In proportion, however, as the principle of a universalconfederation of nations is reasonable, in just the same degreewould a given nation act contrary to reason if, in anticipation ofthe great advantages to be expected from such a union, and from astate of universal and perpetual peace, it were to regulate theprinciples of its national policy as though this universalconfederation of nations existed already.We ask, would not everysane person consider a government to be insane which, inconsideration of the benefits and the reasonableness of a state ofuniversal and perpetual peace, proposed to disband its armies,destroy its fleet, and demolish its fortresses? But such agovernment would be doing nothing different in principle from whatthe popular school requires from governments when, because of theadvantages which would be derivable from general free trade, iturges that they should abandon the advantages derivable fromprotection.
War has a ruinous effect on the reciprocal commercial relationsbetween nation and nation.The agriculturist living in one countryis by it forcibly separated from the manufacturer living in anothercountry.While, however, the manufacturer (especially if he belongsto a nation powerful at sea, and carrying on extensive commerce)readily finds compensation from the agriculturists of his owncountry, or from those of other accessible agricultural countries,the inhabitant of the purely agricultural country suffers doublythrough this interruption of intercourse.
The market for his agricultural products will fail himentirely, and he will consequently lose the means of paying forthose manufactured goods which have become necessaries to him owingto previously existing trade; his power both of production andconsumption will be diminished.
If, however, one agricultural nation whose production andconsumption are thus diminished by war has already madeconsiderable advances in population, civilisation, and agriculture,manufactures and factories will spring up in it in consequence ofthe interruption of international commerce by war.War acts on itlike a prohibitive tariff system.It thereby becomes acquaintedwith the great advantages of a manufacturing power of its own, itbecomes convinced by practical experience that it has gained morethan it has lost by the commercial interruptions which war hasoccasioned.The conviction gains ground in it, that it is called topass from the condition of a mere agricultural State to thecondition of an agricultural-manufacturing State, and inconsequence of this transition, to attain to the highest degree ofprosperity, Civilisation, and power.But if after such a nation hasalready made considerable progress in the manufacturing careerwhich was opened to it by war, peace is again established, andshould both nations then contemplate the resumption of theirpreviously existing commercial intercourse, they will both findthat during the war new interests have been formed, which would bedestroyed by re-establishing the former commercial interchange.(1*)The former agricultural nation will feel, that in order to resumethe sale of its agricultural products to the foreigner, it wouldhave to sacrifice its own manufacturing industry which has in themeanwhile been created; the manufacturing nation will feel that aportion of its home agricultural production, which has been formedduring the war, would again be destroyed by free importation.Both,therefore, try to protect these interests by means of imposingduties on imports.This is the history of commercial politicsduring the last fifty years.
It is war that has called into existence the more recentsystems of protection; and we do not hesitate to assert, that itwould have been to the interest of the manufacturing nations of thesecond and third rank to retain a protective policy and furtherdevelop it, even if England after the conclusion of peace had notcommitted the monstrous mistake of imposing restrictions on theimportation of necessaries of life and of raw materials, andconsequently of allowing the motives which had led to the system ofprotection in the time of the war, to continue during peace.As anuncivilised nation, having a barbarous system of agriculture, canmake progress only by commerce with civilised manufacturingnations, so after it has attained to a certain degree of culture,in no other way can it reach the highest grade of prosperity,civilisation, and power, than by possessing a manufacturingindustry of its own.A war which leads to the change of the purelyagricultural State into an agricultural-manufacturing State istherefore a blessing to a nation, just as the War of Independenceof the United States of North America, in spite of the enormoussacrifices which it required, has become a blessing to all futuregenerations.But a peace which throws back into a purelyagricultural condition a nation which is fitted to develop amanufacturing power of its own, becomes a curse to it, and isincomparably more injurious to it than a war.