The school has formed its estimate of the nature and characterof the market only from a cosmopolitical, but not from a politicalpoint of view.Most of the maritime countries of the Europeancontinent are situated in the natural market district of themanufacturers of London, Liverpool, or Manchester; only very few ofthe inland manufacturers of other nations can, under free trade,maintain in their own seaports the same prices as the Englishmanufacturers.The possession of larger capital, a larger homemarket of their own, which enables them to manufacture on a largerscale and consequently more cheaply, greater progress inmanufacture itself, and finally cheaper sea transport, give at thepresent time to the English manufacturers advantages over themanufacturers of other countries, which can only be graduallydiverted to the native industry of the latter by means of long andcontinuous protection of their home market, and through perfectionof their inland means of transport.The market of the inhabitantsof its coasts is, however, of great importance to every nation,both with reference to the home market, and to foreign commerce;and a nation the market of whose coasts belongs more to theforeigner than to itself, is a divided nation not merely ineconomical respects, but also in political ones.Indeed, there canbe no more injurious position for a nation, whether in itseconomical or political aspect, than if its seaports sympathisemore with the foreigner than with itself.
Science must not deny the nature of special nationalcircumstances, nor ignore and misrepresent it, in order to promotecosmopolitical objects.Those objects can only be attained bypaying regard to nature, and by trying to lead the Separate nationsin accordance with it to a higher aim.We may see what smallsuccess has hitherto attended the doctrines of the school inpractice.This is not so much the fault of practical statesmen, bywhom the character of the national circumstances has beencomprehended tolerably correctly, as the fault of the theoriesthemselves, the practice of which (inasmuch as they are opposed toall experience) must necessarily err.Have those theories preventednations (like those of South America) from introducing theprotectionist system, which is contrary to the requirements oftheir national circumstances? Or have they prevented the extensionof protectionism to the production of provisions and raw materials,which, however, needs no protection, and in which the restrictionof commercial intercourse must be disadvantageous under allcircumstances to both nations -- to that which imposes, as well asto that which suffers from such restrictions? Has this theoryprevented the finer manufactured goods, which are essentiallyarticles of luxury, from being comprehended among objects requiringprotection, while it is nevertheless clear that these can beexposed to competition without the least danger to the prosperityof the nation? No; the theory has till now not effected anythorough reform, and further will never effect any, so long as itstands opposed to the very nature of things.But it can and musteffect great reforms as soon as it consents to base itself on thatnature.
It will first of all establish a benefit extending to allnations, to the prosperity and progress of the whole human race, ifit shows that the prevention of free trade in natural products andraw materials causes to the nation itself which prevents it thegreatest disadvantage, and that the system of protection can bejustified solely and only for the purpose of the industrialdevelopment of the nation.It may then, by thus basing the systemof protection as regards manufactures on correct principles, inducenations which at present adopt a rigidly prohibitive system, ase.g.the French, to give up the prohibitive system by degrees.Themanufacturers will not oppose such a change as soon as they becomeconvinced that the theorists, very far from planning the ruin ofexisting manufactures, consider their preservation and theirfurther development as the basis of every sensible commercialpolicy.
If the theory will teach the Germans, that they can furthertheir manufacturing power advantageously only by protective dutiespreviously fixed, and on a gradually increasing scale at first, butafterwards gradually diminishing, and that under all circumstancespartial but carefully limited foreign competition is reallybeneficial to their own manufacturing progress, it will render farbetter service in the end to the cause of free trade than if itsimply helps to strangle German industry.
The theory must not expect from the United States of NorthAmerica that they are to sacrifice to free competition from theforeigner, those manufactures in which they are protected by cheapraw materials and provisions, and by machine power.It will,however, meet no contradiction if it maintains that the UnitedStates, as long as wages are disproportionately higher there thanin the older civilised States, can best promote the development oftheir productive powers, their civilisation and political power, byallowing the free import as much as possible of those manufacturedarticles in the cost of which wages are a principal element,provided that other countries admit their agricultural products andraw materials.
The theory of free trade will then find admission into Spain,Portugal, Naples, Turkey Egypt, and all barbarous andhalf-civilised or hot countries.In such countries as these thefoolish idea will not be held any longer, of wanting to establish(in their present state of culture) a manufacturing power of theirown by means of the system of protection.