"To keep money at home"
4. Another argument is that the protective tariff keeps money at home which, if trade is free, will be sent abroad to buy foreign goods, thus impoverishing the country. This is the "favorable balance of trade" argument, with the emphasis on money rather than on goods. A superficial glance at the trade relations of an old and rich country with a new province seems to give evidence for such a belief. The older country is lending capital (which it sends to the debtor country in the form of goods) and it has at the same time a larger supply of money. These two facts—the lack of money and the poverty of the newer country—are looked upon by the protectionist as due to the importation of goods. The real cause of the imports to the newer country and of its scanty money-supply, it need hardly be said, is its comparative poverty. Europe and the United States, in their trade with China and South America, do not get gold in exchange, but merchandise of various sorts. It is true that in the trade of England and New York with great gold-producing districts, such as California, South Africa, and Alaska, gold is received in return for merchandise, for to these districts gold is merchandise and its export does not drain them of their supply. The richer states in the Union do not drain the poorer states of money. A few years ago the states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and their neighbors were filled with resentment against the money-lenders of the Eastern states. There was a widespread belief that hard times were due to an insufficient currency. Attempted action took the form of the greenback and free-silver movements, which were defeated by the opposition of the East, but there can be little doubt that if the Federal Constitution had not forbidden it, the discontented states would have established a protective tariff "to keep their money at home." Few advocates of protective tariffs are ready to admit that the money-supply of the country is dependent on the general wealth of the country, and on the methods of doing business, rather than on a protective tariff.
The "two profits" argument
5. It is said that the tariff keeps "two profits" at home, foreign trade gives but one. The word "profits" is here used in the popular sense of gain from a single transaction. This argument becomes somewhat confused, for certainly in the admission that there are "two profits" in a trade, the notion that "one man's gain is another's loss" is rejected. Both parties are said to profit and both profits are thought to be secured at home when two citizens are forced to trade with each other. There is an error in elementary arithmetic here, both as to the number and as to the aggregate amount of profits. The purpose of a protective tariff is to compel two of the citizens of a country to trade with each other instead of trading with two citizens of a foreign state; the number of profits is therefore not increased by substituting domestic for foreign trade. What, then, as to the size and aggregate amount of the profits? The margin of advantage is not the same on all exchanges; the exchange is made if there is a margin to both parties, no matter how small it is; but the generous "profit" on one transaction where the conditions of the two parties are very different may be greater than the total of petty margins on a dozen exchanges between two traders of evenly matched powers. Can it safely be assumed that every trade with a foreigner is less advantageous than one with a fellow-citizen? Diamond cuts diamond, but two shrewd Yankees left to themselves surely should not be worsted in bargains with the universe. If they could exchange to better advantage with each other they probably would discover it as soon as the interested manufacturers and political orators who can prove so eloquently that they know the other man's business better than he knows it himself. Forcing the home trade is doubtless to the advantage of one citizen, but it is not likely to be to the advantage of both citizens.
The claim that protection raises wages
6. The most effective popular argument for protection is that it raises, or maintains, the general scale of wages in the country. This argument is two-fold: first, when wages are low in a country it is claimed that a tariff is needed to raise them; and, secondly, when wages are high it is argued that a tariff alone can preserve them. In Germany the fear is of the higher paid and more efficient labor of England. In America, where wages at all times have been higher than in England, it was first argued that because of the greater cost of production, due to high wages, the tariff was needed to start certain industries; but after the tariff had long been established and the old argument had been forgotten, it was said that the tariff was the cause of the high wages and must be maintained to protect against the (so-called) "pauper" labor of the older countries. That wages generally are higher in new countries and where a tariff prevails is always claimed to be one of the chief fruits of a protective policy. The cause of the high wages in America appears to be the productive efficiency of industry under existing conditions. Labor is surrounded here with advantages in the forms of rich natural resources and of mechanical appliances such as never before were combined. Because of the scarcity of workers in particular protected industries, wages may be higher in them than in some other industries; but such workers form a small fraction of the population. The claim that the general scale of wages in all occupations is raised by the tariff protecting this fraction, is no less invalid than the sweeping claims in favor of trade-unions.
§ II. THE REASONABLE MEASURE OF JUSTIFICATION OF PROTECTION
Political arguments for protection
1. For military and political reasons an otherwise uneconomic tariff may be justified. It usually is admitted by the believers in free trade that in the interest of diplomacy, to secure proper concessions, tariffs may sometimes be levied. Even in England, where protective arguments long have had little acceptance, Mr. Chamberlain, with his eye on a tariff union and imperial federation of England and her colonies, has been advocating this policy. In such a case there is no pretense that the justification of the tariff is its immediate economic advantages; it is an expenditure for ultimate gain. By the same argument a protective tariff is upheld as a means of defense—to encourage the building of ships, arsenals, and factories for munitions. It is always questionable whether an outright expenditure would not be better, whether the government cannot build its own arsenals, ship-yards, etc., more cheaply than it can foster private enterprise by means of a tariff.
The infant-industry argument