerable loss. It must, however, be remembered, that this loss could by no possibility be avoided except by inflicting a much more than corresponding loss on all the purchasers of boots on the island, and on all the purchasers of matting at San Francisco. If the San Franciscan boots had been excluded from the island, the graziers and tanners would have been saved a certain amount of loss, anxiety, and annoyance; but, on the other hand, every man, woman, and child would have had to give four times as much for shoe-leather