Now it is impossible to deny that certain owners of lands and mines and works may be benefited by putting duties upon foreign goods of the kind which they want to produce. Those who are already enjoying the advantage of such improper duties may, of course, be injured when they are removed. But what we have in political economy to look to, is not the selfish interests of any particular class of people, but the good of the whole population. Protectionists overlook two facts--(1) that the object of industry is to make goods abundant and cheap; (2) that it is impossible to import cheap foreign goods without exporting home-made goods of some sort to pay for them.
We have already learnt the obvious truth that wealth is to be increased by producing it in the place most suitable for its production. Now the only sure proof that a place is suitable is the fact that the commodities there produced are cheap and good. If foreign manufacturers can underbid home-producers, this is the best, and in fact the only conclusive proof that the things can be made more cheaply and successfully abroad. But then it may be objected, what is to become of workmen at home, if all our supplies be got from another country. The reply is, that such a state of things could not exist. Foreigners would never think of sending us goods unless we paid for them, either in other goods, or in money. Now, if we pay in goods, workmen will of course be needed to make those goods; and the more we buy from abroad, the more we shall need of home produce to send in exchange. Thus, the purchase of foreign goods encourages home manufactures in the best possible way, because it encourages just those branches of industry for which the country is most suited, and by which wealth is most abundantly created.
#99. The Mercantile Theory.# Perhaps, however, it will be objected that our foreign imports will be paid for not in goods but in money; thus the country will be gradually drained of its wealth. This is #the old fallacy of the Mercantile Theory#, which was to the effect that a country becomes rich by bringing gold and silver into it. It is an absurd fallacy, because we can get no benefit by accumulating stocks of gold and silver. In fact, to keep precious metals causes a loss of interest upon their value; people who are rich may afford to have costly plate, and the pleasures they derive from it may be worth the interest. But to have more gold, or silver money than is just sufficient to make the ordinary payments of trade causes dead loss of interest. Nor is there any fear that the country will be drained of money entirely. For, if money became scarce, its value would rise according to the laws of supply and demand, and prices of goods would fall; then imports would decrease, and exports increase. It is only a country like Australia or North America, possessing gold or silver mines, which could go on paying money for its imports, and then it is quite right it should do so, the metal being a commodity which can be cheaply produced in the country. Gold and silver must be got out of mines, and therefore a country which buys goods with money must either have such mines, or else get the metal from other countries which possess mines. In no case, then, can we import foreign commodities without producing at home goods of equivalent value to pay for them, and thus we see beyond all doubt that foreign trade is a means of increasing, not decreasing, the activity of industry at home.
