The Insular Supremacy and the German Commercial UnionWhat a great nation is at the present day without a vigorouscommercial policy, and what she may become by the adoption of avigorous commercial policy, Germany has learnt for herself duringthe last twenty years.Germany was that which Franklin once said ofthe State of New Jersey, 'a cask which was tapped and drained byits neighbours on every side.' England, not contented with havingruined for the Germans the greater part of their own manufactoriesand supplied them with enormous quantities of cotton and woollenfabrics, excluded from her ports German grain and timber, nay fromtime to time also even German wool.There was a time when theexport of manufactured goods from England to Germany was ten timesgreater than that to her highly extolled East Indian Empire.
Nevertheless the all-monopolising islanders would not even grant tothe poor Germans what they conceded to the conquered Hindoos, viz.
to pay for the manufactured goods which they required byagricultural produce.In vain did the Germans humble themselves tothe position of hewers of wood and drawers of water for theBritons.The latter treated them worse than a subject people.
Nations, like individuals, if they at first only permit themselvesto be ill-treated by one, soon become scorned by all, and finallybecome an object of derision to the very children.France, notcontented with exporting to Germany enormous quantities of wine,oil, silk, and millinery, grudged the Germans their exports ofcattle, grain, and flax; yes, even a small maritime provinceformerly possessed by Germany and inhabited by Germans, whichhaving become wealthy and powerful by means of Germany, at alltimes was only able to maintain itself with and by means ofGermany, barred for half a generation Germany's greatest river bymeans of contemptible verbal quibbles.To fill up the measure ofthis contempt, the doctrine was taught from a hundred professorialchairs, that nations could only attain to wealth and power by meansof universal free trade.Thus it was; but how is it now? Germanyhas advanced in prosperity and industry, in national self-respectand in national power, in the course of ten years as much as in acentury.And how has this result been achieved? It was certainlygood and beneficial that the internal tariffs were abolished whichseparated Germans from Germans; but the nation would have derivedsmall comfort from that if her home industry had thenceforthremained freely exposed to foreign competition.It was especiallythe protection which the tariff of the Zollverein secured tomanufactured articles of common use, which has wrought thismiracle.Let us freely confess it, for Dr Bowring(1*) hasincontrovertibly shown it, that the Zollverein tariff has not, aswas before asserted, imposed merely duties for revenue -- that ithas not confined itself to duties of ten to fifteen per cent asHuskisson believed -- let us freely admit that it has imposedprotective duties of from twenty to sixty per cent as respects themanufactured articles of common use.
But what has been the operation of these protective duties? Arethe consumers paying for their German manufactured goods twenty tosixty per cent more than they formerly paid for foreign ones (asmust be the case if the popular theory is correct), or are thesegoods at all worse than the foreign ones? Nothing of the sort.DrBowring himself adduces testimony that the manufactured goodsproduced under the high customs tariff are both better and cheaperthan the foreign ones.(2*) The internal competition and thesecurity from destructive competition by the foreigner has wroughtthis miracle, of which the popular school knows nothing and isdetermined to know nothing.Thus, that is not true, which thepopular school maintains, that a protective duty increases theprice of the goods of home production by the amount of theprotective duty.For a short time the duty may increase the price,but in every nation which is qualified to carry on manufacturingindustry the consequence of the protection will be, that theinternal competition will soon reduce the prices lower than theyhad stood at when the importation was free.
But has agriculture at all suffered under these high duties?
Not in the least; it has gained-gained tenfold during the last tenyears.The demand for agricultural produce has increased.Theprices of it everywhere are higher.It is notorious that solely inconsequence of the growth of the home manufactories the value ofland has everywhere risen from fifty to a hundred per cent, thateverywhere higher wages are being paid, and that in all directionsimprovements in the means of transport are either being effected orprojected.
Such brilliant results as these must necessarily encourage usto proceed farther on the system which we have commenced to follow.
Other States of the Union have also proposed to take similar steps,but have not yet carried them into effect; while, as it wouldappear, some other States of the Union only expect to attainprosperity solely by the abolition of the English duties on grainand timber, and while (as it is alleged) there are still to befound influential men who believe in the cosmopolitical system anddistrust their own experience.Dr Bowring's report gives us mostimportant explanations on these points as well as on thecircumstances of the German Commercial Union and the tactics of theEnglish Government.Let us endeavour to throw a little light onthis report.