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PROTECTION FOR MANUFACTURES IN NEW COUNTRIES 147
new countries. First he states (Book V., chap. x.;
sec. I):

"The only case in which, on mere principles or political economy,
protecting duties can be defensible, is when they are imposed tem-
porarily (especially in a young and rising nation) in hopes of naturaliz-
mg a foreign industry, in itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances
of the country. The superiority of one country over another in a
branch of production often arises only from having begun it sooner.
There may be no inherent advantage on one part, or disad,"antage on
the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experi-
ence. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire,
mar in other respects be better adapted to the production than those
WhiCh were earlier in the field; and besides it is a just remark. of
Mr. Rae, that nothing has a greater tendency to promote improve-
ments in any branch of production than its trial under a new set of
conditions. But it cannot be expected that individuals should, at
their own risk, or rather to their certain loss, introduce a new manu-
facture and bear the burthen of carrying it on until the producers
have been educated up to the level of those with whom the processes
are traditional. A protecting duty, continued for a reasonable time,
will sometimes be the least inconvenient mode in which the nation
can tax itself ror the support of such an experiment. But the protec-
tion should be confined to cases in which there is good ground of
assurance that the industry which it fosters will after a time be able
to dispense with it; nor should the domestic producers ever be allowed
to expect that it will be continued to them beyond the time necessary
for a rair trial of what they are capable of accomplishing."

Next (Book V., chap. x, sec. 2) it is remarked,
'
speaking of American protectionists:
.. It is an injustice to them to suppose" that their protectionist creed
rests upon nothing superior to an economic blunder; many of them
have been led to it much more by consideration for the higher in-
terests of humanity, than by purely economic reasons. They, and
Mr. Carey at their head, deem it a necessary condition of human im-
provement, that towns should abound; that men should combine
their labour, by means of interchange with near neighbours, with
people of pursuits, capacities, and mental cultivation different from
their own, sufficiently close at hand for mutual sharpening of wits and
enlarging of ideas, rather than with people on the opposite si4e of the
globe. They believe that a nation all engaged in the same, or nearly
the same pursuit-a nation all agricultural-cannot attain a high
state of civilization and culture. And for this there is a great founda-
tion of reason."