Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/49

 saved in other employments will be most profitably occupied in weaving, and first of all in manufacturing the necessary apparatus for weaving."

When the captain had finished, the corn-growers still looked very glum. Their loss on their standing crops they thought was certain, and their profits to be made out of brewing and weaving were at present only castles in the air. They soon found, however, that their grumbling was no good; there was no chance of inducing their companions to endure unnecessary privations in order, artificially, to create a market for their wheat;—if they had the power, no doubt they would have passed a law, like the English corn laws, and similar in principle to all measures for the protection of native industry, to prevent the introduction into their island of all food that could be procured at a less cost than the food grown at home. They would have liked to put an import duty on the plantains, so as to raise their price above the price of the home-grown corn; then native industry would be protected and foreign