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I 16 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
per annum, that the stimulus thereby given to other
industries must apparently have far more than com-
pensated any loss caused by the stimulus of foreign
bounties to sugar production and refining abroad. But
to enlarge on this point would involve the introduction
of controversial matter, which I am anxious to avoid.
I am content to show that nothing that can have re-
sulted from sugar bounties could have affected seriously
the general rate of material growth in the country-
Mutatis mutandis, the same remarks apply to other
foreign bounties, of which indeed the only ones that
have been at all heard of are those on shipping. But
as yet, at least, the increase of foreign shipping has
not been such as to come into comparison with our
own increase, while the portion of the increase that
can be connected with the operation of bounties is
very small. I t would be useless to enter into figures
on so small a point; but few figures are so well known
or accessible as those .dating to shipping.
In neither way, then, does there appear to be any-
thing in the assertion that the protectionist action of
. foreign Governments in recent years can have caused
the check alleged to the ·rate of growth in our industry
generally, assuming such a check to have occurred. I
may be dispensed, therefore, from entering on the
theoretical argument, which I only notice in passing,
that in the nature of things no enhancement of foreign
tariffs and no grants of foreign bounties could really
check our own rate of growth, except by checking
foreign growth s~ill more, which is not the case we
are considering, because the allegation is that foreign
competition is increasing at our expense. That I do
not insist on this argument is not to be considered as
a sign that it is dropped, or that I am not fully sensible
of its logical completeness. It seems enough, at pre-
sent, to fortify it by considerations from actual practical
facts which no one can dispute.
The question of an increase of foreign competition
from natural causes is more difficult. I t is beyond all