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186 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
ist, Mr. Taussig, which I find in the last number of the
American" Quarterly Journal of Economics":
" With the wide diffusion of a high degree of me-
chanical ingenuity, of enterprise, of intelligence and
education, it is certain that the United States will be,
and will remain, a great manufacturing country. The
Protective system will be of less and less consequence.
The deep-working causes which underlie the interna-
tional division of labour will iAdeed still operate. and the
United States will still find her advantages greater in
some directions than in others. The ingenuity of legis-
lators will still find opportunity to direct manufacturing
industry into channels which would not otherwise be
sought. Witness some of the minor duties, complicated
in form and weighty in effects, under the Acts of 1890
and 1897. But the absolute effect, still more the pro-
portional effect, of such legislation on the industrial
development of the country will diminish. The division
of labour within the country will become more and
more important, while international trade will be con-
fined more and more to what may be called specialties
in manufactured commodities, and articles whose site
of production is determined mainly by climate. Not
only sugar (for the present), tea, coffee, and the like.
but wool also belong to the class last mentioned, as to
which climatic causes dominate; and the duties on wool.
with those on woollen in their train. are thus the most
potent in bringing a substantial interference with the
course of international trade. But, on the whole, Pro-
tective duties, however important they may be in this
detail or that, cannot seriously affect the general course
of industrial growth, and will affect it less and less as
time goes on. Some indications of this trend are already
to be seen in the eagerness with which a fresh oppor-
tunity for applying the Protective system is welcomed.
and even sought. by the party now dominant. And an
important consequence is that this question can hardly
avail much longer as a great issue in politics. As the
great industries of the community become more and