And the practical conclusion of it all is, (and it might be inscribed as a maxim over a nation's ports in letters of gold), that in the game of commerce which is being played between nation and nation; - Never sacrifice an instrument of production to a foreign nation for the sake of a merely cheaper product of the same kind of instrument, but better, which they possess but which you do not; but do as you do at home, and sacrifice it only to the acquirement of the superior instrument of production itself, which cheapened that product - if you can get it. But can you get it? - there's the rub! For, although it is comparatively easy for a distressed seamstress living in the midst of a rich and completely organized society, to manage, by extra penurious-ness, hard work, or the impression which her honesty and good faith have made for her, to buy a sewing machine to replace the mere needles and thread (her instruments of production) which were formerly all her stock in trade; and although the day labourer in the same way may buy himself a horse and cart, the manufacturer a new and improved machine, and the great capitalists, joint stock companies, and Trusts,. all kinds of machines necessary to enable them to hold their own against competition, domestic or foreign; - all this is not the difficulty.

The difficulty is rather a practical impossibility; and consists in the fact that when once the great industries which have made the fortunes of a country and which give it its recognized status among the nations, can be successfully invaded in their own home markets, it usually means that the case has passed beyond the aid of medicine or surgery, that all has already been done in the way of the introduction of the best inventions and machinery to stave off disaster, and that the superior instruments of production which have enabled the foreign nation to permanently undersell its rival in its own home markets consist not of any mere machine or machines that can be bought for money, but of a complex of economic advantages which are not transferable from the one nation to the other, - richer soils, more easily and cheaply worked mines, greater hereditary skill in the working population, greater natural facilities for transport in its rivers and harbours, in the natural internal conformation of the country, or in its geographical position in regard to sea traffic, etc.

It means in a word, that the defeat is likely to be a permanent one, and that the defeated nation will never be able by any known means to reinstate itself in its former position, - unless, indeed, it can defeat its successful rival in war, and so get its instruments of production into its own power again. So that when our economic maxim, never to part with the use of an instrument of production for the sake of the greater cheapness of its products coming from the use of a superior instrument abroad, but to part with it only for the superior instrument of production itself; - this maxim when translated from abstract to practical economics is found to mean - Never part with your great instruments of production at all - those namely, that are grounded on your natural resources, either in your soil, your mines, your hereditary skill, or your transport facilities; but when you are threatened by superior natural resources of the same kind on the part of other nations, put up your tariffs against them, and behind their protecting walls work up your own instruments to their highest point of efficiency, sparing no expense to introduce the best purchasable instruments for your purpose, - machines, patents, etc., - which the world has to sell; and, like the Americans, ruthlessly 'scrapping' all inferior instruments so soon as they are superseded anywhere in the world by better.

And this, - as we should expect from any principle that grounds itself on ultimate economic realities and not on abstractions, - is found to be the practice of all the great nations of the world to-day who have not attained to supremacy. As for those that have attained to supremacy, they can freely open their ports; for nothing competitive can by the hypothesis enter, and all that enters must be complementary products, and these are always a benefit; indeed, as we have already said, it is only in the exchange of complementary products that the economic benefits of exchange itself consist. But should any nation, like England, which was once supreme, show signs of being gradually caught up to, and ultimately defeated, - now in this industry, then in that, - by foreign rivals, it too must be prepared to put up its tariff-walls when the time is ripe, just as all other nations have done and are doing to-day. Whether and when that time is ripe can never be determined by any merely abstract economic dogma like Free Trade, believed to hold true of all conditions whatever, and to contain within itself some magical eflicacy, some reserve power, which like a deus ex mac/mid, will always intervene when things are going badly, to put them right again; but must depend on trade statistics accurately and carefully compiled, and illumined by the keenest, most penetrating, and most disinterested intelligences which the nation can command.

The above discussion sums up most of what has occurred to me as to the principles involved in the vast mass of statistics and arguments bearing on the problem of Free Trade and Protection which have flooded the newspapers and magazines during the course of the Free Trade controversy, as well as of the principles more carefully and elaborately set forth in the works of the professional political economists of the orthodox and academic schools. That my contribution is very incomplete and imperfect I am only too sensible, but were I to stop here most of my labour would have been in vain. For with all my efforts to bale out the boat in which I have embarked, I should still have left the largest hole of all unstopped in the bottom; and through it, all the old water would come pouring in again. Before, therefore, I can close the discussion with any assurance that I have made the position I have ventured to take up water-tight, it is necessary that I should make a determined effort to stop up this last source of error, which, so long as it exists, must forever prevent this perplexed problem of Free Trade and Protection from being brought to a truly scientific solution.

It is a question which concerns rather the serious students of Political Economy of the Universities and Schools than the ordinary newspaper reader; but as the opinions of these academic economists, although ignored by the crowd, have a weight and authority, out of all proportion to their numbers, with those who are called to fill positions of political responsibility, the reserve arguments which they hold in their hands, but which never appear in newspaper discussion, cannot be ignored. I have already indicated the nature of my criticism of these arguments of the academic Free Traders, by characterising them as being in principle not merely analogous to, but identical with, the principle of perpetual motion in mechanics; and that is why I have said that unless this perennial source and inlet of all fallacy is stopped up, the to-and-fro arguments on the subject of Free Trade and Protection, chasing one another among the wheels as in a perpetual motion machine, may go on for ever without being settled.

I propose therefore to devote a chapter or two to its discussion, and to it I now invite the careful attention of the reader.